The grumpy thread

[louiepj]

Merry Christmas from Aldi car park.
Her car is the red one, and she did not know she done this!
I was stationary waiting for a car to pull out of a parking space, and she became impatient behind me and pulled out then drove down the side of me then off down the car park.
Got all the witnesses i need luckily as we were in a long queue.

[Popsicle]

29 minutes ago, sierraman said:

My mum seemed to be perpetually waiting in for the White Arrow man as she ran one of these club things, Grattans I think it was. Sounded like a load of hassle having to chase half the estates tick money. 

My mum was the same, she gave it up in the end and made the cosmetic stuff for Avon instead.

[chadders]

My dad did Kays Catalogue.

[EyesWeldedShut]

2 hours ago, Popsicle said:

True but its nothing new - remember White Arrow from the 90's? They did all the catalogue deliveries for Kays, Gratton etc they ran the same model, sacks full of parcels being dropped off for housewives to deliver and earn a bit of pin money between the school runs. 

I temp'd at White Arrow back in 1999 during the Christmas rush - such fun.
I had two ladies on my usual run that would have dozens of parcels so would try to get those two done first which would help clear the decks a bit (often they'd have a few returns too - at the close of play the returns would (quite literally) get flung into the back of an artic trailer. Didn't matter what it was - how far can you hurl a boxed VCR?
Christmas Eve they told us temps to be back by noon whereupon they paid us off. I'll never forget the cage full of kiddies bikes still waiting to go out - nobody gave a shit.
Shite company, shite attitude - did they become Yodel?

[Popsicle]

1 hour ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

I temp'd at White Arrow back in 1999 during the Christmas rush - such fun.
I had two ladies on my usual run that would have dozens of parcels so would try to get those two done first which would help clear the decks a bit (often they'd have a few returns too - at the close of play the returns would (quite literally) get flung into the back of an artic trailer. Didn't matter what it was - how far can you hurl a boxed VCR?
Christmas Eve they told us temps to be back by noon whereupon they paid us off. I'll never forget the cage full of kiddies bikes still waiting to go out - nobody gave a shit.
Shite company, shite attitude - did they become Yodel?

I think they eventually became Yodel, via Reality then Home Delivery Network, I think there might have been another name in between but my minds gone blank. You're right though shit company with a shit attitude.

[wuvvum]

2 hours ago, chadders said:

My dad did Kays Catalogue.

My uncle is one of the Kays off of the Kays Catalogue.

[chadders]

I always knew that you came from a wealthy family, no one 'normal' could have such an eclectic fleet.

[adw1977]

19 hours ago, High Jetter said:

You all heard of Bitter Lemon, right? We've liked the Schweppes stuff for years, mixing it with Dubonnet.

Only the slimline version available now, it seems, with the inevitable saccharin taste.

It is very annoying, especially as all supermarket own brand bitter lemon seems to be slimline only too.

Fever Tree do a "lemon tonic" which is in fact bitter lemon and it contains real sugar, quinine and no artificial sweeteners.

[GeorgeB]

11 hours ago, paulplom said:

I did one last year or the year before. I enjoyed it and learnt from it too.

What did you learn?

 

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, adw1977 said:

It is very annoying, especially as all supermarket own brand bitter lemon seems to be slimline only too.

Fever Tree do a "lemon tonic" which is in fact bitter lemon and it contains real sugar, quinine and no artificial sweeteners.

I did look at that, thanks, but not purchased yet. Sainsbury do a non slimline bitter lemon that I have bought and will test.

[Rust Collector]

I was just in Morrisons looking for own brand tonic; dozens of varieties of diet tonic spread all over the shelves. Took a while to find the tiny amount of normal tonic poked in a corner on the lowest shelf.

I can’t stand the taste of artificial sweeteners, they’re absolutely disgusting.

[robthedonkey]

It is very annoying, especially as all supermarket own brand bitter lemon seems to be slimline only too.
Fever Tree do a "lemon tonic" which is in fact bitter lemon and it contains real sugar, quinine and no artificial sweeteners.

Co op do their own bitter lemon and do a full fat and slimline

Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

[adw1977]

1 hour ago, High Jetter said:

I did look at that, thanks, but not purchased yet. Sainsbury do a non slimline bitter lemon that I have bought and will test.

That one contains both sugar and artificial sweeteners!

[Datsuncog]

5 hours ago, wuvvum said:

My uncle is one of the Kays off of the Kays Catalogue.

I nearly bought one of his old vans earlier.

[Popsicle]

16 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

I nearly bought one of his old vans earlier.

FFS you've got me looking on ebay now.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305299459810

£50 seems a bit fruity though.

[artdjones]

10 hours ago, Rust Collector said:

I was just in Morrisons looking for own brand tonic; dozens of varieties of diet tonic spread all over the shelves. Took a while to find the tiny amount of normal tonic poked in a corner on the lowest shelf.

I can’t stand the taste of artificial sweeteners, they’re absolutely disgusting.

For all the dangers of excess sugar, the human body is designed to process it, whether it's designed to cope with aspartame I seriously doubt.

[horriblemercedes]

I find it difficult these days - so many soft drinks are just horrible since they ditched sugar and went to sweeteners. I've always found diet coke absolutely disgusting

 

My favourite soft drink these days is Tropical Blast at Aldi. Their version of Lilt. No sugar but heavy in aspartame 

[fairkens]

22 hours ago, jakebullet said:

~Blurry lines as time rewinds 3 hours~
Ma announces she needs to buy some sprouts from the new m&s on the mega death rammed shopping park. Oh, great idea Ma, WCPGW?

It's no chance. 30 minutes to get off our estate, and it's obvs there's a mile queue to get in to retail park. So I go do battle at morrisons as you can at least get in the car park and play find a space wars. Morrisons sold out of sprouts. 2 smoll co op and a budgens later and still no sprouts. Well that was a fun 3 hours.

When I was a student I worked at Tesco. One Xmas eve a few of us had to break up a full on fist fight between two blokes over the last bag of sprouts. This was a supposedly posh part of Manchester. Haven't seen many things more ridiculous in the last 20 odd years

[Rust Collector]

12 hours ago, adw1977 said:

That one contains both sugar and artificial sweeteners!

I would normally buy off brand cola, and I’ve noticed that a few shops have started mixing artificial sweeteners into the ‘normal’ versions, meaning that there is no option for people who don’t want artificial sweeteners in their drinks.

I’d say it’s had the desired effect as I don’t drink cola anymore, but I just drink off brand lemonade with a dash of elderflower in it instead.

What’s really annoying is that I’m drinking soft drinks as I’m having a break from alcohol. When it’s so awkward to find something affordable and free of artificial sweeteners I start to think why fucking bother, I might as well just grab some beers…

[myglaren]

39 minutes ago, fairkens said:

When I was a student I worked at Tesco. One Xmas eve a few of us had to break up a full on fist fight between two blokes over the last bag of sprouts. This was a supposedly posh part of Manchester. Haven't seen many things more ridiculous in the last 20 odd years

You'd think that frozen sprouts hadn't been invented.   Too late for real sprouts now anyway, unless they are for christmas 2024.

Been to the shopses this morning and dreading it.  Not bad at all, plenty of parking spaces, one 300 space car park completely empty.  Only went to the bank there and once I managed to get past the smokers in the doorways it was hardly busier than usual and quiet for a Saturday.

Then off to Lidl & B&M.  Again, plenty of parking spaces and both fairly quiet.  Lidl had any amount of fresh sprouts

Again, the problem there were all the people smoking in the car park, added half a mile on to my walk back to the car (50 yards from the shop).

[Richard_FM]

My wife has trouble with artificial sweeteners, as they confuse her type 2 diabetes.

[Pieman]

The last few posts got me thinking about drinks, and I've realised I pretty much only drink tea, water, orange juice and the occasional beer.

[barefoot]

2 hours ago, myglaren said:

 Too late for real sprouts now anyway, unless they are for christmas 2024.

Way, way too late. Mine have been simmering gently since last Thursday. 

[Zelandeth]

Why is my boiler making *loud* clanging, banging noises...

Edit: Quick diagnosis, the circulator pump isn't running.  Red hot and humming loudly, but not running.  Great!

Sure these gate valves will close and come apart without any protest.

Will be checking the motor run capacitor first as that's by far the easier thing to swap!

[Remspoor]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

Why is my boiler making *loud* clanging, banging noises...

Edit: Quick diagnosis, the circulator pump isn't running.  Red hot and humming loudly, but not running.  Great!

Sure these gate valves will close and come apart without any protest.

Will be checking the motor run capacitor first as that's by far the easier thing to swap!

That valve looks a bit iffy. If changing the pump change that too.

[EyesWeldedShut]

Ours stuck once after a summer off and that central screw allowed it to be kick started - bit of a long winded guide below - I just undid the screw and twiddled the impeller a bit, rescrewed and flicked the power on - you may get lucky.

 

[Remspoor]

Had my own CH woes this week.

One of the 4 zone valves had stopped working. Last time this occurred I purchased just the motor head without a valve. To get to the valves I had to remove a Dexion shelving unit and contents.

All the zone valves.

Could not find a head so purchased a complete zone valve from Italy with next day delivery.

Took the head off both the old and new valve. Swapped them over. This si here the fun began.

I thought I had noted which cables went where but I failed and ended up with a non functioning  CH and hot water system.

Above the 4 valves is this wall box. Nothing inside is marked.

This is connected to a  Circuit Breaker box and another wall box under. The latter is yet another junction for the timer/thermostat cables maybe the hot water thermostat connection. (This is on a secondary pump) and can be seen to the left of this photo.

For the live of me I could find how I messed up. I had this PDF. But I do not have a zone valve for the hot water and I have time/thermostats in one unit. It took some thinking about. But I just could not see the error.

https://www.wolseley.co.uk/wcsstore/ExtendedSitesCatalogAssetStore/images/products/AssetPush/DTP_AssetPushHighRes/std.lang.all/ti/on/Center_CB_2-Port_Valve_Installation.pdf

In the end we called the electrician in. He was confused too. A lot of poking around he got it back to work. Here he is working with the power on.

It was good he was here because at the same time the well pump stopped working. The well is located outside under a flower bed. That was down to the condenser packing up. The second one in 20 years.

 

[Zelandeth]

This was working fine an hour ago.

We've got halfway through replacing it and have basically hit a brick wall in that one of the valves is apparently utterly welded to the pump and will not budge even when significant amounts of violence have been applied.

Which means I definitely need to change the valves.  

Which means I need to totally drain down the system.  Which takes about two hours.  Urgh.

[RoverFolkUs]

I absolutely DESPISE this time of year

It really seems to bring out the absolute worst in people 

Thought I'd pop into Asda to get a few last minute bits. I normally wouldn't bother going near a supermarket on the 23rd or 24th Dec but I left it a bit late as I didn't have any spare time in the week

Driving into Asda car park, it's off a mini roundabout, some brain-dead woman in an Astra is indicating left, steers left as if she is turning into the road on her left (the one I'm emerging from) but mid-manoeuvre she goes all the way around the roundabout to turn right! She doesn't look at all, she is staring left into that road, realizes it's wrong and starts steering right, still not looking. She definitely doesn't see me or anyone else.

With her on my right I am obviously giving way regardless of the signal, but as soon as she steered left into the road I slowly crept out and then had to stop. Many people would emerge as soon as they see the left signal and in that case there would have easily been an accident. 

Now I'm entering the car park, a BMW is looking left turning out of a give way at the petrol station. Bear in mind they have traffic approaching on their right who have priority. I.e - me. She pulls out, not looking to her right at all. I stop and blast the horn, she looks around all confused trying to work out who is on the receiving end of the horn, STILL NOT SEEING ME 

A bit further into the carpark, there are pedestrians scattered absolutely everywhere. I honestly felt like it was a scene from the walking dead. Nobody was looking where they were going, they were jumping out in front of traffic when there was a pedestrian crossing a couple of yards away! People staring at their phone while piloting a fully loaded trolley, again with no regard to what cars they may be about to hit, including those parked, stationary and moving! 

I've finally found a parking space, trolleys are few and far between. There were a couple of women actually fighting over the last trolley in one of the trolley bays in the car park... 

Inside the supermarket was a total free for all. People blocking aisles, people pushing past each other and not waiting a couple of moments. I was crouched down getting something, someone had completely obliviously performed a similar manoeuvre OVER me to reach something a shelf higher. If I stood up much quicker it would have been a nasty headbut!

On more than one occasion I saw someone giving a load of abuse to a poor member of staff over something that was out of stock. One bloke was being particularly nasty and launched a personal attack!? 

People don't seem to think of what the staff have to do on top of their normal duties. I saw things being ejected from trolleys, onto the floor, as if they're too important to put it back. No, that's someone else's job obviously, it's below them.

The checkouts were another level of stupid, queuing down every aisle for each till. Staff at the end filling trolleys with unwanted goods, which they have to put back.

It's like scenes from lockdown all over again, people just spend spend spend on stuff which they are never going to use? Why are people filling trolleys of stuff just because the shops are shut for one day? 

I planned ahead exactly what I'm going to need over the festive period and it's been sat in the freezer. Now I've gone and bought the fresh items that's us sorted until after the new year. £100 spent, a small trolley, and that includes numerous gifts as well, so the actual food spend is next to nothing. 

But I am willing to bet that some of the massive trolleys being filled were going to set them back £2-300. 

About 75% of people in there had one of the biggest trolleys and it was still overflowing! 

What is the need for it?

It's like what little common sense still exists has completely evaporated, they're brain dead in the shops and still brain dead when they get in the car and hit the road!

I dont want to sound like a boring twat but I just hate everything about this time of year. Probably doesn't help that this time of year has always had some form of tragedy for me such as a death in the family.... 

[plumbertony]

40 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

This was working fine an hour ago.

We've got halfway through replacing it and have basically hit a brick wall in that one of the valves is apparently utterly welded to the pump and will not budge even when significant amounts of violence have been applied.

Which means I definitely need to change the valves.  

Which means I need to totally drain down the system.  Which takes about two hours.  Urgh.

Maybe too late, the nuts on gate valve type pump unions are slotted so they can be removed over the flange. By cutting the old nut through the flats and prying off the pump carefully so as not to damage the face the pump and nut can be replaced without changing the valve. Hope this makes sense and helps.