The grumpy thread

[timolloyd]

Just got renewal from coop  insurance for my 1976 Volvo 940.Its gone up from just over £300 to just under £500.

Got 8 years no claims.

Any suggestions on where to try.

 

I signed up to quidco.com, used their comparison tool and ended up with elephant.co.uk. Saved £100 on my V70 policy, plus £25 cash back

[castros_bro]

Thank you for that, guys, that really does help.  I've got time on my side at the moment because I've got very little commission work in so I should be able to devote it to some ideas and try and get some prints and stuff set up.  I'm really not using online services to their full potential, I think I've been too focused on producing one-off pieces and the poor response to printed items (in terms of actual sales) I've had in the past.

 

I reckon Mini, Minor, Beetle and MX-5 are probably the best ones to go for at the moment and I've already got two popular Mini and Minor pieces I can use in my portfolio.  Feeling more positive about that now that I've got a new direction to explore.

 

Ping me over a few pics (with your watermark on) and I'll do you some free quality A4 card copies and post cards at work then you'll see it they could shift them.

[Timewaster]

Vulg. Have a look at Cafe press.

I've bought a keep hot mug from from a Facebook group with a meme on it for my Mrs.

When it didn't arrive, the Facebook group owner explained that she had nothing to do with the merchandise, she just generated orders and cafepress produce and dispatch and play her a cut.

Some of those negative space pics might go well on mugs etc.

Maybe you could apply the same technique to other things that geeks might splash out on. ZX81 or PS1 stuff like that.

Far better to do one drawing and sell it over and over.

I'm amazed you make anything doing one offs.

Then again I'm amazed people can sell threaded pool balls for a living too!

[chaseracer]

As someone who actually works for them, as a recovery driver, this isn't so.

 

I defer willingly, but this is not how they present themselves.

[chaseracer]

I signed up to quidco.com, used their comparison tool and ended up with elephant.co.uk. Saved £100 on my V70 policy, plus £25 cash back

 

Do you get spammed to death, or is that an urban myth?

[skattrd]

I get probably 2 emails a week from quidco ... I've earned over £1k cashback through them.

[timolloyd]

Do you get spammed to death, or is that an urban myth?

 

Not that I'm aware of. But I'm pretty ruthless with the spam filters

[andy18s]

Pedestrian-only lane on campus.

 

IMG_20160609_155659924.jpg

 

IMG_20160609_155712115_HDR.jpg

 

KNOOOOOOB.

 

I actually went back to my office and got one of those horrendous* no parking stickers out of my drawer (I have a stock of proper official university ones from my colleagues in the estates department) and just as I came back to it, the guy was firing it up. DOUBLE KNOB.

 

 

 

*I mean it. They're really sticky and break up into tiny pieces when you try to peel them off.

I have to ask,did you still apply the sticker whilst he was there? Or say anything?.......

[New POD]

I get probably 2 emails a week from quidco ... I've earned over £1k cashback through them.

 

Sometimes I check out the price on a work computer, with fake details, before using quidco at home, and reckon that occasionally the price is higher by the amount of the cashback. 

In 4 years about £1200 cashback.

 

That said, I've been using it to get hotel rooms via hotels.com, price checked on trivago at work, then ordered via a link from quidco at home, and collection of reward points. So far I have 3 spare nights to use.  If I was responsible for booking tickets at a place of employment, I'd definitely be scamming my boss for both cashback and points,

[myglaren]

Next time you do this, rub the affected areas of your skin with a piece of butter.

I wish I had thought of that last night.

I bought some orange oil and put one single drop in the bath.

Shortest bath I have ever had.  Two minutes rather than two hours.  Had to leap out and take a long cold shower.

Turned bright red and it felt like a nettle bath.

Must be allergic to that as well

[Richard]

I've had my Kia 15 months now and I still stall the fucking thing 2/3 times a day. It's pissing me right off now, I think it's going to have to go.

 

I know ultimately it's my balls up but unless you're slipping the clutch, it just dies. I managed to stall it going downhill yesterday, somehow.

 

Don't replace it with a TDCI Transit.

[Pillock]

Not sure about Quidco, but I've just had a to-do with TopCashback - I signed up for a Vodafone contract via their site, and they refused the cashback. Apparently they couldn't trace that I'd linked directly to the Vodafone site from theirs, and that it was probably caused by not clearing my cache, cookies and browser history before visiting - WHAT?

What annoyed me even more is that I tweeted them about it, and they DMed me back. So I kept putting up a running commentary of what they were messaging me with, but they were mega-keen on keeping bad press off Twitter. Every time I tweeted, they messaged me so there was no visibility of their "Yeah, we're not giving you anything" reply. Twats.

 

Anyway - Vulg, there's a really good idea up there. Geek stuff. Something like a negative space of a Sinclair ZX Spectrum keyboard, I can imagine it front quarter view with the front and side of each key, and the coloured stripes, but then loads of whitespace. I'd have that on a t-shirt. I'd probably have it as a tattoo in fact. Geeks pay money.

Also, get some stock together, and get your arse to a Comicon event. Not necessarily the NEC, but they do loads of small ones now where you can just have a table for fifty quid or summat. There's quite a small one in Leicester for example, upstairs in a pub. I see the same people go to lots of the small ones, like the Retro Draughtsman, and they do a cracking trade since they steer clear of crap like piles and piles of Vinyl Pops.

[Supernaut]

Don't replace it with a TDCI Transit.

The one at my work is fine, but it's a 13 reg. Is it just the newest shape ones that are bad for stalling?

 

I do remember the discussion on here about transits stalling but can't remember if it was exclusively the newest of new ones.

[eddyramrod]

My 63-plate (old shape) Transit likes to stall if I don't give it enough beans pulling out of a junction.  Makes me look like a rank amateur either way!

[HH-R]

My brother says his 16 plate connect is a pig for stalling and takes too long to start again.

I was particularly annoyed today 'cos I ended up blocking a busy traffic light controlled junction, tried to start it again but didn't crank it long enough so it didn't catch (cold engine), then it wouldn't start because it was presumably flooded... then I got that lovely grinding starter motor teeth noise.

[vulgalour]

Trouble with doing geek culture stuff is I'm not massively up on it.  I have some geekery of my own but not a lot.  Reckon I'm going to focus on building up some negative space stuff as that seems to be garnering some decent interest lately and go from there.  I've seen other artists offering really nasty negative space digital works where it's clearly just a filter applied to a photograph with no real thought behind what bits to blank and what bits to leave in, just letting the computer programme do the work for them.  They look really sterile and lazy and don't really capture what the subject matter is.  Wow, that sounded pretentious... but I know what I mean and I guess they're making more money than me producing them so they win.

 

 

The biggest problem for me is that I don't have a very commercial brain.  What I like drawing, things like this Toyota, just aren't popular enough to be commercial.

 

While things I'm ambivalent about, like this Ford, are much more popular.

 

That's the rub for me.  I probably could make more money if I just catered to the boring shit like Ford Escorts and Muhguhbuhs and Campervans and Minis but then I'd have to put up with the knuckledraggers and flatcaps that go along with that and I think I'd rather scoop my own eyes out with blunt sporks.  I went into this to get away from all that mind-numbing normality and do something interesting and rewarding with my life but I know that's not the most commercially sensible approach.

 

Striking the balance is not easy.  I know I can get more popular with more commercial topics but I know from experience how easily that can take over and how difficult it is to pull back from ending up trapped doing work you don't enjoy at all just so you earn more cash.  The last thing I want to end up doing is sucking the joy out of my chosen career path because the joy is why I decided to do it.  I nearly gave up a few years ago when I found myself chasing money and watching the quality of my work stagnating and even declining and ended up hating the work I was doing because I was doing it for the joy of others and having no enjoyment for myself.  There is nothing worse than have a job that's a chore, no matter what field that is, and it seems magnified when you're working from home because you can't escape it like you can when you work in a separate building.

 

Anyway, what I'll do is stick to the car stuff for now because that's what I know.  I'll continue to add to my list of sites to investigate and explore and when I've drawn some new stuff I'll go from there.  I'll see if I can pull something interesting for me personally out of these vehicles that I find utterly mind-numbingly dull and present the market with something new and interesting but without being threateningly innovative for those that might want to spunk cash on it.

[Richard]

The one at my work is fine, but it's a 13 reg. Is it just the newest shape ones that are bad for stalling?

 

I do remember the discussion on here about transits stalling but can't remember if it was exclusively the newest of new ones.

 

My 13 plate used to be terrible for it. It's not so bad now, I don't know if that's because it's "loosened off" with use or because I've adapted my driving style.

 

It used to do it in the middle of roundabouts and busy junctions all the time. Not so much when moving off, when you might expect to stall, more when you were leaving a roundabout or turning off a road.

[cobblers]

They just turn themselves off on purpose when the engine RPM drops below like 650 or something, because the frequency of the individual power strokes down there is too low for the DMF to absorb and it whacks against the endstops and smashes to bits.

[daveb47]

I signed up to quidco.com, used their comparison tool and ended up with elephant.co.uk. Saved £100 on my V70 policy, plus £25 cash back

Just got reasonable quote through them.

I have till end of month left on old insurance so am considering changing to a smaller car.

[The Moog]

Vulg I have friend who is an artist and has the same dilemma. He has conquered it by allocating a % of time to passion work and % to money earners.

 

It helps with motivation but also pays the rent.

 

Alternatively go round silicon valley offering to spray paint their interiors in return for stock. The guy that did Facebook has effectively retired

[Tickman]

I am considering buying a commercial unit to keep all my shite in and work on it but I can't find any websites that seem to sell this sort of stuff to see if its doable as I have literally NO idea how much stuff like this costs.

 

I am looking or an industrial unit or workshop with room for storage but every website I visit is just trying to sell me a fucking business. Where can you view shizzle like this and see how much they go for?

Look on building surveyors websites, that is where most stock up here is, they are usually appalling at updating their sites and most common is the £ POA

which is really annoying.

This sort of thing.

http://www.andrewidle.co.uk/PropertySearch.aspx

http://www.starkeys.co.uk/our_services.php

 

Hillman Imp, I think you will have difficulty finding one to buy, most are to rent or lease. Commercial buildings are favourite with pension companies. Even if you do find one you may have difficulty getting it off commercial rates.

Regarding the business rates, you can just leave it (doesn't have to be a business) as the premises are rated but you get small business rate relief on them, it also goes up to a rather high value for rate relief. 

[cort16]

I had car buyer type 3954b today - the expert

 

I tried to explain I'd block tested the cooling system and the test came back negative . Na mate it's the head gasket I've had loads of these rovers they're bad for head gaskets .

 

What's the minimum you'd take? I don't want to pay your price I picked up a mint tobacco one with manual box for 1500 quid s couple of months ago so yours is too expensive .

Nice one, but I don't want to sell it for pennies

c u.

[Cavcraft]

When people turn up and start all that 'it's too expensive/my mate bought a brand new one for £2.50' bollocks just ask them why they turned up to view. That usually shuts the fuckers up as you close the garage door and walk away.

 

*Edited for rogue apostrophe.

[dave21478]

 

He re advertised it at market price and sold it within a couple of days.

 

 

 

 

This seems to be a very common thing. Selling stuff under value attracts the worst kind of people.

[dollywobbler]

I wonder if it's because sensible people think "it's too good to be true," so don't bother? I'm certainly wary of super-cheap stuff.

[Station]

I want to get my work out to a wider audience and generate better income but I'm struggling to work out just how to do that. I've started to plateau just lately on the income/time balance and I'm not earning enough per hour to get to my next target and can't figure out how to improve on this without working far too many hours a day.

 

My business model is non-standard and my product difficult to sell so I can't just look at how others do it and copy that. I have to fudge it until something works. I have to rely on social media and various fora to advertise my work, build an audience and attract paying customers. Sometimes this works very well, sometimes it doesn't. The biggest problem is being unable to pay for advertising and my lack of ability to maintain my own website and attract the relevant traffic.

 

I feel at the limit of what I know how to do and as a result my business risks stagnation and, ultimately, failure. Making the jump from where I am now to where I want to be is quite a gap to get across. I want to be free of financial support but I can't figure out how to make my work earn more without taking up all of my time. Artwork is labour intensive, materials are expensive and correspondence time-consuming. I can only devote so much time to everything and no matter how organised I am, there is never enough time to do what I feel I need to as well as all-important down time so I can recharge and keep the quality high enough.

 

I don't know who to ask for help or even what to ask but I feel I need to get this out into the open somewhere so it's not just rattling round my own head going unsolved.

You should review cars, but instead of photos, do art of it instead. It'll look really special.

[Station]

You can't take these flip-flopped, beer gutted, George cargo shorts and 'humorous' tshirt wearing, Stella guzzling muthafuckaz anywhere can you? Such a disappointment and embarrassment (the fans not the team). Fuck off and die.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36504410

[Bren]

Need a front o/s wing for the SD1. Not willing to pay rimmer prices - there postage costs inflate the price considerably.

 

Seen a few on ebay, however they are too far away to make a purchase viable - factor in diesel and time and you wouldbe as well getting one from Rimmers.

[The Moog]

Need a front o/s wing for the SD1. Not willing to pay rimmer prices - there postage costs inflate the price considerably.

 

Seen a few on ebay, however they are too far away to make a purchase viable - factor in diesel and time and you wouldbe as well getting one from Rimmers.

Can we shitely it? If you can stick up a post I am sure we can help

[Bren]

Somebody in Sheffield has a pair for sale but wants £70 each.

 

£30 in diesel for me and 160 mile round trip - i'm oot.