The grumpy thread

[MorrisItalSLX]

10 hours ago, High Jetter said:

You all heard of Bitter Lemon, right? We've liked the Schweppes stuff for years, mixing it with Dubonnet.

Only the slimline version available now, it seems, with the inevitable saccharin taste.

Horrible stuff, that artificial sugar.

[jakebullet]

~Blurry lines as time rewinds 3 hours~
Ma announces she needs to buy some sprouts from the new m&s on the mega death rammed shopping park. Oh, great idea Ma, WCPGW?

It's no chance. 30 minutes to get off our estate, and it's obvs there's a mile queue to get in to retail park. So I go do battle at morrisons as you can at least get in the car park and play find a space wars. Morrisons sold out of sprouts. 2 smoll co op and a budgens later and still no sprouts. Well that was a fun 3 hours.

[Pieman]

14 minutes ago, jakebullet said:

~Blurry lines as time rewinds 3 hours~
Ma announces she needs to buy some sprouts from the new m&s on the mega death rammed shopping park. Oh, great idea Ma, WCPGW?

It's no chance. 30 minutes to get off our estate, and it's obvs there's a mile queue to get in to retail park. So I go do battle at morrisons as you can at least get in the car park and play find a space wars. Morrisons sold out of sprouts. 2 smoll co op and a budgens later and still no sprouts. Well that was a fun 3 hours.

TELL

PEOPLE

TO

GO

FUCK

THEMSELVES

OR 

YOU

WILL

GIVE

YOURSELF

A

FUCKING

STROKE

I honestly can't make it any clearer than that.

[Popsicle]

4 hours ago, sierraman said:

You’d think that there would be some sort of measure of financial fitness to run such a set up wouldn’t you? If you were running a fleet of vehicles and no cash at bank then really they are not fit to trade. 

There is a financial fitness test for getting an operators licence for stuff above 3.5t, they only check it when you apply or renew though.

This is so far removed from the Evri, Amazon guys though, the conditions of entry for them are have you a vehicle and when can you start.

[sierraman]

21 minutes ago, Popsicle said:

There is a financial fitness test for getting an operators licence for stuff above 3.5t, they only check it when you apply or renew though.

This is so far removed from the Evri, Amazon guys though, the conditions of entry for them are have you a vehicle and when can you start.

This is where we’ve gone badly wrong as it just permits like likes of Evri etc to take advantage of these bottom feeders that will cut corners. 

[Popsicle]

23 minutes ago, sierraman said:

This is where we’ve gone badly wrong as it just permits like likes of Evri etc to take advantage of these bottom feeders that will cut corners. 

True but its nothing new - remember White Arrow from the 90's? They did all the catalogue deliveries for Kays, Gratton etc they ran the same model, sacks full of parcels being dropped off for housewives to deliver and earn a bit of pin money between the school runs. 

[sierraman]

9 minutes ago, Popsicle said:

True but its nothing new - remember White Arrow from the 90's? They did all the catalogue deliveries for Kays, Gratton etc they ran the same model, sacks full of parcels being dropped off for housewives to deliver and earn a bit of pin money between the school runs. 

My mum seemed to be perpetually waiting in for the White Arrow man as she ran one of these club things, Grattans I think it was. Sounded like a load of hassle having to chase half the estates tick money. 

[louiepj]

Merry Christmas from Aldi car park.
Her car is the red one, and she did not know she done this!
I was stationary waiting for a car to pull out of a parking space, and she became impatient behind me and pulled out then drove down the side of me then off down the car park.
Got all the witnesses i need luckily as we were in a long queue.

[Popsicle]

29 minutes ago, sierraman said:

My mum seemed to be perpetually waiting in for the White Arrow man as she ran one of these club things, Grattans I think it was. Sounded like a load of hassle having to chase half the estates tick money. 

My mum was the same, she gave it up in the end and made the cosmetic stuff for Avon instead.

[chadders]

My dad did Kays Catalogue.

[EyesWeldedShut]

2 hours ago, Popsicle said:

True but its nothing new - remember White Arrow from the 90's? They did all the catalogue deliveries for Kays, Gratton etc they ran the same model, sacks full of parcels being dropped off for housewives to deliver and earn a bit of pin money between the school runs. 

I temp'd at White Arrow back in 1999 during the Christmas rush - such fun.
I had two ladies on my usual run that would have dozens of parcels so would try to get those two done first which would help clear the decks a bit (often they'd have a few returns too - at the close of play the returns would (quite literally) get flung into the back of an artic trailer. Didn't matter what it was - how far can you hurl a boxed VCR?
Christmas Eve they told us temps to be back by noon whereupon they paid us off. I'll never forget the cage full of kiddies bikes still waiting to go out - nobody gave a shit.
Shite company, shite attitude - did they become Yodel?

[Popsicle]

1 hour ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

I temp'd at White Arrow back in 1999 during the Christmas rush - such fun.
I had two ladies on my usual run that would have dozens of parcels so would try to get those two done first which would help clear the decks a bit (often they'd have a few returns too - at the close of play the returns would (quite literally) get flung into the back of an artic trailer. Didn't matter what it was - how far can you hurl a boxed VCR?
Christmas Eve they told us temps to be back by noon whereupon they paid us off. I'll never forget the cage full of kiddies bikes still waiting to go out - nobody gave a shit.
Shite company, shite attitude - did they become Yodel?

I think they eventually became Yodel, via Reality then Home Delivery Network, I think there might have been another name in between but my minds gone blank. You're right though shit company with a shit attitude.

[wuvvum]

2 hours ago, chadders said:

My dad did Kays Catalogue.

My uncle is one of the Kays off of the Kays Catalogue.

[chadders]

I always knew that you came from a wealthy family, no one 'normal' could have such an eclectic fleet.

[adw1977]

19 hours ago, High Jetter said:

You all heard of Bitter Lemon, right? We've liked the Schweppes stuff for years, mixing it with Dubonnet.

Only the slimline version available now, it seems, with the inevitable saccharin taste.

It is very annoying, especially as all supermarket own brand bitter lemon seems to be slimline only too.

Fever Tree do a "lemon tonic" which is in fact bitter lemon and it contains real sugar, quinine and no artificial sweeteners.

[GeorgeB]

11 hours ago, paulplom said:

I did one last year or the year before. I enjoyed it and learnt from it too.

What did you learn?

 

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, adw1977 said:

It is very annoying, especially as all supermarket own brand bitter lemon seems to be slimline only too.

Fever Tree do a "lemon tonic" which is in fact bitter lemon and it contains real sugar, quinine and no artificial sweeteners.

I did look at that, thanks, but not purchased yet. Sainsbury do a non slimline bitter lemon that I have bought and will test.

[Rust Collector]

I was just in Morrisons looking for own brand tonic; dozens of varieties of diet tonic spread all over the shelves. Took a while to find the tiny amount of normal tonic poked in a corner on the lowest shelf.

I can’t stand the taste of artificial sweeteners, they’re absolutely disgusting.

[robthedonkey]

It is very annoying, especially as all supermarket own brand bitter lemon seems to be slimline only too.
Fever Tree do a "lemon tonic" which is in fact bitter lemon and it contains real sugar, quinine and no artificial sweeteners.

Co op do their own bitter lemon and do a full fat and slimline

Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

[adw1977]

1 hour ago, High Jetter said:

I did look at that, thanks, but not purchased yet. Sainsbury do a non slimline bitter lemon that I have bought and will test.

That one contains both sugar and artificial sweeteners!

[Datsuncog]

5 hours ago, wuvvum said:

My uncle is one of the Kays off of the Kays Catalogue.

I nearly bought one of his old vans earlier.

[Popsicle]

16 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

I nearly bought one of his old vans earlier.

FFS you've got me looking on ebay now.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305299459810

£50 seems a bit fruity though.

[artdjones]

10 hours ago, Rust Collector said:

I was just in Morrisons looking for own brand tonic; dozens of varieties of diet tonic spread all over the shelves. Took a while to find the tiny amount of normal tonic poked in a corner on the lowest shelf.

I can’t stand the taste of artificial sweeteners, they’re absolutely disgusting.

For all the dangers of excess sugar, the human body is designed to process it, whether it's designed to cope with aspartame I seriously doubt.

[horriblemercedes]

I find it difficult these days - so many soft drinks are just horrible since they ditched sugar and went to sweeteners. I've always found diet coke absolutely disgusting

 

My favourite soft drink these days is Tropical Blast at Aldi. Their version of Lilt. No sugar but heavy in aspartame 

[fairkens]

22 hours ago, jakebullet said:

~Blurry lines as time rewinds 3 hours~
Ma announces she needs to buy some sprouts from the new m&s on the mega death rammed shopping park. Oh, great idea Ma, WCPGW?

It's no chance. 30 minutes to get off our estate, and it's obvs there's a mile queue to get in to retail park. So I go do battle at morrisons as you can at least get in the car park and play find a space wars. Morrisons sold out of sprouts. 2 smoll co op and a budgens later and still no sprouts. Well that was a fun 3 hours.

When I was a student I worked at Tesco. One Xmas eve a few of us had to break up a full on fist fight between two blokes over the last bag of sprouts. This was a supposedly posh part of Manchester. Haven't seen many things more ridiculous in the last 20 odd years

[Rust Collector]

12 hours ago, adw1977 said:

That one contains both sugar and artificial sweeteners!

I would normally buy off brand cola, and I’ve noticed that a few shops have started mixing artificial sweeteners into the ‘normal’ versions, meaning that there is no option for people who don’t want artificial sweeteners in their drinks.

I’d say it’s had the desired effect as I don’t drink cola anymore, but I just drink off brand lemonade with a dash of elderflower in it instead.

What’s really annoying is that I’m drinking soft drinks as I’m having a break from alcohol. When it’s so awkward to find something affordable and free of artificial sweeteners I start to think why fucking bother, I might as well just grab some beers…

[myglaren]

39 minutes ago, fairkens said:

When I was a student I worked at Tesco. One Xmas eve a few of us had to break up a full on fist fight between two blokes over the last bag of sprouts. This was a supposedly posh part of Manchester. Haven't seen many things more ridiculous in the last 20 odd years

You'd think that frozen sprouts hadn't been invented.   Too late for real sprouts now anyway, unless they are for christmas 2024.

Been to the shopses this morning and dreading it.  Not bad at all, plenty of parking spaces, one 300 space car park completely empty.  Only went to the bank there and once I managed to get past the smokers in the doorways it was hardly busier than usual and quiet for a Saturday.

Then off to Lidl & B&M.  Again, plenty of parking spaces and both fairly quiet.  Lidl had any amount of fresh sprouts

Again, the problem there were all the people smoking in the car park, added half a mile on to my walk back to the car (50 yards from the shop).

[Richard_FM]

My wife has trouble with artificial sweeteners, as they confuse her type 2 diabetes.

[Pieman]

The last few posts got me thinking about drinks, and I've realised I pretty much only drink tea, water, orange juice and the occasional beer.

[barefoot]

2 hours ago, myglaren said:

 Too late for real sprouts now anyway, unless they are for christmas 2024.

Way, way too late. Mine have been simmering gently since last Thursday.