The grumpy thread

[Metal Guru]

2 hours ago, artdjones said:

You would probably be amazed at how many train travellers are public servants*  on expenses.

Well I realise that’s what 1st class is for.

[Zelandeth]

It's always worth checking 1st class though - when I took a trip from MK up to Glasgow a few years ago I checked the price for giggles...it was £2 more than standard!  Yes the free coffee was crap, but it was worth the £2!

[Metal Guru]

1 minute ago, Zelandeth said:

It's always worth checking 1st class though - when I took a trip from MK up to Glasgow a few years ago I checked the price for giggles...it was £2 more than standard!  Yes the free coffee was crap, but it was worth the £2!

I’d always fly rather than take the train, (London -Edinburgh),  it’s nearly always cheaper sometimes incredibly low. Even if I wanted to go tomorrow it’s about £115 return, two weeks ahead it’s £32 if you can stand Luton.
Getting to and from the airports or parking  is probably going to cost more.
 

[Wilko220]

[MikeR]

Another Tuesday trip into Liverpool , and again the speed police out hiding at the side of the road , the amount of camera work is getting beyond a joke .. time to make noises and suggest moving the meet up place .. 

[New POD]

12 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

It's always worth checking 1st class though - when I took a trip from MK up to Glasgow a few years ago I checked the price for giggles...it was £2 more than standard!  Yes the free coffee was crap, but it was worth the £2!

The Friday afternoon Trains. From Hemel Hempstead to Runcorn changing at MK and Crewe was cheaper 1st class advance than a second class advance. No idea why. On the train from MK to Crewe I got lunch free, and a scotch and coke. Drank the coke. Took the scotch home in its tiny bottle and saved them up for Christmas. 

[omegod]

Some years ago I received this lovely item in an AS secret santa, it's £5 worth of 10p pieces welded together, it has adorned my work desk since. 

As you will see there is sadly an issue with weld penetration and it is now only £4.90 

I feel there should be a warranty for this sort of thing 

[Remspoor]

43 minutes ago, omegod said:

Some years ago I received this lovely item in an AS secret santa, it's £5 worth of 10p pieces welded together, it has adorned my work desk since. 

As you will see there is sadly an issue with weld penetration and it is now only £4.90 

I feel there should be a warranty for this sort of thing 

Makes a change😁

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, omegod said:

and it is now only £4.90 

That's depreciation for you!

[Split_Pin]

'Past (sic) with flying colours'.

In the context of an MOT pass, what the heck does 'flying colours' mean? It's the most stupid expression I've ever heard and conjurs up an image of a medieval battle flag or something. I've often seen the next or previous sentence say 'no nocks or bangs' or 'drives mint'. The single picture of the car is taken through a smoke stained and filthy 2nd floor window.

I hate being skint and having to look for a car!

[Tickman]

14 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

'Past (sic) with flying colours'.

In the context of an MOT pass, what the heck does 'flying colours' mean? It's the most stupid expression I've ever heard and conjurs up an image of a medieval battle flag or something. I've often seen the next or previous sentence say 'no nocks or bangs' or 'drives mint'. The single picture of the car is taken through a smoke stained and filthy 2nd floor window.

I hate being skint and having to look for a car!

Historical reasons

Straight from Wikipedia 

[omegod]

2 hours ago, High Jetter said:

That's depreciation for you!

Bastard Tories !!!! 🥵🤣

[83C]

Notification from the bank earlier that a £210 transaction on my card was stopped as it looked suspicious. Sure enough, someone had managed to log themselves into my PSN account and help themselves to several games courtesy of my account. Top marks to Halifax for spotting and declining the transactions swiftly, and 4/10 needs remedial classes to Sony/PSN for taking nearly two hours to respond to a live chat request (the only way to contact them). 

Passwords, verifications etc all changed now, and new bank card ordered. What a pain in the ringpiece it’s all been.

Whoever managed to get into my account and cause me a load of shit today, I wish you a month of uncontrollable explosive diarrhoea and a very localised acute shortage of bog roll.

[Metal Guru]

Had flu and covid jabs yesterday. Feel ok today , no after effects apart from a really sore arm where the Covid  was injected.

Can see why they call it a “shot”.

[Remspoor]

22 hours ago, omegod said:

Bastard Tories !!!! 🥵🤣

With the inflation we have that means they are in power here in Spain too.

[PicantoJon]

Started a new job on Monday and this happened on the way home... 

Complete loss of compression leading to a 2 hour or so wait on the hard shoulder of the M65 and a fixed bar tow home...

[Dave_Q]

Doing the fucking cancel dance with Virgin Media yet again. 

Pretty sure the stuff was £26 a month at the start of the contract yet now we're up to £36 with an increase to £45 in another month when the contract ends. 

Rang a couple of weeks ago and got the Philippines or wherever it is now. Tells them I want them to match the £30.50 they are offering to new customers. Very sorry sir, can only do £39.

Rang again and got the UK and got down to £29 broadband only (don't have a phone plugged in to the landline so fine with me, only took it out as they insisted)

I know this is standard tactics but I just can't be arsed with this to just get charged a fair price, please just send me an email with a button to press saying "get best deal by threatening to cancel" ya bastards

[mercedade]

11 minutes ago, Dave_Q said:

Doing the fucking cancel dance with Virgin Media yet again. 

Pretty sure the stuff was £26 a month at the start of the contract yet now we're up to £36 with an increase to £45 in another month when the contract ends. 

Rang a couple of weeks ago and got the Philippines or wherever it is now. Tells them I want them to match the £30.50 they are offering to new customers. Very sorry sir, can only do £39.

Rang again and got the UK and got down to £29 broadband only (don't have a phone plugged in to the landline so fine with me, only took it out as they insisted)

I know this is standard tactics but I just can't be arsed with this to just get charged a fair price, please just send me an email with a button to press saying "get best deal by threatening to cancel" ya bastards

When I did this 2 months ago, I actually went through with the cancellation because I got so sick of it (their best offer was £28pm), arranged to move to Shell Broadband and then Virgin called me back 3 days later with another offer - now down to £22 pm.

I accepted Virgin's offer and called off Shell

[Dave_Q]

1 hour ago, mercedade said:

When I did this 2 months ago, I actually went through with the cancellation because I got so sick of it (their best offer was £28pm), arranged to move to Shell Broadband and then Virgin called me back 3 days later with another offer - now down to £22 pm.

I accepted Virgin's offer and called off Shell

Next level move, good to know. 

TBH I have no intention of actually leaving them as no other provider currently available on my street can get anywhere close to this. 

[Volksy]

I've just had this with Talk Talk.

 

Was out of contract, and the price rising (doubling).

Went with Shell via Uswitch, £26pcm with a £120 Amazon voucher 18 Month Contract. For Full Fibre also.

Called Talk Talk to cancel, put through to retention, couldn't get anywhere near the price from Shell. Passed to 'Cancellations', Oh! Look, I've found this deal which may suit you.....

Full fibre, free install, 12 Month Contract, £22pcm discounted by 50% for the first six months. 

 

It really is a pain in the arse to deal with stuff in this way. Should have taken a 24 month contract, so I don't have to do this again in a year....

[myglaren]

I should too.

£84 broadband and including mobile @ £5 a month , no landline phone. 

55 megawhatists down, 20 up, in theory but often as low as 10 down, none up and often drops out altogether.

 

[Bren]

Before I buy tyres I need a new tyre pressure sensor as one has failed.

I am wary of the cheap chinese items - the cheapest I can get a genuine item is £50.

Unnecessary tech because people cannkt check tyre pressures.

[EyesWeldedShut]

30 minutes ago, myglaren said:

I should too.

£84 broadband and including mobile @ £5 a month , no landline phone. 

55 megawhatists down, 20 up, in theory but often as low as 10 down, none up and often drops out altogether.

 

We're FTTC about 1km away, dodgy copper up from there -  4Mb down 0.5 up

Switched to a 4G Sim router - Smarty - £16 a month and it's around 8 Mb down and more up - drops out now and then but, for £16 we feel like it's zooming along.
We were due to get full fat fibre to the (rural) premises under the UK 'levelling up' grants but, Catch 22. The company that was doing it says not enough people have signed up - they need (say) 400 signups. There's 340 people live here. Hmmmmmm - that's a Grump

 

[Zelandeth]

Penalty charge notice through from MK Council for having the audacity to break down in a bus stop a couple of weeks ago.

Like hell they're getting a penny out of me.

For starters a breakdown is a reasonable cause to have been there (unless they would rather have had me stopped where I was blocking a busy, signal controlled junction), so it would be getting appealed anyway.  I have written evidence from the breakdown recovery provider that they attended.

Secondly, the bus stop clearway markings in the stop are completely unenforceable anyway as they have totally fouled up the markings themselves, and the accompanying signage is completely missing.

I only know that crap because installing the things was part of my day job for several years.  I did check the current version of the manual as well in case the regs had changed, but nope.

Also, I was there for a total of around 15 minutes, during which time nobody approached me, nor did a single bus pass by.  So I'm kind of curious where their evidence came from.  Guessing some council vehicle fitted with CCTV (I don't *think* the junction itself is covered by CCTV), but it does feel distinctly big brotherish.  I don't have a copy of the photo, just a "You were here at time X on day y and contravened this bit of the Road Traffic Act."

I've no problem whatsoever with the presence of bus priority measures like this, but I do have an issue with them being enforced in quite such a predatory way.  Especially when the only person I inconvenienced was myself...and when the very measures needed TO enforce them haven't even been installed properly.  It's really not hard to get a bit of road lining and a sign right...

[Remspoor]

Cookies. The computer type.

Looking for new tyres for the car. Spanish website filled out the size. The chose another Spanish site and another. All of them had the tyre size completed for me when I opened up the page. Then out of curiosity looked at UK sites and Dutch sites. All of them had the tyre details completed.

I should clear the cookies are each site visit. 😕

[Dave_Q]

44 minutes ago, Remspoor said:

Cookies. The computer type.

Looking for new tyres for the car. Spanish website filled out the size. The chose another Spanish site and another. All of them had the tyre size completed for me when I opened up the page. Then out of curiosity looked at UK sites and Dutch sites. All of them had the tyre details completed.

I should clear the cookies are each site visit. 😕

I feel like I should be more bothered about this sort of thing, but if Zuckerberg and Bezos want to know I've been looking at £200 scrap mopeds again, or whatever early 00s car from my childhood is now available for circa a grand, they're welcome to that useful marketing info. The algorithm has little idea what to sell me either way.

[EyesWeldedShut]

3 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

  Guessing some council vehicle fitted with CCTV

Bus itself? TfL operate bus lane cameras from some of their buses. Ask my brother in law how he knows.
MK maybe do the same?

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

Bus itself? TfL operate bus lane cameras from some of their buses. Ask my brother in law how he knows.
MK maybe do the same?

There would have been my first thought if one had passed by in either direction the whole time I was there!  However I didn't see one for the whole time I was parked up there.

[Metal Guru]

9 hours ago, Volksy said:

I've just had this with Talk Talk.

 

Was out of contract, and the price rising (doubling).

Went with Shell via Uswitch, £26pcm with a £120 Amazon voucher 18 Month Contract. For Full Fibre also.

Called Talk Talk to cancel, put through to retention, couldn't get anywhere near the price from Shell. Passed to 'Cancellations', Oh! Look, I've found this deal which may suit you.....

Full fibre, free install, 12 Month Contract, £22pcm discounted by 50% for the first six months. 

 

It really is a pain in the arse to deal with stuff in this way. Should have taken a 24 month contract, so I don't have to do this again in a year....

I was with Talk Talk in the early 2000s. When I tried to change ( to Orange), we went through all the rigmarole of changing , told me it was all going through, then contacted Orange entirely behind my back and said I’d changed my mind.

[EspenO]

5 hours ago, Remspoor said:

Looking for new tyres for the car. Spanish website filled out the size. The chose another Spanish site and another. All of them had the tyre size completed for me when I opened up the page. Then out of curiosity looked at UK sites and Dutch sites.

They might all be different store fronts for Delticom AG