The grumpy thread

[castros_bro]

For the future try something like an owl* , we cut our bill when we worked out what was eating the electrons.

 

http://www.theowl.com/

 

 

* other bird related products** are available

 

** custard for example

Yep. Figures are right.

 

It is an old farm house so fair enough not going to be the cheapest. But we only use a few rooms, only two of us. Whilst we arent saints mostly things are turned off, heating is only used when has to, radiators in rooms that we dont used are turned off, doors shut etc.

 

not sure what the next steps are. I calculated that even if we are on a better tariff we will only be £100 a month better off which is still too much. 

[dugong]

Just finished the writing the epic listing for the GS. Does this make me come across as a mental?

 

 

UPO 802T - 1978 Citroen GS 1220 Club

This car is a restoration project. I have a good second-hand valance that will go with the car if \ when it reaches reserve.

It is need of extensive welding as such should be approached as a long-term project or a source of spares.
 

THE GOOD:

1220 cc engine with 74k. Gearbox also working at time of test. Will run with new plugs, battery and points.
 

Bumpers, grille, bonnet, boot lid and headlights in good condition.
 

Reasonable tyres \ wheels (mixture of Firestones and Michelins fitted)
 

Hydropneumatic ring main in fair working order other than a small leak at NSF.
 

Rises and falls according to suspension lever.

 

Rear seat pan good.

 

Interior 90% complete (rear seat has torn upholstery) but some screws and fixtures missing for the door kickplates.

Spare wheel present (removed for photos).

V5 in my name.

Garaged in a dry lock-up for the entirety of my ownership (2012).

 

 

THE BAD:

Extensive welding \ fabrication work needed. Inner and outer sills poor. Ditto rear wings,  valance and front floor pans. Doors average to poor condition.

Condition of rear sub-frame unknown (assume a replacement will be needed).

Steering wheel cracked and blistered.

 

Rear light clusters cracked.


IMPORTANT SALE INFORMATION - PLEASE READ

I require a £50 deposit upon closure of sale via PayPal. You are welcome to view the car beforehand during the week.

 

I ask that you please bear the following in mind:

The car has no tax or MOT so will need trailering. I would not recommend using an A-frame.  You will have to transport it away from the lock-up at your expense.

 

The sale price (at or past reserve) is FINAL. It is not a starting point for further negotiation \ money off.  If you disagree with this, DO NOT BID.

The car is located in Bootle, Merseyside. If this is too far for you DO NOT BID.  Where the car is in relation to where you live is incidental. If you want the car and live in the Highlands, the cost of getting to Bootle and back again is not my issue.

The car is a long-term restoration project and should not be viewed as anything else. If you are expecting a mint example of the marque \ model for the money DO NOT BID.

I can only apologise for sounding brusque in the preceding paragraphs, I'm just fed up of being messed around.
 

[Bobthebeard]

Slight grump...

Posted off some 'free' car parts (air filter and electric window motor) to a fellow 'Shiter last November. Despite the promise of paying for the postage no payment yet received.

Cheers dude,

Didn't really expect that kind of treatment from the guys on here!

[plasticvandan]

re the GS,if you want to sell it desperately,just stick a stupid low buy it now on it,always worked for me,i had a total dog of a Honda Superdream that i just wanted out of my life,listed all its faults honestly,and it was even tax and tested,just put a bin of £280 rather than the 400 upwards it would normally have been,sold in 3 hours.

Sometimes the space (and weight off shoulders) is worth more than the money

[The Moog]

Electricity meters don't usually lie. Though it is possibly faulty. Unlikely though... Do you also have gas, or is electricity the only option? Surprising how the usage racks up TBH if only using one fuel.

only electric and with current meter only economy 10. Owl might be an option. Boiler is only 3 years old as well.

[Spiny Norman]

Slight grump...

Posted off some 'free' car parts (air filter and electric window motor) to a fellow 'Shiter last November. Despite the promise of paying for the postage no payment yet received.

Cheers dude,

Didn't really expect that kind of treatment from the guys on here!

 

Quick reminder by PM, he may have genuinely forgotten about it or thought he had paid by some electronic means which unknown to him have failed.

Failing that, name & shame.

[Lankytim]

How much is this GS anyway?

 

Also, what does brusque mean?

[Station]

Jon, just say 'rear of car needs welded (boot corners, etc)'. Don't go into detail with what needs doing, and cover the whole steering wheel/rear light thing with 'general wear and tear'.

 

I found being too 'encyclopaedic' on what is wrong with the car gives the impression you've been over the car with a fine toothed comb and are now desperate to sell it, as opposed to someone who just bought it for a laugh and now just wants to sell and doesn't care where it goes (the best way to be, or the best impression to give). I don't think hobbyist car sellers get any respect, whereas car dealers do.

[anonymous user]

 

Also, what does brusque mean?

 

I know this one, it's that fancy dancing women do, a bit like posh stripping, with corsets and tassels

[Lankytim]

It sounds like a sort of aftershave from the 80s.

[Mr Livered]

Quick reminder by PM, he may have genuinely forgotten about it or thought he had paid by some electronic means which unknown to him have failed.

Failing that, name & shame.

Agree with this. I can imagine myself forgetting to pay, so it seems likely that other people might be useless too.

 

I've just - today - realised that I still owe the village hall committee £15 of hire charges from my daughter's birthday party last October. These things are easy to forget, well they are for me anyway. Some people who would never dream of trying to avoid paying for something just need to be reminded.

[jakebullet]

Pikey twats scoping out my garden crap storage pile.

 

AKA a clever pikey who knocks on the door hoping to find your not in so he can start loading up his transit. When you answer the door "got any scrap?". no. "got any batteries?" No. "Got any metal you don't want?" No.

 

Then they walk off, shifty eyes looking at everything remotely metallic. Pikey Cnuts.

[Angrydicky]

After talking to them today, FIT SLOVAK GIRLZ have decided one of their friends is going to be moving in with them instead. Everyone seems to be fucking me around lately, it's so frustrating. First the dickhead Somerset seller, then the car transport guy (who may or may not be lying about his truck being nicked), and now this.

[chaseracer]

Slight grump...

Posted off some 'free' car parts (air filter and electric window motor) to a fellow 'Shiter last November. Despite the promise of paying for the postage no payment yet received.

Cheers dude,

Didn't really expect that kind of treatment from the guys on here!

I've had a similar experience. Hope it's not the same bloke... 

[Cavcraft]

Leave out the 'just fed of being messed around' bit out. People will see that and assume you've had 'buyers' who decided the car was crap so left without buying it.

[chaseracer]

I know this one, it's that fancy dancing women do, a bit like posh stripping, with corsets and tassels

Foolish boy. That's "berserk"...

[wuvvum]

I came out of the house yesterday morning to find that a portakabin with "Canteen" written on the door had been deposited along one edge of "my" car park - exactly where the Daewoo had been parked until Sunday, in fact.  Didn't think much of it at the time - the car park belongs to the local housing association, so I assumed they're doing some major works in the area and need somewhere for the workmen to have a cuppa.

 

Anyway, since then, a fence has sprung up round said portakabin - one of those metal mesh ones that sits in big rubber blocks and is then bolted together.  The area that has been fenced off is quite large - about 2/3 of the width of the car park in fact.  The result of this is that the van and the Rover of Doom are completely blocked in - on two sides by the edges of the car park, on one side by the fence and on the fourth side by a Citroën C5 estate that was dumped there months ago and which I have no idea who owns it.  This isn't a life-threatening problem as I don't need to use either vehicle on a regular basis at the moment, but I have no idea how long the fence is going to be there - there was nobody working there when I left for work or when I came back.  I don't know if they're planning on digging a fugging great hole in the car park or something. 

 

Also, I'd pretty much made up my mind that if I can't fix the 406 I'm going to bridge it and get the Rover of Doom back on the road to use as my daily - it's not really big enough for my needs now as I can't get my bike in the back of it, but the last few cars I've bought to take over daily duties have turned out to be utter crap.  If there's nobody about on Sunday and no holes have been dug, I might have to sneak out with a socket set, temporarily remove the fence to extract the Rover, then put everything back how it was.  Then the Talbot will have to go out on the road and the Rover can take the Talbot's space - now that three spaces on the car park have been taken by the Portakabin, if I nick any more the neighbours are going to string me up by my bollocks.

 

It's also put paid to any daft half-baked ideas I may have been having of trying to find a way to buy the Sierra back off Garycox.

[Ghosty]

Two month waiting list for a half hour phone call to assess my mental health needs, and apparently it's the norm.

NHS, you're twats.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Dugong ,regarding your GS,wasn't there an escapee from the French scrapage scheme on the ebay thread ?

One that can't be registered and has no docs.

Not that I'm suggesting anything dodgy or owt but.....

 

Couldn't hurt to let the seller know about yours.

[fordperv]

^ this in the rwd escort, mini and landrover world is known as a "reshell"

 

Got to go think someone's at the door, I can hear ringing

[dugong]

Dugong ,regarding your GS,wasn't there an escapee from the French scrapage scheme on the ebay thread ?

One that can't be registered and has no docs.

Not that I'm suggesting anything dodgy or owt but.....

 

Couldn't hurt to let the seller know about yours.

Direct me to this link. 

[MrDuke]

Two month waiting list for a half hour phone call to assess my mental health needs, and apparently it's the norm.

NHS, you're twats.

 

Yeah, because talking to someone on the phone is an ideal way to observe their body language and make a cursory assessment of their general physical fitness and lifestyle. Not that any of those things would even slightly relate to their mental health state of course. It's like something from a Terry Gilliam film.

 

Ghosty: see if you can 'self-refer' to your local MH team, it should mean you get to see an actual person before too long.

[purplebargeken]

 

Two month waiting list for a half hour phone call to assess my mental health needs, and apparently it's the norm.

NHS, you're twats.

Tis the new way of working I'm afraid. This is my actual job. We get all of the referrals for mental health and conduct a telephone triage. This is then given some thought by a highly experienced mental health professional, oh that would be me. The triage process including the writing up can take between 40 minutes to a couple of hours depending on being able to contact the person, phoning GP's to get the correct contact numbers, check blood test results and asking for medical summaries, getting past the old bat of a receptionist at the GP surgery despite THEM sending us the referral. Mind you some of the receptionists do sound rather cute and can be quite chatty on the phone. If you can't get hold of the person who has been urgently referred due to suicidal ideation you have to make a judgement call as to getting the plod to do a welfare check. 

 

Then the person is passed on to whichever service is deemed appropriate. If done properly it is pretty effective despite not having that face to face element. It normally tales between 20 to 30 minutes to actually do a telephone triage but there is pressure to trim that down to 10 minutes but we aren't standing for that. The timescales are much better than the one offered to you. We triage urgent referrals within 4 hours, if priority within 24 hours and routine within 14 days. Appts with the teams for further face to face assessment/treatment are either next day, within a week or within 28 days depending on risk/urgency. If very, very urgent the referral is passed on to the crisis team and sorted within 4 to 6 hours on average. Then the other hassle is having to almost justify why you have the temerity to refer someone to the team. I mean isn't that kind of why the teams actually exist. I have been spoken to by my supposed colleagues in such a rude, aggressive and condescending manner that I have come off the phone literally furious. God help the poor patients. Christ, we aren't even allowed to send people to A&E if they feel unsafe or at risk 'cos going to A&E is only for people with a physical health problem. So A&E is no longer available as a place of safety. Fabulous.

 

A couple of days ago we received 250 referrals in one day, average is about 220 or so.  

 

I'm pretty good at what I do, I've been a mental health nurse for 29 years and an AMHP for nearly 3 years and I don't piss about with people. The hardest one's are the elders. It is so sad to talk to people who have worked so hard throughout their lives and are now stepping onto the dementia treadmill. One of the cruelest con's is for memory clinics to diagnose someone with 'mild cognitive disorder' the discharge them and to see them re-referred a year or 18 months later when things have deteriorated much further. MCD is just placing someone in a 'holding pattern' IMHO. 

 

So there you go. Always two sides to everything. I don't think I'm a twat, although I could be wrong

[MrDuke]

@PBK: that makes an interesting read, and I do have sympathy for the people like yourself in an awkward situation. Without trying to cast dispersions on what you do (or try to do) though, I really don't understand how fairly short phone consultations are suitable for assessing MH cases. The whole definiton of many MH problems involves the patient being pretty badly out of touch with themselves and their situation, and even with a highly trained professional trying to 'read between the lines' I don't see how they can really understand what's happening. I know for a fact that if I'd had to be triaged over the phone when I was first referred, I'd have been bounced straight back again; as it was, it took more than 2 face-to-face sessions for a CPN to figure out that things were badly wrong under the 'normal' surface.

Also, I suspect that the "twats" was directed more towards the desk-piloting overlords than the actual medical professionals like yourself  

[daveb47]

Two month waiting list for a half hour phone call to assess my mental health needs, and apparently it's the norm.

NHS, you're twats.

You are lucky,i got knock on door without warning,

Large black woman with unintelligable english to "interview" me,had 3 school leavers on work experience.

After struggle i discovered that she had no qualifications whatsoever.

So they think that i  am going to bare my feelings & problems to someone who has no proffessional  standing whatsoever and stand good chance of being discussed with their friends etc.

Complained to council,only response i got was to be told that i wasnt suited tto be help as i had been uncooperative.

[purplebargeken]

County council services are a whole different ball game. They are mostly twats.

 

The telephone triage doesn't work for all, there is no doubt about that but for a lot of folk it does give a fair impression which is what triage is in essence. Is the person depressed, anxious, psychotic, actively suicidal, who is supporting them, have they had treatemnt previously, that sort of thing. It isn't therapy or a full assessment but a fair few folk do actually benefit from that brief contact as it is a chance to talk about what is going on. You can get a surprising amount of info from a 20 to 30 minute call, and it is just about enabling the prof to direct the person appropriately and to make sure that person is safe. We have to triage adults of working age, children, memory problems, mental illness in older people, learning disability and eating disorders. Just about everything.

 

As I said I can only give details of what we do and the quality and effectiveness of services is really a postcode lottery (without the chance of winning cash money) and I am sad that you seemed to get a crap service. 

 

I do have some twat'ish traits but only to my so called colleagues who don't want to do what they are meant to do :)

 

Take care folks.

[RobT]

Time for a moan.  Our whole building at work has been without heating for the last two days.  I'm currently sitting here in my coat and hat looking look a weirdo apparently.  But my feet are still like ice and I've got a cold coming, so a day off tomorrow is on the cards I think.  If the Chief Exec and other senior managers had to work in this shit hole I'm sure it'd get sorted sooner, BOCs.

[chaseracer]

Hit the feckers with this, Rob...

 

http://www.hse.gov.uk/contact/faqs/temperature.htm

[Station]

So he wants the car for £60?

I'd ignore anyone that wanted it delivering. Or offering shit prices. Or from the South.

[RobT]

^^Love that Picard WTF, I might print it off and leave copies strewn all over the office.  I'm in militant mode today.

 

Hit the feckers with this, Rob...

 

http://www.hse.gov.uk/contact/faqs/temperature.htm

 

Not sure if it's 16 degress, but it's F cold.  I'm off to the pub for a nice hot pie and a pint.

 

Edit:  Just had to edit as my spelling is shite today.