The grumpy thread

[jakebullet]

31 minutes ago, horriblemercedes said:

I don't think that's the ugly side of gambling. More like the pathetic, shit side. 

The ugly side would be addiction and destitution 

Fairly sure there was plenty of addiction but only at low stakes. They are just constantly trying to get money out of you every minute you're in there. £20 for books, then every second between pages it's put a quid in the slot for the table game. Plus RTP is 50% so you have no hope of getting lucky in the long term.

The way out goes thru slot machines where they're shovelling £20 notes in the slot.

I feel so happy that I've clawed back £3000 profit from mecca by abusing their offers online. They really are the evil empire.

[rattlecan]

On 09/04/2024 at 09:23, loserone said:

So my grump is people who post 80% of their posts having a dig at people in the grumpy old man thread without a hint of irony.

I didn’t know there was a ‘grumpy old man thread’ I’ve only seen the ‘grumpy thread’ which by its title perhaps precludes me from commenting there 

[Floatylight]

2 minutes ago, rattlecan said:

I didn’t know there was a ‘grumpy old man thread’ I’ve only seen the ‘grumpy thread’ which by its title perhaps precludes me from commenting there 

 

[TataBobu]

On 29/03/2024 at 17:26, horriblemercedes said:

Is there a mode of transport that is worse than trains? 

 

I haven't been on one for years and today is reminding me why

It's the people on trains, not the train itself. Don't ask how I know... I:m in the middle of students going back to school after the weekend 

[Dobloseven]

Son messaged me early Sunday morning.Did I fancy helping him with the rear wheel bearing/ABS sensor on his partners A3?Said I was a bit busy,but suggested he got the parts from Parkers which is open Sundays.Said he'd already ordered them from ECP and was going to pick them up WCPGW?.About lunchtime,get a call.Started job and they'd given him the wrong wheel bearing.Could I go to Parkers and get the right one,as she's taken his car.Turns out there's two sizes of bearing.Long queue,but get there in the end .Asked which size,part in stock,pay,just getting in car and he phones to say they'd given him the wrong discs and pads too!Back in queue again,parts in stock,round to his,bearing fits but ABS ring is missing.Back to Parkers.Chap gets another one out which has ring on it.Thinks someone might have had the ring off and returned part.Parts were less than half ECP price though so not all bad.Wasted a lot of a nice day though.I suppose our motor trade members have this all the time.

[angle]

I moved a mile or so up the road recently, and I'm amazed at how difficult various organisations find the concept of 'I am moving house and I would like to keep paying you money'. I spent a lunchbreak a few weeks before we moved filling out all the 'I'm moving house' forms on various websites. Results as follows:

Octopus / Bristol Water - moved me out of the house fine. The idea that I might need electricity / gas / water / sewage at the new place apparently didn't occur to them. Still, a 10 minute phone call and a new direct debit set up for each and sorted. 6/10.

Council tax - OK, bonus points for being the only organisation to work out that I still needed to pay them after I moved, they sent me all the paperwork with a new account number for the new address, the amount I was being charged, instructions for how to set up a new direct debit etc. Unfortunately they decided the sensible thing to do would be to send that to my old address, three weeks after I moved and six weeks after I told them I was moving. 'Its the address we have on file for you' - clearly its not is it, you useless bastards. Still, I paid for a mail redirect and sorted using the council tax payment portal that's run by Capita and took me right back to 2004. 5/10.

Virgin Media - the reason I'm posting this here but actually I'm not sure I have the ability to type it out in full without hurling my laptop across the room. No exaggeration, I must have spoken to 20 different people across phone / email / live chat, and I've spent at least a day doing it including one 4.5 hour phone call which ended with the guy going 'I'm really sorry, but I don't really know how to fix it, shall I just cancel your contract?' (I said yes, he didn't). Got to a stage six weeks after we moved where they said they could sort it but they needed to send out new equipment. Now apparently that needs to be signed for in person, they won't leave it with a neighbour or in my bin shed or whatever so I arranged to work from home today. Cue two emails within 15 minutes of each other this morning, one telling me it was being delivered by Yodel and the other by Royal Mail. Neither have a tracking number, neither have turned up. I phoned up (again), apparently the solution is to get an engineer round rather than use a competent courier service. The next available engineer appointment is next week.  FUCKYOU/10. 

[Rocket88]

7 minutes ago, angle said:

I moved a mile or so up the road recently, and I'm amazed at how difficult various organisations find the concept of 'I am moving house and I would like to keep paying you money'. I spent a lunchbreak a few weeks before we moved filling out all the 'I'm moving house' forms on various websites. Results as follows:

Octopus / Bristol Water - moved me out of the house fine. The idea that I might need electricity / gas / water / sewage at the new place apparently didn't occur to them. Still, a 10 minute phone call and a new direct debit set up for each and sorted. 6/10.

Council tax - OK, bonus points for being the only organisation to work out that I still needed to pay them after I moved, they sent me all the paperwork with a new account number for the new address, the amount I was being charged, instructions for how to set up a new direct debit etc. Unfortunately they decided the sensible thing to do would be to send that to my old address, three weeks after I moved and six weeks after I told them I was moving. 'Its the address we have on file for you' - clearly its not is it, you useless bastards. Still, I paid for a mail redirect and sorted using the council tax payment portal that's run by Capita and took me right back to 2004. 5/10.

Virgin Media - the reason I'm posting this here but actually I'm not sure I have the ability to type it out in full without hurling my laptop across the room. No exaggeration, I must have spoken to 20 different people across phone / email / live chat, and I've spent at least a day doing it including one 4.5 hour phone call which ended with the guy going 'I'm really sorry, but I don't really know how to fix it, shall I just cancel your contract?' (I said yes, he didn't). Got to a stage six weeks after we moved where they said they could sort it but they needed to send out new equipment. Now apparently that needs to be signed for in person, they won't leave it with a neighbour or in my bin shed or whatever so I arranged to work from home today. Cue two emails within 15 minutes of each other this morning, one telling me it was being delivered by Yodel and the other by Royal Mail. Neither have a tracking number, neither have turned up. I phoned up (again), apparently the solution is to get an engineer round rather than use a competent courier service. The next available engineer appointment is next week.  FUCKYOU/10. 

I would quite happily set Mr Branson on fire…

[Remspoor]

 

15 minutes ago, Rocket88 said:

I would quite happily set Mr Branson on fire…

That is virgin on the ridiculous.

[myglaren]

Went to ASDA for some odds and ends.  Don't shop there although it is in easy walking distance, mainly due to the smokers hanging about in the entrance.  Anyway, put my big boy pants on and ran the gauntlet.

Bloody chaos in there, folks wandering about in a daze, focused on their phones.  A scrum for some marked down shit, couldn't get past them or see what it was.

Tills crammed.  Braved the robotill which went OK but I swear is slower than the human operated till.

Not used to this at all as I usually shop in Lidl, of which there are two close by, or Aldi, a choice of three.

Plus a couple of B&Ms & smaller shops.

Always quiet and calm in there, people get on with their shopping with no fuss, don't block the isles and there is rarely a wait at the tills.

Should have gone and got my car, although the trek is almost the same as walking to ASDA.

[rattlecan]

10 hours ago, myglaren said:

Went to ASDA for some odds and ends.  Don't shop there although it is in easy walking distance, mainly due to the smokers hanging about in the entrance.  Anyway, put my big boy pants on and ran the gauntlet.

Bloody chaos in there, folks wandering about in a daze, focused on their phones.  A scrum for some marked down shit, couldn't get past them or see what it was.

Tills crammed.  Braved the robotill which went OK but I swear is slower than the human operated till.

Not used to this at all as I usually shop in Lidl, of which there are two close by, or Aldi, a choice of three.

Plus a couple of B&Ms & smaller shops.

Always quiet and calm in there, people get on with their shopping with no fuss, don't block the isles and there is rarely a wait at the tills.

Should have gone and got my car, although the trek is almost the same as walking to ASDA.

You don’t get that in M&S or Waitrose 😉
Primark is another ‘shithole’ store, I blatantly refuse to go in. If my missus wants to go in I just stand outside, I can’t stand the place, it just seems to attract scum (as you kind of alluded to in Asda) there are clothes all over the floor, the queues are always huge. No thanks, I’m not that skint that I need some £1 pants

[EyesWeldedShut]

On 14/04/2024 at 17:26, rattlecan said:

I didn’t know there was a ‘grumpy old man thread’ I’ve only seen the ‘grumpy thread’ which by its title perhaps precludes me from commenting there 

Define 'old' young person ? Physical age or state of mind

I'm 61 - I was in Glasgow at the weekend for a wedding and felt rejuvenated after seeing masses of (much younger) people barely able to walk around their own circumference without getting out of breath. And, as for boogie stamina? Meh.

The grump: went to the venue in a pre-booked cab (rather nice Skoda thing). The guy goes all around the houses to get from West to East end of town. 
Eventually, I realise that he's getting directed by a satnav talking to him in his earbud thingy and he's no real idea of where he is at.  He then clinches the deal by turning to me and asking "It's Glasgow Green, isn't it? Whereabouts?"

"How the fuck should I know? Last time I was on Glasgow Green was 1986 and you were a glint in your father's eye" 
I bit that back (my child bride dislikes public swearing) just bared my gritted teeth and pointed at the bridal car - "that way". 

We walked back to the hotel......

[purplebargeken]

Trying to get hold of a useful person at virgin media is nigh on impossible. Useless twats.

[Metal Guru]

29 minutes ago, purplebargeken said:

Trying to get hold of a useful person at virgin media is nigh on impossible. Useless twats.

Try ceoemail.com. I’ve used it for several companies when customer (non) service have been useless. I’d assume CEOs do not want to deal with such matters and are pissed off to receive  such emails and someone further down the  food chain get a rocket.

Usually works well but I’ve never used Virgin .

[hairnet]

FRO

[Split_Pin]

Grump because my wife phoned and said that some cunt had bumped the A4 in Tesco car park this morning and fucked off.

Not anything like as bad as I was expecting, barely noticeable on fact and it's certainly not the first time this bumper has been bumped anyway. Just as well its an old car.

All sorted:

Still looks decent:

The reason she knew someone had bumped the car is because someone else left a note on the windscreen giving the make, model, colour and reg plate of the car that bumped into mine, which was very good of them. I was going to call the police and leave it at that but considering there's no damage done then I'm just going to forget about it.

[louiepj]

Went to ASDA for some odds and ends.  Don't shop there although it is in easy walking distance, mainly due to the smokers hanging about in the entrance.  Anyway, put my big boy pants on and ran the gauntlet.
Bloody chaos in there, folks wandering about in a daze, focused on their phones.  A scrum for some marked down shit, couldn't get past them or see what it was.
Tills crammed.  Braved the robotill which went OK but I swear is slower than the human operated till.
Not used to this at all as I usually shop in Lidl, of which there are two close by, or Aldi, a choice of three.
Plus a couple of B&Ms & smaller shops.
Always quiet and calm in there, people get on with their shopping with no fuss, don't block the isles and there is rarely a wait at the tills.
Should have gone and got my car, although the trek is almost the same as walking to ASDA.

Asda in Crawley is the one supermarket I avoid as the mixture of their customers and vagrants, violent shop lifters, etc. has crushed the employees' and security staff ability to be welcoming and polite.
It also has a McDonald's in it!

[Zelandeth]

5 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Grump because my wife phoned and said that some cunt had bumped the A4 in Tesco car park this morning and fucked off.

Not anything like as bad as I was expecting, barely noticeable on fact and it's certainly not the first time this bumper has been bumped anyway. Just as well its an old car.

All sorted:

Still looks decent:

The reason she knew someone had bumped the car is because someone else left a note on the windscreen giving the make, model, colour and reg plate of the car that bumped into mine, which was very good of them. I was going to call the police and leave it at that but considering there's no damage done then I'm just going to forget about it.

Don't just forget it.  It's not beyond the realms of possibility that the other party may turn round and claim you scraped their car.  It's worth reporting and getting the reference number in case someone pulls nonsense like that.

 

My grump?  Our local Halfords has always been a bit of a disaster.  Nevertheless it is useful for random nonsense like bulbs that it's not worth making a 50 mile round trip to the decent motor factor I usually use down in Luton.

They've just done a refit.  Now *all* the bulbs, wipers, batteries, basically everything I'd be likely to go in for, is behind the counter.

Which means you need to try to convey to whoever's behind the till exactly what you need.  It took me a full ten minutes (much to the annoyance of the ever growing queue behind me) to get a couple of bloody tail light bulbs just now.  Yes, I know a 10W festoon (265) bulb isn't a massively common one, but argh...it would have taken me 30 seconds to pick it out myself.  Wasted a load of my time and theirs.  

Unsurprisingly, the queue at the tills has pretty much quadrupled since they changed things a couple of weeks ago.  Used to usually off peak be a case of going in, grabbing what you needed and being out the door in less than five mins - which was basically the one redeeming feature.  Not a chance now

Oh well, their loss is Mileham's gain!  Even if it will add to my fuel bill.

Edited April 16, 2024 by Zelandeth
Corrected the wrong bulb reference I typed on autopilot

[Rust Collector]

5 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

They've just done a refit.  Now *all* the bulbs, wipers, batteries, basically everything I'd be likely to go in for, is behind the counter.

Which means you need to try to convey to whoever's behind the till exactly what you need.  It took me a full ten minutes (much to the annoyance of the ever growing queue behind me) to get a couple of bloody tail light bulbs just now.  Yes, I know a W10W/265 bulb isn't a massively common one, but argh...it would have taken me 30 seconds to pick it out myself.  Wasted a load of my time and theirs.  

I needed an HD bulb for my Disco 3 whilst on a journey a while back. I bought one in Crawley Halfords, and it was a bit of a faff - I had to take a card hanger to the till, and the girl had to rummage through a random box of bulbs. Then I got shafted for £31.

I've since seen that the Range do the same bulb for about £9, and it's even left out on the shelf for you to shoplift if you like. I will give them a try next time I need one.

[motorpunk]

A very discourteous courtesy car. 

[Zelandeth]

5 minutes ago, Rust Collector said:

I needed an HD bulb for my Disco 3 whilst on a journey a while back. I bought one in Crawley Halfords, and it was a bit of a faff - I had to take a card hanger to the till, and the girl had to rummage through a random box of bulbs. Then I got shafted for £31.

I've since seen that the Range do the same bulb for about £9, and it's even left out on the shelf for you to shoplift if you like. I will give them a try next time I need one.

Yeah, ours have done the same for years with the more expensive ones which I could kind of understand.  Fact that the entire damned lighting section is behind the tills now just seems like total madness.  How many hours of staff time does that waste them in a week?

I really feel for the folks behind the tills too, they have a crap enough job as it is having to deal with the public, nevertheless now needing to find 3/4 of what they're asking for.  Especially as a bunch of folks - like me - are probably already hacked off from having spent ten minutes walking round the store becoming increasingly convinced they're going blind as they can't find any of the general purpose spares anywhere now.

[Split_Pin]

40 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

other party may turn round and claim you scraped their car.  It's worth reporting and getting the reference

Never thought of that. 

[Dick Cheeseburger]

WTAF is this shite? The individual seems to think it appropriate to wear this getup to a children's charity event. So, so wrong.

Fantastic* example of one the perverted knighthood crew, too. 

 

 

[DavieW]

45 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

Never thought of that. 

Similar happened to my wife. She went out for petrol one Sunday at our Tesco local. A while later 2 police turned up at the door asking if she'd been in Tesco because someone reported she'd reversed into their car. She denied reserving into it, they inspected the car, breathalysed her and THEN went to check Tesco CCTV. Never heard another word about it.

[EyesWeldedShut]

1 hour ago, motorpunk said:

A very discourteous courtesy car. 

Bini? Standard issue.

[motorpunk]

9 minutes ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

Bini? Standard issue.

Yeah. It’s crap but handles so well.

[Remspoor]

7 hours ago, hairnet said:

FRO

Was posting that   knee-cessary?

[Remspoor]

4 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Grump because my wife phoned and said that some cunt had bumped the A4 in Tesco car park this morning and fucked off.

Not anything like as bad as I was expecting, barely noticeable on fact and it's certainly not the first time this bumper has been bumped anyway. Just as well its an old car.

All sorted:

Still looks decent:

The reason she knew someone had bumped the car is because someone else left a note on the windscreen giving the make, model, colour and reg plate of the car that bumped into mine, which was very good of them. I was going to call the police and leave it at that but considering there's no damage done then I'm just going to forget about it.

I bet you have a lot of Roman around in those shoes. 😁

[EyesWeldedShut]

4 minutes ago, motorpunk said:

Yeah. It’s crap but handles so well.

That light covers a multitude of sins - Sprog now drives hers armed with an ELM327 and an iPhone app (MAF glitch) - saves her visiting the old people every other day

[Timewaster]

8 hours ago, purplebargeken said:

Trying to get hold of a useful person at virgin media is nigh on impossible. Useless twats.

I find if your Virgin service is working (and to be fair it usually does), then TOUCH NOTHING, DO NOTHING, CHANGE NOTHING. 

The moment you try and change anything, they fuck it up royally.

I had a virgin mobile on Vodafone. 

They merged with O2 but I don't get a great signal, so they let me keep my Vodafone sim and that was OK.

Then I got a call centre call, promising to half my bill, double my data... all that usual schpeil.

I must have told  them 10 times, it MUST be a Vodafone sim.

Yes, yes, no problem sir. Vodafone sim.

Guess what they sent me?

It took hours and hours on the phone / chatbot etc to sort out. Because I now had a new contract they couldn't supply new Vodafone sims to new customers. 

But I'm not a new customer, and I have a Vodafone sim. You cancelled it!

 

And so on and on and on.....

 

 

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, Remspoor said:

Was posting that   knee-cessary?

He kneeded to get it out there, though I'm not sure why.