The grumpy thread

[Dick Longbridge]

23 hours ago, captain_70s said:

RIP.

0 surviving examples in the UK now. 

The comments above about some 'enthusiasts' ultimately being timewasters vs. banger racers stepping up to the mark with the money for a quick, hassle free sale is pretty accurate. 

The key difference is if an enthusiast did buy the car, they'd be more likely to be a custodian and keep the car in a reasonable state. 

The banger racer would be the final owner, the vehicle wouldn't be saved and once it had done a couple of laps it would be the end. 

As a spectator, the idea of plentiful £200 snotters doing a few laps in a final blaze of glory rather than be collected from the owners drive and promptly cubed is entertaining. 

The idea of a rare, desirable car which is still restorable, and which many people would like to see on the road/at shows/being enjoyed/still existing being smashed up for the hell of it seems barmy. I know the ethos within banger racing circles is 'the rarer, the better' - it's a sad sight to see though. 

I guess the reality is money talks and most people don't give a shit what happens to their car the second it leaves their ownership. 

[wuvvum]

1 hour ago, Remspoor said:

Plus the Spanish use these now. No warning signs  either

Presumably though in the case of automated speed cameras (rather than a copper at the side of the road with a radar gun) it's now become more complicated since Brexit for EU police forces to pursue UK drivers?

[wuvvum]

Yesterday I went to move the Scénic, flicked the wipers on to clear the dew and they worked fine.  So I decided that the issues I was having before must have been a temporary glitch.  Today I tried them again and they now won't work at all.  Which is fantastic*.  It means that I have a car which is starting to owe me quite a lot of money by the time the MOT work has been done, and which I'll only be able to use on dry days, unless I fork out £300+ for a replacement pair of used wiper motors which may or may not last, or over £600 for brand new ones.  I did think about wiring up a separate switch to the driver's side motor and removing the passenger side wiper arm, so at least I'll be able to see where I'm going in the wet, but I'm not even sure if it's a reciprocating linkage or if the motor just runs in reverse on the downward sweep - if so the separate switch idea isn't going to work.

To add insult to injury (or rather the other way round), I backed the car up onto the ramps and got underneath to compare the spring I've bought with the remains of the existing rear springs, and I appear to have done my back in.  I now can't pick anything up off the floor or even bend over properly without getting a twinge, so unless it sorts itself out before the weekend there's no way I'm going to be up to heaving axles around.

TL; DR: f*ck modern motors and f*ck middle age.

[Wack]

Sold some hifi on eBay 3 fucking times now , 1st one didn't pay , 2nd one didn't pay , 3rd one paid instantly hoofuckingray 

He's only 80 miles away and it's very fragile so I offered to deliver it Wednesday 

The guy is made up , we make arrangements 

Just checked and ,"changed my mind, can I cancel ", what a twat 

So now I've got to wait for another low fees weekend before I can list it again

 

 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

7 minutes ago, Wack said:

Sold some hifi on eBay 3 fucking times now , 1st one didn't pay , 2nd one didn't pay , 3rd one paid instantly hoofuckingray 

He's only 80 miles away and it's very fragile so I offered to deliver it Wednesday 

The guy is made up , we make arrangements 

Just checked and ,"changed my mind, can I cancel ", what a twat 

So now I've got to wait for another low fees weekend before I can list it again

At least you can block all three from bidding again.

[High Jetter]

15 minutes ago, Wack said:

Just checked and ,"changed my mind, can I cancel ", what a twat 

Just say no? Contracts are contracts.

[robinmasters]

10 hours ago, Talbot said:

I heard rumor once that if the variable speed limits are not turned on, the speed cameras are set to something very high indeed, 95mph or something like that, in order to catch only the very worst (and completely indefensible) offenders.  Would make a lot of sense:  a fair balance between being cash scameras and actually catching the worst speeders.

That's my experience. 

I've been flashed loads of times at work (normally by old ladies rather than speed cameras), and that fits with my experience.  I've never been flashed on the motorway (rarely get above 95mph, 100 downhill is pretty much all our vans can manage), and non-motorway cameras seem to be triggered way over the speed limit-30mph area cameras rarely go off if you're doing less than 50mph.  

Having said that, I've been done in my own car for doing 37 in a 30.  

[High Jetter]

4 minutes ago, robinmasters said:

been flashed loads of times at work (normally by old ladies rather than speed cameras)

Yea, you wish! 🤣

[Wack]

7 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Just say no? Contracts are contracts.

That might be the law but not ebay law , if i make him complete all that'll happen is he'll say is it's arrived faulty , ebay will initiate the return which i'll pay for and it'll arrive back in 27 pieces because he just threw it in a box , I'll claim from ebay and they'll reject it because I could've sent it like that, instead of having a £1000 worth of hifi i'll have £100 worth of spare parts

Been there, got the T shirt

[Wack]

7 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Yea, you wish! 🤣

In the late 70s a mate of mine was a builder , he was 20 and really good looking , he dreaded the shoe factory jobs, it was all middle aged women in the machine rooms, they'd be touching him up, showing him boob cleavage and cat calling him as he walked around.

A 100 women in a group were way worse than anything 100 men would do

[GrumpiusMaximus]

18 hours ago, Fumbler said:

To be fair, I always get the shivers going past a speed camera even if I'm going 5MPH below the limit. I think that's mainly down to the New Driver Act.

I managed to get three points three months after passing my test back in 2006.  They'd turned a speed camera around that I had been been there for over a decade facing the other way.  40 in 30.  Bang to rights.

Luckily it didn't have that much of an effect on my insurance but I really did take it slow until the probationary period ended.  I still take it easy.  Was in South Wales a couple of weeks ago and there was a camera van on a 50 stretch that must have caught a lot of people - but fortunately not me doing 50...

Good luck mate.

[paulplom]

I got flashed by a camera in my seat leon about five years ago. It took about 6 weeks for the nip to come through the post. The letter had a picture of my car heading towards them from miles away. I wrote back saying there's no way I can remember who's driving from six weeks ago. They sent another letter with the photo zoomed right in showing me behind the wheel.

Fucking good cameras those fuckers.

It's also bollox about them having to contact you within two weeks. I saw a solicitor about it at the time.

[New POD]

9 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Just say no? Contracts are contracts.

Distance selling regulations mean, that they have a right to change thier minds. 

[Talbot]

1 hour ago, paulplom said:

It's also bollox about them having to contact you within two weeks. I saw a solicitor about it at the time.

It's written in to law that the NIP must be sent out to arrive with the registered keeper within 14 days of the alledged offence.  There is case law where the NIP arrived on day 16 and it was thrown out of court.  It's not bollox at all.

[sierraman]

43 minutes ago, Talbot said:

It's written in to law that the NIP must be sent out to arrive with the registered keeper within 14 days of the alledged offence.  There is case law where the NIP arrived on day 16 and it was thrown out of court.  It's not bollox at all.

Talbot QC 🤣🤣🤣

[Talbot]

6 minutes ago, sierraman said:

Talbot QC 🤣🤣🤣

Not at all.  I can just read other sites:

www.pepipoo.com 
http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php

The case law in question if you're interested: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2009/2924.html

[sierraman]

[Tadhg Tiogar]

42 minutes ago, sierraman said:

But even he had to defer to She Who Must Be Obeyed 

[Wack]

5 hours ago, New POD said:

Distance selling regulations mean, that they have a right to change thier minds. 

Not when buying from private sellers , if it's not as described they can send it back but in reality it's just easier to cancel it even if you don't have to because eBay is so weighted towards the buyer if he wants his money back he's getting it. 

[Wack]

5 hours ago, paulplom said:

I got flashed by a camera in my seat leon about five years ago. It took about 6 weeks for the nip to come through the post. The letter had a picture of my car heading towards them from miles away. I wrote back saying there's no way I can remember who's driving from six weeks ago. They sent another letter with the photo zoomed right in showing me behind the wheel.

Fucking good cameras those fuckers.

It's also bollox about them having to contact you within two weeks. I saw a solicitor about it at the time.

Years ago my mechanic got a ticket in a customer's car , neither of them could remember what time it was picked up so they asked for proof of who was driving 

They got a picture of the mechanic driving a robin hood sports car looking over the top of the window frame so there was no disputing that one 

[Zelandeth]

Could the people of Milton Keynes stop coming up with new and creative ways to be utter assholes?

Sitting in the middle lane of a signal controlled roundabout, patiently waiting for the lights to change.  Windows are all open as I had the dogs in the car.

Suddenly it sounded for all the world like I was under automatic gunfire.  The guy in the red Seat Ibiza immediately to my right had decided that sitting and bouncing his car off the rev limiter was a good way to pass the time.  Of course he's one of the pop and bang bunch who we have to listen to every night from down by the train station where they race each other, do burnouts, etc every single night.  It's about a mile from us but you can still clearly hear it.  Loud enough that my ears were ringing afterwards.

Good job I had the handbrake on or I'd have ended up in the roundabout probably with a bus in the side of my car as I just ducked and holding my foot on the brake was about the last thing on my mind.

One of the dogs (who was harnessed in) I discovered several seconds later had materialised in the passenger footwell and was cowering there, sans both harness and collar which were both still in the back.  She has serious, serious anxiety problems at the best of times...and is now terrified of getting into the car.  Oh what fun.

I'd have noted the reg and reported it (for all the good that would do) but they had one of those greyed out plates and it was completely unreadable from anything more than about two feet away.

Why the fsck did I ever move here?

 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

... ... they had one of those greyed out plates and it was completely unreadable from anything more than about two feet away....

That's the whole point.

Sections 59 and 60 of the 2002 Police Reform Act are supposed to cover antisocial driving and seizure of vehicles driven in an antisocial manner, but it needs the fuzz to get loads of complaints about the driving in the first place and for the police to witness it themselves. 🤷‍♂️

Report it here

[High Jetter]

21 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Why the fsck did I ever move here?

Beats me. I went there once and hated the place, have never been back.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

27 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Beats me. I went there once and hated the place, have never been back.

Could be worse. Could be Lutonistan or Peterhorror.

[Fumbler]

17 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Could be worse. Could be Lutonistan or Peterhorror.

Or, even worse:

The citadel of Basingrad.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

5 minutes ago, Fumbler said:

Or, even worse:

The citadel of Basingrad.

Is that the same as Blazingbroke?

[Fumbler]

3 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Is that the same as Blazingbroke?

I believe so. We went through it once. It tried to absorb us.

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, High Jetter said:

Beats me. I went there once and hated the place, have never been back.

Sadly the answer is a boringly sensible one of "because it's where the work was." My husband had spent well over a year looking for work in Aberdeen and anywhere local to where we were without any luck.  Then Cranfield Uni offered them a job at nearly twice what I was on.  Ticked all the right boxes.

Just hadn't realised how much this area had gone downhill in the intervening ten or so years since I'd spent any real time here.  It used to be quite a laid back town.  Strange as all hell layout, but the place quietly, unexcitingly just worked.  The amount of vandalism and antisocial behaviour these days and general impatience and assholery you see every day has increased by several orders of magnitude since I started visiting the area in 2003.

1 hour ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

That's the whole point.

Sections 59 and 60 of the 2002 Police Reform Act are supposed to cover antisocial driving and seizure of vehicles driven in an antisocial manner, but it needs the fuzz to get loads of complaints about the driving in the first place and for the police to witness it themselves. 🤷‍♂️

Report it here

Did I mention there was a police car two cars behind me, so one car to the left and behind him.  Closer to the exhaust than I was.

Unless they intend to just use their dash cam footage to send them a summons in the post, they ignored it.

Given the tone of every experience I've had with the police since moving here I've just stopped bothering even trying now.

Sooner we can bugger off 400 miles north of here again the better.

[Remspoor]

18 hours ago, wuvvum said:

Presumably though in the case of automated speed cameras (rather than a copper at the side of the road with a radar gun) it's now become more complicated since Brexit for EU police forces to pursue UK drivers?

As far as I know, nothing has changed. You will not get points but you will receive a fine.

 

[Pieman]

10 hours ago, Wack said:

In the late 70s a mate of mine was a builder , he was 20 and really good looking , he dreaded the shoe factory jobs, it was all middle aged women in the machine rooms, they'd be touching him up, showing him boob cleavage and cat calling him as he walked around.

A 100 women in a group were way worse than anything 100 men would do

But they of course would get away with it and he'd be laughed at if he complained, because sexual harassment only works one way and men cannot be victims...