The grumpy thread

[Split_Pin]

I sympathise with you. We have a long straight country road at the back of us and it's regularly used by boy racers in their STs. Thankfully it's separated from us by a railway line on a high embankment so we don't really hear it inside the house but I always say that I'm glad I don't live near it. Trains are far preferable as noise because they are a regular and consistent sound and sometimes you get a Class 37 ?

It's a hard one to fix. A village near us suddenly became very busy because whoever was responsible for upgrading the nearby motorway, had the stupidity to delete a sliproad so drivers who wanted to use the motorway had to travel through the village to get to the next sliproad . The residents campaigned and got a total of EIGHTEEN speed humps and 5 single-file chicanes built in the 1/2 mile stretch of road. 

Unfortunately for them, the cars literally had nowhere else to go to get to the motorway so traffic went from speeding , busy but free flowing to extremely busy and congested, with long queues to get through, even off peak. So now the air quality there is terrible.

Is there a way you can record the activity and somehow lobby your local MP ? How inconvenient would it be to close one end of the street completely? I have seen that happen quite a lot in towns to stop this kind of thing.

[Angrydicky]

I think we definitely need something. I can’t stand speed bumps but a speed scamra or two would probably improve things.

I’d love to see the road closed off at one end but all it would do sadly is move all the boy racer traffic to the other routes to the seafront, like The Fairway and Hobleythick Lane. Both of these are horrendously congested already, which is why they come up our road, to avoid the long queues. Also the local hospital is around the corner and the road is the quickest route for ambulances going to/from A&E to the A127. We don’t mind them, especially as the traffic lights are at the other end of the road so they rarely come past us with the sirens on.

[Angrydicky]

I’d be much happier hearing railway noise too! At least trains don’t have fart can exhausts or pumping bass...

[loserone]

Seriously, can you not just have a word with him? He thinks he's cool but as soon as he realises he's being so antisocial it is no longer cool.  

 

Make it not about you, e.g. your neighbour's dogs go crazy every time he goes past and are being distressed by it.

[loserone]

Or, you know, move north.

[320touring]

3 minutes ago, loserone said:

Or, you know, move north.

Racing pigeons are much quieter than boy racers.

[loserone]

To be fair I live on the A689, this morning was a stream of hot Clios, Civic Type-Rs, an integra, etc.  Lots of bikes too.  All enjoying themselves.

 

We're right on the bridge too, so it's effectively a chicane leading to an uphill straight.  Sounds great, different cars and bikes every day.

[Fumbler]

14 hours ago, mitsisigma01 said:

Sure it wasn't a spliff ? 

I followed a scooter twat down through a housing estate the other day, helmet high up on his head, spliff in mouth, helmetless teenage girl clinging onto the back of him looking pissed up as well. Idiots

Pretty sure it's just plain old cigs. Locals have seen him puffing away at laybys and it seems to be a regular thing. I don't know if weed has addictive properties or not though, so you could be right.

[loserone]

It does when you mix it with tobacco

[myglaren]

17 hours ago, loserone said:

@myglaren but you have bought it?

Bought a Civic.

[Fumbler]

31 minutes ago, loserone said:

It does when you mix it with tobacco

Indeed it will. Even then, I'd be surprised if he's getting high on a bike.

[Christine]

Is that black Alfa a fumbler car ?

[loserone]

54 minutes ago, Fumbler said:

Indeed it will. Even then, I'd be surprised if he's getting high on a bike.

The ignorance of youth.  I could ride a unicycle on "lots" of pints, and my mates* smoked and drove regularly when we were young.  

 

My dad used to ride his motorbike home from the pub after three pints to get the car, because it was safer.  

[somewhatfoolish]

18 hours ago, Angrydicky said:

My parents live on a road which is used as a rat run from the A127 to the seafront and back again. There’s a staggered crossroads almost opposite the house where the seafront traffic turns right. 

Now the neighbours here are great but the amount of boy racer twats flying past the house in their barried up shit is really pissing me off. I’ve been lying here in bed listening to it all, made worse by the fact the window is open as it’s a hot night.

I’m going to attempt to describe the sound I’ve been hearing all evening.

”WARRRRRRRP POP POP POP POP OOMTISHOOMTISHOOMTISH (shite music on da sub) EEEUUUURRRR (tyres squealing as they fly round the corner on the door handles) WARRRRRP POP POP POP” etc

The ridiculous popping and banging exhausts that the current crop of yoof all have on their “sick” Fiesta STs etc frighten the dog, he goes mad every time one goes off outside, also to cap it off some dickhead is letting off fireworks nearby as well.

Caltrops start to seem like a proportional response at this point.

[Fumbler]

27 minutes ago, Christine said:

Is that black Alfa a fumbler car ?

No, it's the neighbours' car. It's out of the drive because there was a scaffold up. Neighbours have always had Alfas and there's two more on the drive! The blue BMW is Brother Fumbler's new car.

[Christine]

I wouldn't notice a bmw

[AlsoMike]

I ordered a BFO shed for my garden in early May, something to use as a workshop/small garage. Website said delivery/lead time was 3 weeks, not bad i thought, so off we go. Order confirmation says delivery will be 5 weeks, not 3. Not the end of the world I thought, theres a potential delivery date in there, so i'll just wait, the world's gone mad recently etc. 5 weeks comes and goes without hearing anything so i email them, 'delays at the factory, could be another 4-6 weeks'... Fuxake I think. I'll wait some more. Well the 6 weeks goes by, and nothing. So today I emailed again ('dont call' the website says ' we dont have enough operators currently') and got a ludicrous long reply that included the line 'It is for these reasons and to be as honest as possible, we cannot give you any update as to when delivery will actually be. It could be a matter or weeks or a months'.... Arg. What a complete shower.

Just debating whether to cancel the order at the mo and build my own. Something like Colin Furze did in this video: 

 

EDIT: Order cancelled. I shall be ordering a fuckload of timber today to build my own.

[mitsisigma01]

Should of built your own, kit sheds are mostly shite nowadays unfortunately 

[Fumbler]

On 7/19/2020 at 5:21 PM, Christine said:

I wouldn't notice a bmw

Indeed, that's why I haven't made any posts on it. It's boring, leaks oil and the repair is estimated to take me 6 hours. Yeah no thanks. It's probably going to be even harder to sell than the P38.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

On 7/18/2020 at 10:51 PM, Angrydicky said:

My parents live on a road which is used as a rat run from the A127 to the seafront and back again. There’s a staggered crossroads almost opposite the house where the seafront traffic turns right. 

Now the neighbours here are great but the amount of boy racer twats flying past the house in their barried up shit is really pissing me off. I’ve been lying here in bed listening to it all, made worse by the fact the window is open as it’s a hot night.

I’m going to attempt to describe the sound I’ve been hearing all evening.

”WARRRRRRRP POP POP POP POP OOMTISHOOMTISHOOMTISH (shite music on da sub) EEEUUUURRRR (tyres squealing as they fly round the corner on the door handles) WARRRRRP POP POP POP” etc

The ridiculous popping and banging exhausts that the current crop of yoof all have on their “sick” Fiesta STs etc frighten the dog, he goes mad every time one goes off outside, also to cap it off some dickhead is letting off fireworks nearby as well.

Then there’s the Subaru’s etc with those ridiculous  drainpipe exhausts and dump valves, but they’re nowhere near as annoying as the popping and banging ones (usually Fords).

Also loads of excessively loud motorbikes tearing past the house at ridiculous speeds.

Why do so many people have dreadful sounding obnoxious exhausts on their cars?....

I used to visit a friend in "Sarfend" regularly in the early 2000s, and the barry culture - exhausts, ICE, garish paint schemes, floorpan neons, the works - was well-established by then. It probably was years before I ever went near the place.

The seafront stretch was Cruise City, at least until the Council fitted speed humps and chicanes. Back then I had the 635 and remember feeling completely out of place driving past the Barry boys.

I suggest you start investing in companies that make hearing aids and relief for lower back pain, because that's what the barry crowd will be needing when / if they get old.

 

[155V6]

Came home from work in the Laguna with the windows down & the big sunroof open & wondered whether it was worth trying to fix the aircon.

Of course,when I got home,the driver's window wouldn't go up properly.Looking online,it seems this is a common problem.

At least the parts to fix it are cheap.

[plasticvandan]

ECP have sent an email cancelling my order for a wing because their courier wong deliver it.great,so now I've got to try and find another one (not that easy for a rover 400) and try and claw back my money from them.severak emails have gone unanswered.pita as I have the paint coming tomorrow and was all set to do it,and haven't really got the spare cash at moment to get a replacement before I get the refund.

[wuvvum]

I bought a new driver's side wiper blade for the Renault 6 as the rubber was splitting.  Up until recently the wiper blades I normally buy had a little bag of different attachments in the packet.  This has now been replaced by a single "universal" attachment.  Which is great, except that the Renault has 5mm bayonet fitting wiper arms, which I used to be able to finagle the 7mm bayonet attachment onto well enough that it'd stay put, but that isn't possible with the new universal clip.  So I'm going to have to start buying "classic" wiper blades as they will be the only ones that fit.  A pair of 14" blades off eBay (should be 13" but I couldn't find any that size with the right fitting) is £10.99 so not exactly going to bankrupt me, but it's still an annoyance.

[New POD]

On 7/18/2020 at 10:51 PM, Angrydicky said:

My parents live on a road which is used as a rat run from the A127 to the seafront and back again. There’s a staggered crossroads almost opposite the house where the seafront traffic turns right. 

Now the neighbours here are great but the amount of boy racer twats flying past the house in their barried up shit is really pissing me off. I’ve been lying here in bed listening to it all, made worse by the fact the window is open as it’s a hot night.

I’m going to attempt to describe the sound I’ve been hearing all evening.

”WARRRRRRRP POP POP POP POP OOMTISHOOMTISHOOMTISH (shite music on da sub) EEEUUUURRRR (tyres squealing as they fly round the corner on the door handles) WARRRRRP POP POP POP” etc

The ridiculous popping and banging exhausts that the current crop of yoof all have on their “sick” Fiesta STs etc frighten the dog, he goes mad every time one goes off outside, also to cap it off some dickhead is letting off fireworks nearby as well.

Then there’s the Subaru’s etc with those ridiculous  drainpipe exhausts and dump valves, but they’re nowhere near as annoying as the popping and banging ones (usually Fords).

Also loads of excessively loud motorbikes tearing past the house at ridiculous speeds.

Why do so many people have dreadful sounding obnoxious exhausts on their cars?

There is also the fact that most of them are doing between 35 and 50 despite it being a residential 30mph area. It’s not just the barried stuff that’s guilty of speeding along here, a lot of modern prestige stuff like fat SUVs are guilty of it. Most of the neighbours, as well as us have lost wing mirrors from our parked cars due to how close and fast people come along the road. In our case the mirror was totally obliterated and no note was left.

With the  state of the surface of this road, I’m surprised they drive that fast really. 

I'm off to Uttoxeter to take back my house on the high street, Today.

Lodger has moved out, we've not been there since lockdown and I want to do a deep clean.  

It's on the High Street. During the week there is a constant stream of cars day and night, but that's not a problem. 

No the first weekend we stayed when we bought it, it was 9:30 pm to Midnight on a Friday and Saturday. It was like a race track. Every fucker seemed intent on getting to 100 mph in first gear, before braking for the bend further down. Lots of fiestas and scooter lacking in baffles. 

It was the hottest weekend of last year that we moved in. 

I wonder what it'll be like this week on our "Holiday" 

[New POD]

5 hours ago, wuvvum said:

I bought a new driver's side wiper blade for the Renault 6 as the rubber was splitting.  Up until recently the wiper blades I normally buy had a little bag of different attachments in the packet.  This has now been replaced by a single "universal" attachment.  Which is great, except that the Renault has 5mm bayonet fitting wiper arms, which I used to be able to finagle the 7mm bayonet attachment onto well enough that it'd stay put, but that isn't possible with the new universal clip.  So I'm going to have to start buying "classic" wiper blades as they will be the only ones that fit.  A pair of 14" blades off eBay (should be 13" but I couldn't find any that size with the right fitting) is £10.99 so not exactly going to bankrupt me, but it's still an annoyance.

Ive just thrown 4 lots of clips in the bin. 

[beko1987]

9 hours ago, 155V6 said:

Came home from work in the Laguna with the windows down & the big sunroof open & wondered whether it was worth trying to fix the aircon.

Of course,when I got home,the driver's window wouldn't go up properly.Looking online,it seems this is a common problem.

At least the parts to fix it are cheap.

My silver laguna did that to its rear windows. They got wedged up... The drivers one had done the same but been repaired before fairly bodgily, but it worked! 

Good luck getting them back up... 

[Borsuq]

Cars have gotten way too big. ?

Parked my Polonez, which was a reasonably big car back in its day, next to a Peugeot 307 and the FSO was absolutely dwarfed. What the shit.

Also, I just noticed how mahusive the current Fiesta is. It has absolutely no business being longer than 4m. Ridiculous!

[Tadhg Tiogar]

6 minutes ago, Borsuq said:

Cars have gotten way too big. ?

...

Time to adopt the Japanese method of taxation based on physical size?

[Borsuq]

6 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Time to adopt the Japanese method of taxation based on physical size?

I'd just put everyone in 126s.

If you need something huge you can have a VW Up!.

In all seriousness, I just wish carmakers regained their senses and stopped making everything so stupidily bloated. Imagine how much easier parking would be.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

1 minute ago, Borsuq said:

....I just wish carmakers regained their senses and stopped making everything so stupidily bloated. Imagine how much easier parking would be.

I wonder if making cars "safe" has led to drivers becoming "unsafe"