The grumpy thread

[grizz]

Many many of these selfish fuckrrs seen regularly. 

[Rustybullethole]

Got a lot of love for the nhs but their pants are shit! I'll spare you all a pic of me in them though will add revealing and itchy!

The socks are cosy in comparison.

[Datsuncog]

If January could just stop kicking us all in the balls, that'd be great.

This'll teach me for going up to the dump, where screws and nails frolic with wild abandon across the tarmac and no-one ever sweeps up.

The spare, which was supposedly repaired a month or two ago after a puncture in identical circumstances, is also not holding air - it's every bit as soft as the one I took off, and of course didn't realise until after I'd swapped them over. Used my daft little Draper compressor to at least get enough pressure in it to drive on.

Booked in for two new tyres (and tracking) on Monday, since apparently fast-fit places don't keep tyres in stock anymore, they just hold them all in a central warehouse. And don't do Saturdays.

Marvellous.

[artdjones]

2 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

Booked in for two new tyres (and tracking) on Monday, since apparently fast-fit places don't keep tyres in stock anymore, they just hold them all in a central warehouse.

You're better off at an independent. The prices are the same, anyway. They'll have stock of most popular sizes. And normally you just turn up and wait in the queue.

[Datsuncog]

10 minutes ago, artdjones said:

You're better off at an independent. The prices are the same, anyway. They'll have stock of most popular sizes. And normally you just turn up and wait in the queue.

It is an independent:

https://www.magowantyres.co.uk/

There aren't any chains locally at all anymore; I'd have to travel about fifteen miles over to the far side of Belfast if I wanted to go to a branch of Kwik Fit (and I don't).

I used to use ATS but they pulled out of Northern Ireland about twenty years ago.

Despite saying they do same day fitting, the only tyres Magowan's could offer me today were a pair of HiFlys which would need brought down from their other branch at Mallusk, and after lots of fun* with a set of cheapie Stomils some years back, I find I don't much care for budget ditchfinders.

Davantis ordered.

[horriblemercedes]

11 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

Shit! I didn’t know things had got so bad at Royal Mail. Although Maoist big companies are like it now. Squeeze as much as possible out of everyone and everything in exchange for as little as they can get away with.
 

I feel ignorant, but that doesn't seem very Maoist (at least in theory) to me. Wasn't it to do with the industrialisation of rural working class people?

[artdjones]

2 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

It is an independent:

https://www.magowantyres.co.uk/

There aren't any chains locally at all anymore; I'd have to travel about fifteen miles over to the far side of Belfast if I wanted to go to Kwik Fit (and I don't).

Despite saying they do same day fitting, the only tyres they could offer me today were a pair of HiFlys which would need brought down from their other branch at Mallusk, and after lots of fun* with a set of cheapie Stomils some years back, I find I don't much care for budget ditchfinders.

 

Pretty poor service. All the ones around here keep good stocks. If I was desperate there's a tyre dealer about 12 miles away who's also a wholesalers. They have a gigantic shed absolutely stuffed with every conceivable size by the roadside miles from any village. It's bad that you can't get a common size in what seems to be a pretty urban environment.

[artdjones]

3 minutes ago, horriblemercedes said:

I feel ignorant, but that doesn't seem very Maoist (at least in theory) to me. Wasn't it to do with the industrialisation of rural working class people?

I think it's predictive text mangling the word most. Although the companies he's describing seem to be run on a similarly productive basis to Maoism during the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution.

[danthecapriman]

29 minutes ago, horriblemercedes said:

I feel ignorant, but that doesn't seem very Maoist (at least in theory) to me. Wasn't it to do with the industrialisation of rural working class people?

I have to admit, I read that and was wondering wtf you were going on about. Then I read my own post and realised that somehow my iPad has somehow changed the word ‘most’ for ‘Maoist’!😆

Ive edited the post now to say ‘most’.

Which leads me on to another grump. 
iPad’s. Why is the predictive text thing so shit!? I’m not sure you can turn it off either?

[comfortablynumb]

Try going into a specialist tyre place and asking about 10 inch tyres.

They look at you like your brain fell down the back of your neck🤦

[vulgalour]

Fucking cars.  Ungrateful bastards.  Why can't they just WORK?

[UltraWomble]

On 30/01/2025 at 07:50, UltraWomble said:

Waste of time it appears

 

Maybe not....

[juular]

Fuck.

Cunting wank fucking bastard prick shit dickhead bawbag wank fuck.

That is all.

[ruffgeezer]

You can get a replacement cheap enough on ebay, if you look in my thread where I changed the aux tensioner on my Pug partner, it gives a good technique for shifting shit like this.

[wuvvum]

Couldn't you just hammer a smaller soc...  Oh, right.

[EyesWeldedShut]

Nut chewing thingies? 

[Remspoor]

23 hours ago, maxxo said:

Usual Thursday evening at art club down in hartlepool 

got a lift there off one of my mates

he fell over and fucked his shoulder so I had to drive us back in his car

74 plate Hyundai Tucson 

One of these but black

fuck me what a nannying car

manoeuvring out the parking space it did an emergency stop and beeped at me, cos it was a tight spot and I had to get close to the car in front at 1mph to get out

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

oh yes, I dared to venture to 31mph

beep every time a speed limit changed

beep every road sign it saw

braking for me at random

swerving towards parked cars when I was passing on the centre line

 

i mean, it looks great and drives really nicely

nah I can’t be done with moderns

stupid acceleration too

throttle on or off

 

im glad I don’t have a car like that

oh yes, it cost £48k

You not should complain about such things. I did about the hire car I had in The Netherlands and some @@@@@@ on here castigated me because they think different to me about the nanny state car.

[N Dentressangle]

23 hours ago, Yoss said:

I can't really explain any of that, especially the pick up. As you say, we have to scan the packets when we pick them up. It's beyond me. 

As for the rest of it, it's all part of the race to the bottom I'm afraid. We now have a two tier workforce. Anybody taken on in the last year or two is on less money, longer hours and worse conditions (like no paid breaks). What they are getting paid isn't much more than minimum wage (the minimum wage keeps going up faster than our own pay rises). 

Then the way we do things was changed quite dramatically around the same time. Most deliveries in our office were shared vans. So two people working together from one van. They would take everything for their area from letters to the biggest packets. Now we have DPRs, dedicated parcel routes. They take all the bigger packets but just do packets and nothing else. But that didn't make the shared van duties easier because they made them all longer to make up for doing less packets. 

Anyway most of these new starters are the guys doing the DPRs. And they have no incentive to do the job any better than any of the other couriers because they are on basically the same terms. 

When I started 34 years ago it was seen as a career. There were plenty of old boys there who had never done anything else. Some had started as telegram boys! Nobody comes into it now thinking of it as anything other than a stop gap until something better comes along so they have no reason to care. The staff turnover at the lower end is huge. 

This is the future. I've got around ten years until retirement so I'm just going to stay and watch the company fall apart around me. 

 

Privatisation of public services has been a disaster. Fact. See my post on the 'Red Robbo' thread for when I worked for RM in the 80s for when things started to be ruined.

I am sick of rich bastards getting even richer from fucking my country over. From education to the postal service to the water from my fucking taps, some rich bastard is trying to chisel more money out of the public sector.

I am sick of it, and will also be glad to retire.

[chaseracer]

1 hour ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

Nut chewing thingies? 

Ouch.

😳

[juular]

14 hours ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

Nut chewing thingies? 

These work well but unfortunately I've dug myself a hole.

I welded a nut on to the bolt head. This worked well, except in the process of loosening it somehow sheared off part of the bolt that also somehow is staying captive and spinning.

In the photo below I welded to the ring that surrounds the key face. From all the old bolts I have, and from the photos, that looks like part of the actual bolt body but apparently isn't. 

So now I have a welded blob that just spins. It's not one of those rotating collar designs, the outer is definitely designed to be solid, so I have no idea how this is possible.

Fucking dogshit design. I'd rather have all my wheels nicked than deal with this.

[MrGTI6]

On 30/01/2025 at 21:25, maxxo said:

Usual Thursday evening at art club down in hartlepool 

got a lift there off one of my mates

he fell over and fucked his shoulder so I had to drive us back in his car

74 plate Hyundai Tucson 

One of these but black

fuck me what a nannying car

manoeuvring out the parking space it did an emergency stop and beeped at me, cos it was a tight spot and I had to get close to the car in front at 1mph to get out

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

oh yes, I dared to venture to 31mph

beep every time a speed limit changed

beep every road sign it saw

braking for me at random

swerving towards parked cars when I was passing on the centre line

 

i mean, it looks great and drives really nicely

nah I can’t be done with moderns

stupid acceleration too

throttle on or off

 

im glad I don’t have a car like that

oh yes, it cost £48k

This seems to be a problem with most cars from about 2020 onwards, even cheaper stuff. 

We briefly had a 22-plate Hyundai Kona in 2023. We only got it because the other half wanted a newer car, but she drove it once and refused to drive it again after the numerous random emergency stops it kept performing. It also tried to steer itself into parked cars if you crossed the white line on the centre of the road. 

Such a stressful car to drive, and the driver aids were more likely to cause an accident than prevent one. 

I ended up selling it via Motorway within a couple of months. 

[juular]

A good strong coffee and some anger has got me in a slightly better position by knocking that collar and welds off.

[Yoss]

1 hour ago, juular said:

These work well but unfortunately I've dug myself a hole.

I welded a nut on to the bolt head. This worked well, except in the process of loosening it somehow sheared off part of the bolt that also somehow is staying captive and spinning.

In the photo below I welded to the ring that surrounds the key face. From all the old bolts I have, and from the photos, that looks like part of the actual bolt body but apparently isn't. 

So now I have a welded blob that just spins. It's not one of those rotating collar designs, the outer is definitely designed to be solid, so I have no idea how this is possible.

Fucking dogshit design. I'd rather have all my wheels nicked than deal with this.

I have thrown all my locking wheel nuts away (apart from the Up! but we've only had it three weeks, give me time). They are more trouble than they are worth. They hark back to a time when alloy wheels were an expensive novelty. But now pretty much everything but the base models have them, I just don't see the point. When was the last time you saw a car with its wheels nicked? 

[myglaren]

I dump them, too much of a nuisance.

[juular]

I'd replaced the other 3 already last year, I just failed to do all 4 because I'm some sort of genius or something.

[Mrcento]

Me when there's a car i want

Advert posted 2 minutes ago

Me 'Oh that's what i'm looking for, have to just jump on it, it's mental here, fuck the insurance just going to need to bite the bullet and secure it, figure that out once the car is secured.....'- Contacts seller, tell them i'll take it as is, happy to put a deposit down to secure it, can be there right away if they like.

Seller- not holding for anyone, first come, first served i'm afraid...

Me- That's fine, i'm on my way

Seller- Don't bother, it's sold.

V when somebody else wants the same car

Them 'Oh that's cool, i'll have it'- Contacts seller

Seller- ABSOLUTELY SIR, i understand entirely you cannot collect right now, It's actually my fault i'm not on your doorstep, i apologise and i will hold that for you until a time that suits, not a problem, it is YOURS, SOLD!, don't even need a deposit, i trust you fine sir, let me just leave it there taking up sales room for you, it will be MY PLEASURE to do that for you.

Me- 'I'm interested in'

Seller- Reserved sorry.

2 weeks later

Me- 'I see it's still up, i'm still interested in.... Have the cash here, or transfer if you prefer, i can collect whenever'

Seller- Still reserved and will be forever more,

How the fuck do you buy a car?

[AnthonyG]

On 27/01/2025 at 13:39, cobblers said:

It's the photo that is expired, not the license 

I suspect this is correct. In late 2023, I managed to pay a speeding fine and get my licence endorsed with three points, all with the photo card having expired! 

I honestly just didn’t notice - and as I was dealing with the recent death of my dad, and helping mum through it etc, I reckon that’s a good enough excuse.

I only worked it out when I kept checking the online portal to see when my points had been added, as I was trying to get myself added to the insurance on both parental cars. Once it sunk in I drove straight to the post office to put in for a new one. 

Shat myself, and worried for a week, until I got the speeding fine payment paperwork back with ‘No further action’ stamped on it. 

I reckon if my licence had really been invalid when I got flashed by a speeding camera, there would have been more repercussions. 

[New POD]

On 31/01/2025 at 23:53, juular said:

Fuck.

Cunting wank fucking bastard prick shit dickhead bawbag wank fuck.

That is all.

One tip, it to tighten the other bolts a bit which may* release tension on the offending bolt. 

[myglaren]

6 hours ago, AnthonyG said:

I suspect this is correct. In late 2023, I managed to pay a speeding fine and get my licence endorsed with three points, all with the photo card having expired! 

I honestly just didn’t notice - and as I was dealing with the recent death of my dad, and helping mum through it etc, I reckon that’s a good enough excuse.

I only worked it out when I kept checking the online portal to see when my points had been added, as I was trying to get myself added to the insurance on both parental cars. Once it sunk in I drove straight to the post office to put in for a new one. 

Shat myself, and worried for a week, until I got the speeding fine payment paperwork back with ‘No further action’ stamped on it. 

I reckon if my licence had really been invalid when I got flashed by a speeding camera, there would have been more repercussions. 

Had a £100 fine and three points in the post yesterday.  Tried to pay online and was unable, blocked for some reason, it didn't say so but I expect it was because the licence is invalid.  Had the same thing from the DVLA site trying to renew it.

Had to do both by post and both a bit of a nightmare.  Conflicting information for paying the fine.

The an email from LV to say that I wasn't covered as the licence was invalid.  Lovely.

[andyberg]

As I understand it, from my recent job, if the photo is expired then the licence is no longer valid. You must renew it every 10 years to stay valid. This is what Europcar insisted. If the date on the front was expired then the licence is no longer valid until you have a new photo. 
Edit:

The photo must be renewed for the licence to be valid no matter the expiration dates of the categories you are entitled to drive.