The grumpy thread

[Andrew353w]

Ah, at last, my most HATED company, The Carphone Warehouse (A.K.A. The Carphone Whorehouse!) has had a mention... Ever studied their TV ads?? "Home phone for £6.49 per month"... If you have a 3 square mile HD plasma screen you MIGHT just be able to see the small print.... Phone connection £11.49 per month, payment by direct debit, deposit required etc. etc., Oh, and staff who can't speak English, lie to you about the prices/contracts/free minutes/free texts etc., and end every sentence with "great, innit?" NO IT F@@KING ISN'T!" There, I feel better now! Thanks for letting me get that off my chest!

[pompei]

When I lost my job in 2007, I got in touch with about a dozen agencies. Then guess what - a big fat NOWT. No calls returned, no emails answered, nothing. Then about a month ago one of them left a phone message asking if I still wanted to be on their books. Idiots.

[pogweasel]

LOL. Recruitment 'consultants' are a species of sub-human moronity very closely related to the estate agent. ALL of them are total twunts, and usually have no control over the volume of their voices - NO NEED TO SHOUT!Total arsebiscuits the lot of them, you call them up, they do f*ck all, then guaranteed when you DO have lots of work they'll keep ringing you every 5 seconds with 'great opportunities'. Although it quickly becomes apparent that these 'great opportunities' are in fact 'great opportunities' to work in some inhospitable, muddy hell-hole for the rest of your days working 20 hours a day and being paid for 8. No thanks, anyway. When I worked at that there engineering consultants, we used to get folk sent from agencies for interviews, most of them were totally incapable, and even the ones we did employ, largely through desperation, were pretty damn useless. Also, these agencies never seem to update their websites, so you apply for a job only to find it was filled in 2004. Cunts. Only once have I found a decent 'agency' type bloke, he didn't seem very interested in his job, forgot to tell me important stuff all the time etc, however he was a genuinely nice guy and didn't seem too bothered when me and the client cut him out of the loop. I think the agency sacked him.

[Guest]

The Carphone Warehouse is rubbish, I went in there last week to get my NovAtel installed and they just looked at me like I was mad, I asked them if they had any alternative car phones and they told me they didn't do any - how on earth do they hope to survive with a business model like that? What a gyp.Tell you what, they've lost my custom - probably done myself a favour though, I'm going to give Hutchison a ring about this Rabbit phone they do, there's transmitters all over the UK apparently.

[Albert Ross]

I used to live in a little cul-de-sac in a large conglomeration of estates to the west of Lincoln (8 years ago) and had a collection of about 16 Sierras, a couple of Land rovers, a few Peugeots, an unbuilt sectional garage, a few engine cranes, a pile of engines/gearboxes/axles, you know the scenario. I worked at a city centre MOT station, and was never in much, normally doing favours for mates etc.....I had a letter from the Environmental Health Dept., in reference to the cars and spares. Turns out, I had been reported for the cars..............the noise of the engines running "all the time" and the smell of the exhausts etc....I invited them for a visit, to show me which cars were making all the noise......they showed me photographs, taken from a viewpoint ON my property, and revealed that they were told by a "neighbour" which cars......I opened them all up and lifted the bonnets....no engine, no engine, head missing, rod through the block, etc,etc,etc. The guy who reported me lived on the same side of the road as me, not oposite, and a good hundred yards before my house. He didn't even need to come this far up the street, as he could drive into and out of his drive for access. But he decided at this point, that it was his right to complain, as it affected his enjoyment and the curtilege of his property. Or summat like that....... I was fined £100, and that was just a slap on the wrist....The Environment agency agreed that he had tried to force the situation, and also charged him for false information. It turns out the noise was his direct neighbour on the next street, as in via the back garden. I knew this guy, he owned a Ducati.....seems it got louder within a week.............The bloke who reported me, then bought a Mini, which had a few faults. Guess who he asked to fix it..............I started to do the repairs, then became unavailable! HAH! Wanker!

[Negative Creep]

There are just some complete wankers out there. Most of these aggressive wankers are in fact, wimps. Stand up to someone and they will back off. I've never started a fight and certainly don't look intimidating, but I find standing your ground works wonders.Some people, usually old, really have a thing about "their" space. Oddly enough different people park outside my house every day, yet I've never felt obliged to shout at them

[Pillock]

Recruitment agencies - I've always found them strangely useful. I went to one in my uni summer holidays, and they sent me around to a memorial masons. Great job, absolutely brilliant, loved it. The only weird thing is that after three weeks he'd told them I'd left, because my boss was paying me directly. I was instructed not to answer the phone to them, and if I answered the work phone and it was them on the line to pretend to be someone else.It worked well because when he started getting a bit 'slow' with pay packets, I suggested I might ring said agency and ask if they were meant to be paying me again as he'd stopped. I got paid about an hour later :)Mobile phone use whilst driving. Yesterday, going though a junction, I noticed a guy in a Mk2 Golf with his phone wedged against his head with his shoulder.... I say noticed, it was because I'd just had to brake slightly for a car turning left in front of me, and he'd shat himself and locked the front wheels up through lack of concentration.He followed me for about 2 miles.... next junction, I was in the left turn lane and he was alongside me, at the front of the queue to turn right. Still on the phone. Left arrow goes green, I move off, he sees me moving and pulls off too - against the red light, into the cars still going across in front of him, barely missing a fast-moving 7.5 tonne truck.

[dollywobbler]

Gawd, sodding mobile phones. I think I'm just going to ram the next person I see sending text messages behind the wheel. Cop's'll check their phone and I'll get loads of money. Excellent.I just cannot believe some people. Suddenly, yacking into a phone doesn't seem half so bad as driving along AT MOTORWAY SPEEDS staring into a bit of plastic on your lap. What's more irritating is that people almost cause huge pileups, and it doesn't fucking stop them!!Seriously. Please allow me to carry a gun so I can clear the roads of these idiots.

[pbottomley]

They should make sat nav's illegal as well, goons driving up motorways looking at the sat nav not the bloody road! Its almost like they think once you have a sat nav no need to look anymore.Whilst I am on the subject people are thick, guy at work sets his sat nav each day to get him home... FFS doesn't he know where he lives?

[dollywobbler]

Sat navs - don't ban then - I need one in the Alfa so I know how fast I'm going...Agency workers - I used to work in IT. We paid some people over £1000 PER DAY. I ended up on £200 pd as a contractor, with an agency probably getting £30pd on top of that. Granted, I had to pay a fair wallop of tax, but it was still enough for me to have a Rover 3500 in Tobacco Leaf as my daily... (well, and the 2CV of course!). Utterly soul destroying, so I quit for a shitty IT job as a staffer, and downsized to a 1.3 Maestro.I find that variety is the SHITE of life.

[pbottomley]

Using a sat nav as a speedo is fine as most SHITE box's have failed speedo's or in the case of my old 405 a speedo that cannot make its mind up between 100 mph and 20 mph.However using a say nav as a method of steering is not acceptable, late at night I see the neon glow on the dash on the car in front, and accept that its going to be lane changing at the last second when they get to the roundabout as the twunt in front cannot read road signs so has to have TOMTOM do it for him.How bad can it get, a mate left Exeter one day to meet me in Reading,(M5 - M4 simple right?) He calls me up some hours later to say the box of tricks has taken him to Stafford services... he didn't read a sign and didn't question it once as he drove north onto the M6, and only stopped for fuel at the services and thought "Hold on a second...."

[Pillock]

I often have the satnav running on drives I know, since I've got fancy-pants Nokia Maps with Traffic Gubbins (not it's real name) and it does tell me if there's a tailback on the motorway. I don't mind driving out of my way, I do mind sitting in traffic.

 

That, and I can set a 'landmark' for interesting spots when I don't have my camera, and then it'll plot a nice day out going between all the spots to take photos when I have a spare day

 

Plus, you can steer with satnav. It gives you quite a good impression in 2D view of whether the corner coming up is a hairpin, slight curve, chicane or whatever so you can wallop the brakes harder if there's a tight curve that the council can't afford to signpost.

[pogweasel]

Disagree with being able to 'steer' by satnav, but that's my opinion. Previously I have ranted and railed against sat-nav, but I have found a bonus:This week I have been working on a "GEOSENSE" job, basically you have to find an exact spot in the countryside and put a 3d GPS co-ord against it. Now OBV we use some pretty smart kit to do this as we are looking for 30mm accuracy, but they provide us with a 4-figure OS co-ord for the point. So you have a look at the OS map, and translate that to a 6-figure co-ord, bosh that into the TWAT NAV and go, no need for a navigator, it takes you to within 100m of the point and 9 times out of 10 you can see where you need to be. A couple of points were a bit confusing in urban areas where 100m can cover 3 terraced streets, and I had one point where it tried to take me down a road that did not exist: just a wet field full of sheep... and of course after 4 days with pretty much no human contact you go a bit mad, and I found myself speaking out loud the John Cleese clockwise line "We don't need a road.... IT'S GRASS", but otherwise, useful in that instance. It's the cunts who use it to navigate totally obvious routed who irritate me. Then again I did have fun 'beating the clock' coming home.... I was in a totally remote part of the North York Moors when I got done, plopped in my home post-code and it told me I would be home at 18:05, got home at 17:38, which felt good, especially considering my shitty little van is totally unbearable at anything more than 73mph....

[Pillock]

I used to have iGo satnav on my phone, had a great feature that would 'freeze' the map and just show your position on it moving around. you could drive off the end of it.Needless to say, the grid of council estates around here turned driving to the chinese into a huge expensive game of Pac Man, except without the baddie ghosts.

[pogweasel]

I think you need to get out moar, Pillock. The only "interesting" bit of my sat-nav is when you go through a motorway junction not on the map, like what with all the faffing about they did on the A1/M62 at Ferrybridge, where your little car icon starts driving through empty space. Would be moar fun if they made it bounce about on non-existant grass and spray the blue car with brown clag.

[Guest]

That bit is quite funny, you can watch people who aren't familiar with it disappear off the sliproad and then reappear later.

[pogweasel]

Yeah, probably folk like Mrs_Pog who will blindly follow the TWATNAV. I mean, how hard can it be!"Turn in 17 miles" it says. It's the A1. It goes to our house, there's no "turn" to make. I can go from my bosses' gaff near edinburgh to my house on 5 different roads. You do not need a sat-nav for this!

[chester drawers]

Sport bike owners who can’t seem to find the throttle. Why not overtake all the cars in the queue on principle, then proceed at between 30 and 40 mph in the national speed limit area that follows, leaving a trail of chaos in your wake. Buy a Honda Cub you numpty. I’d love to see someone make matching leathers for one of those mind. Perhaps Alexei Sayle could model them?

[155V6]

Selfish parking A Post Office I deliver to has a handy layby outside,it's big enough for 3 large cars if they're parked sensibly.However,if there's one car there already,I can guarantee that the car I'm following on the way there will pull into the layby & manage to park across both the remaining spaces,meaning I have to park across the road on double yellow lines

[Mr H Sceptre]

  r.welfare said:

The thing is, the 9-3 was better looking before they messed up the front and rear lights.

 

 

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[AlsoMike]

  155V6 said:

Selfish parking A Post Office I deliver to has a handy layby outside,it's big enough for 3 large cars if they're parked sensibly.However,if there's one car there already,I can guarantee that the car I'm following on the way there will pull into the layby & manage to park across both the remaining spaces,meaning I have to park across the road on double yellow lines

You should see the way the apparently blind residents of my street park outside my house. There is only on-road parking on my street and it's only down one side. The bit outside my house can fit 5 cars easily, so why is it that every time I come home some fool has managed to fill space for 2 cars with their Toyota Rav4 or Citroen Picasso. God. It means I have to park 2 streets away just because they have no car control or spatial awareness. And don't get me started on the knobber who hasn't got a permit and insists on parking 2 inches from my car EVERY TIME. That's great for me getting out of the space with no powering steering and wide tyres. Arse.

[Cavcraft]

Sat Nav, how appropriate:Thanks a twatting lot RAC Sat Nav system for telling me to take the fourth turn off a roundabout which lead down a country lane then told me to turn round and take the fifth exit when there was only fucking four. Then for pissing me about and making me miss turn offs and spending God knows how long going round Wokshy, sorry, Worksop.To the COMPLETE WANKER in the blue Kia Oldduffer Spackback for driving at 20.1 bastarding miles an hour for FUCKING MILES on the way to Skegness (more about that place in a minute) you twat.Skegness: Dole cheat capital of the East coast? I reckon one in about five people were using disablity scooters the vast majority of who were fat sweaty bastards who could soon use their feet to run into pound shops or lug shit loads of shopping round. Hats off the bloke with one at Skegness Model Village who was doing the garden and using a spade like a whirling dervish though, that'll take some beating.Skegness: The town that manners forgot. Hell yeah, just walk out in front of me, cross my path, barge into me or ride your fucking disability scooter straight into my kids ankles then look shocked when asked to apologise you morons.

[pbottomley]

I was going to link to a picture of a road atlas, and call it "old school sat nav" but after some looking I found this.

 

 

 

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2967876.html

[Guest]

  Cavette said:

Sat Nav, how appropriate:Thanks a twatting lot RAC Sat Nav system for telling me to take the fourth turn off a roundabout which lead down a country lane then told me to turn round and take the fifth exit when there was only fucking four. Then for pissing me about and making me miss turn offs and spending God knows how long going round Wokshy, sorry, Worksop.To the COMPLETE WANKER in the blue Kia Oldduffer Spackback for driving at 20.1 bastarding miles an hour for FUCKING MILES on the way to Skegness (more about that place in a minute) you twat.Skegness: Dole cheat capital of the East coast? I reckon one in about five people were using disablity scooters the vast majority of who were fat sweaty bastards who could soon use their feet to run into pound shops or lug shit loads of shopping round. Hats off the bloke with one at Skegness Model Village who was doing the garden and using a spade like a whirling dervish though, that'll take some beating.Skegness: The town that manners forgot. Hell yeah, just walk out in front of me, cross my path, barge into me or ride your fucking disability scooter straight into my kids ankles then look shocked when asked to apologise you morons.

You just wait until Hirst sees this

[Milford Cubicle]

Hey, get a better sat nav.My Garmin rarely puts me wrong, I'd be lost without it sometimes. It does like to take the odd shortcut in the countryside though, diverting me off an A-road and on to a single track for a few miles, then taking me back on to the A-road is its favourite trick.. It might be shorter, but it isn't quicker!

[Gompo]

  Cavette said:

Skegness.

Although I've not visited many, I think this can be said about many 'out of the way' coastal resorts and I guess many out of the way places. I used to look at them fondly, thinking they'd be quaint; full of either retired people or well off people who wanted to get away from it all.What you get instead is a place full of wasters on benefit. There's no enterprise there thus no jobs. I guess anyone youngish with a brain buggers off to uni and then finds residence elsewhere - dont blame them. I've worked in Whitby a few times in the last 12 months. HORRIBLE place, I suppose especially in the holiday off season.

[Cavcraft]

To be fair the resort wasn't actually too bad and we knew it wasn't fugging massive or anything.I expect seaside resorts to be a bit tacky in some respects but places like Blackpool for example sort of seem to know they're a bit crap but you can still have a good time and, as always, it's what you make of it.There was some quality shite about too: countless Rover 25 and 45s, a cracking Anglia 105E with wide arches, roll cage and door numbers, unlimited Korean and Japanese shiteboxes and the creme-de-la-creme on the way back of an absolutely stunning 1976-ish pale blue Renner 5 that was in box fresh condition.*Extra Brucie bonus in that Skeggy didn't have the very worse shop known to man, aka the abject horror that is Primemark (or Prime Evil as Cavette Jr and I call it). Row upon row, floor upon floor of fucking cheap nasty shite and yet the missus and the little u'n love the sodding place

[pompei]

Tim Westwood and his Pimp my Ride show.The infant was watching Thomas the Tank Engine on dvd and when it finished this was on the telly. Why does a 40 y/o bloke talk like he's one of da kitz from da hood and why do the morons on the programme think it's cool to stick wanky bodykitz and a million watt stereo in these sheds? Hey dude, your car is really special now. Special needs more like. What a crowd of half-wits.

[pogweasel]

Westwood is [amazingly] over 50. And yes, PMRUK is utter bollocks. I watched it today again, it was totally depressing seeing what they did to that lad's Fiat Panda. Bling 17in rims on a 750cc Panda must make for an interesting driving experience. The one they on that lads Anglia 105E made me hurl my shoes at the telly.

[pompei]

Never saw that one, thank the lord. In fact have only ever seen a couple.The preview of next week's monstrosity, a Capri with bonnet bulge even had Mrs P wincing.