The grumpy thread

[Guest]

With regards to the ticket - you can't chase good money after bad. You'd spend close to the ticket cost just getting the claim out. The county court system is pretty simple and she is unlikely to attend, so you are pretty likely to be awarded judgement and can collect the claim amount, costs and interest, but that's only half the battle.

 

Unfortunately, the powers given to actually collect the money are pretty feeble. The only individuals it is really worth issuing a county court claim against is someone you know has the money and will be bothered about having a CCJ against their name.

 

There's a lot of mystique to the county court system, but ultimately it is pretty weak.

[Pillock]

Sometimes, but not always, the simple act of a county court summons arriving would spur her into giving you the money she legally owes you. I know a lot of people would actually shit a brick when that letter came.It also reeks of kid-with-internet-access - her brother using her computer? So maybe her parents would get involved if she's sub-18, give you the cash, then lock her in the cellar for a year(*).But like Hirst says, people are getting more and more savvy to the owe-money, go-to-court, found-guilty, owe-more-money, go-to-court circus. At no point have they got a way of actually pinning them to the floor and taking cash out of their wallet. I'd fill the form out and see what happens. But if that is exactly 'nothing' then leave it, any further steps would be charged at £100 + VAT an hour to talk to a smarmy kid in a cheap suit.(*) Other punishment methods are available. Check local press.

[M'coli]

Re ticket, good point about the costs, but still worth sticking the forms in the post to try that route but not following up if no joy.

[Mash]

  seth said:

People dying. I'm right pissed off about that right now.

 

A few weeks ago a very talented man who gave up so much of his time for nothing to help myself (and others) learn a now unusual trade died following a year or more long battle with cancer. I spent many days at his workshop when starting up my business and he was a constant inspiration and was always on the end of the phone if I got stuck with something. In fact I spoke to him just three days before he died and he was still being positive as always and passed on a tip even though I wasn't asking about work. At 62 he went before his time.

 

Last week a relative on my wife's side of the family died. He was in his 80's but certainly went after his time. He survived when millions of others were killed and I found his humble, soft spoken manner amazing after reading about the truly terrible experiences he had suffered. A proper old fashioned engineer too - fountain pens were his thing. His passing made the news in Scotland as he had done much good community and eduction work in his later years.

 

Today I logged into the "Farina Forum" for the first time in a couple of months as I've got a steering box issue I wanted to ask about. First thread I see is about a funeral. One of the active club members from Luton was killed a couple of weeks ago while on his way to a Mini gathering. A drunk driver hit him. I'm in shock. This chap was a similar age to me, had a young family and was just such a good guy. I'd met him on numerous occasions - he even came to one of the Henlow R-R pub meets. What a waste.

Seems it's always the decent people we lose, all the more so by sudden means yet the ones who probably deserve to be whisked off before their time appear to live selfish, benefit fuelled charmed existences.

[Guest]

Got to get this one off my chest. Those Natwest "Helpful Banking" adverts where the bank is wholly staffed by young, good-looking people who are irritatingly chirpy. Imagine having to work with people who were constantly that cheery about their miserable job! I'd go mental.I've had an idea for a new advert which makes up for it though. Starts off with someone tittering about a business cheque or something, then two men with stockings over their head storm in with sawn-offs. One of them grabs that blonde bint and demands the safe be emptied. Meanwhile a recently-stolen Jaguar XJ (Series II) idles outside on the double yellows, with an increasingly panicked-looking driver.Might write in and suggest it.

[Mr H Sceptre]

  Hirst said:

Got to get this one off my chest. Those Natwest "Helpful Banking" adverts where the bank is wholly staffed by young, good-looking people who are irritatingly chirpy. Imagine having to work with people who were constantly that cheery about their miserable job! I'd go mental.I've had an idea for a new advert which makes up for it though. Starts off with someone tittering about a business cheque or something, then two men with stockings over their head storm in with sawn-offs. One of them grabs that blonde bint and demands the safe be emptied. Meanwhile a recently-stolen Jaguar XJ (Series II) idles outside on the double yellows, with an increasingly panicked-looking driver.Might write in and suggest it.

Tenuous Autoshite link - m'colleague Mr Leyland's ex-girlfriend's sister was in one of those Nat West ads quite recently.I told you it was tenous!

[Mash]

  SirTainlyBarkin said:

SEND US YOUR GOLD! DO YOU HAVE SURPLUS UNWANTED GOLD?How many of these adverts are there now? Some shouty man extolling the benefits of posting them your "surplus, unwanted" gold and they will value it and send you a cheque by return. Cut to some dozy bint "I sent them all my old wedding rings and got a cheque for £300"I suppose it's another prey on the stupid, send us all your Lizzy Duke and get £10 (at best) in the hope the odd decent piece (Granny's locket from Asprey) might get duffed in with all the tat.I suppose it's an encouragement to thieves/muggers as well, after all it seems to be a no questions asked type of operation, I wonder if they deal in lead and copper as well?

You must have read my mind! The phones one is the same, I'd probably get 10p for my mobile if I'm lucky.

[pogweasel]

Hey that phone one is OK, they offered me £29 for mine. I actually got £36 for it on ebay, but after listing fees + fvf fees + paypal fees + any other spurious cack that ebay are stinging you for this week, it's pretty close. The GOLD! ones are fricking ridiculous though. Heaven for theiving scum, pikeys and shallow bovis-home twats who's elderly relatives have just croaked....

[M'coli]

  pogweasel said:

The GOLD! ones are fricking ridiculous though. Heaven for theiving scum, pikeys and shallow bovis-home twats whose elderly relatives have just croaked....

I'm just thinking on the postman/woman who has to deliver the envelopes to the firm - would they be tempted to have a wee look and relieve some of the heavier ones of a few items each and then pop them into an envelope of their own...

[Rusty Pelican]

Option five would be good for my missus .

[Pete-M]

Carcraft. Wankers. Nuff said.

[pogweasel]

Employers. What a shower of shit it is these days trying to scratch a living. For the third time in as many months I have not been paid on time/in full.This month they paid us all 75% of basic on pay-day, promising to pay the rest today. Which remarkably did not happen. They paid last weeks' expenses and a 'further payment' which amounted to bugger all, as we are still owed 20%, and that's before you get to the overtime which was ~100 hours last month. Frigging Nora, I am getting well dicked off with this.... I have already been made redundant twice in two years, and I reckon this lot are gonna go under by the end of the month. So I am cooking my 'Plan B' / exit strategy. Does anyone know if I can legally seize goods in lieu of payment if they don't cough up.... just that I have their van and about £5000 of equipment sat here....

[Pillock]

Whether it's legal or not I'm not sure, but I'd certainly be thinking along the same lines. I'd guess if they went under, you'd need to apply to receivers to get money owed to you, but the same receivers would be tracing company assets, i.e. the van and tools. They don't tend to take shit off plebs like you and I (no offence).You couldn't legally turn their assets into money for yourself (i.e. sell the van), that would just be outright theft. You need to make it a bargaining tool instead..... "Hello boss, do you want this van back? Only it's run out of petrol and I can't afford to put any in till you pay me. I reckon it'll need £2000 worth to make it back to base..."

[pogweasel]

I guess I would have to wait for an official administrator to be appointed before petitioning them, as I (& the rest of us mugs) would be creditors. In the mean-time I shall do my upmost to be a pain in the arse, as they have breached the terms of our contract...

[M'coli]

Indeed, I'd imagine that each piece of equipment has an asset number that can be audited and hence traced.

[Milford Cubicle]

Auto Trader, specifically the 'Bargains' section.A £4k BMW 318i does not constitute a bargain, there are loads of £1-4k cars in there even though it's supposed to be for sub-£1k shitters.

[morris_ital_lover]

This kind of bollobks advertising on ebay....

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ABC-Datsun-510-Bl ... 286.c0.m14

 

Now many of you may think 1... whats that sad git doing looking at r/c cars for and ...2 nice can't see a problem with that, but when you go onto the manufacturers website (http://abchobby.com/ ...can't direct link)you find this... NOT AVAILIBLE FOR THE M-03 CHASSIS, one of that adverts key points is that can be used on the m-03!!! If you want an explanation as to why this is important just as, but be warned you'll probably drop off!

 

Arrgh!

 

m0rris

[Guest]

Unpaid item dispute opened in eBay.Although she has got quite a bit of evidence going against her now. She's refused outright to pay, she's made it clear she had no intention of paying, she lent her account to her brother who then bid up another ticket for a slightly lower price because he didn't want to pay the price that he'd bid the ticket up to.

[Talbot]

Shopping on a Saturday. What a bloody mistake. Why is it that all supermarkets seem to be inhabited by brain-dead morons at the weekend?I think I was sarcastically rude to at least 5 people while barging them out of the way. Honestly, if you want to stand about and waffle to each other, there's a perfectly good motorway just half-a-mile away you can go and stand on, and with a bit of luck that'll be the last anyone ever sees of you.

[Albert Ross]

Good point.........shoppers........why not just amble out of the Pound shop, and stop dead in the middle of a narrow pavement, before you decide where to go next, instead of planning your route before you get in my way! As for users of escalators, try walking off the end, instead of FUCKING STOPPING DEAD IN FRONT OF ME! That way I won't knock you over next time! Multi storey car park designers......try upping the "max Weight" limit of cars to something ABOVE 1500kg, or indeed why not get the car-park operatives to Police the vehicles entering that are OVER the Max weight........and either charge them accordingly, or indeed turn them away.......How many Vectras/Mondeos weigh UNDER 1500kg do you think?

[andrew e]

  pogweasel said:

Employers. What a shower of shit it is these days trying to scratch a living. For the third time in as many months I have not been paid on time/in full.This month they paid us all 75% of basic on pay-day, promising to pay the rest today. Which remarkably did not happen. They paid last weeks' expenses and a 'further payment' which amounted to bugger all, as we are still owed 20%, and that's before you get to the overtime which was ~100 hours last month. Frigging Nora, I am getting well dicked off with this.... I have already been made redundant twice in two years, and I reckon this lot are gonna go under by the end of the month. So I am cooking my 'Plan B' / exit strategy. Does anyone know if I can legally seize goods in lieu of payment if they don't cough up.... just that I have their van and about £5000 of equipment sat here....

Pog my old man had this years back, he loaded the van full of tools/equipment to the value of wages. 3 weeks later they went bang, he hid the van till its contents had been re-deployed then gave it to the administrators.

[Guest]

  garethj said:

  watanabe said:

The brakes passed the efficiency test, but the pedal has a mile of travel before it picks up and bites.

So are they spongey or is it a long travel before it bites?Does the travel improve with the handbrake on a couple of clicks? If so, it could be the rear brake shoes need adjusting. I'm guessing it's discs on the front and drums on the back of the Amazon.When doing the brakes you should adjust first, then bleed second. Adjusting drums right is easy but you need the wheel in the air, tighten the adjuster up until the shoe is just touching, then bang the brake pedal down a few times to centre the brake shoe. Then readjust until it's touching, bang down the barke pedal etc etc. After doing this 2 or 3 times the shoe should be just touching the drum in 1 or 2 places (because they're never completely round).Do the other wheel, bleed and you're done.

Gareth, they've done the job fine - if it was a normal modern ish car. They just haven't pressure bled the system, and the pipe does a U bend as it comes out of the MS.You're correct in thinking they're drums at the back on the Amazon - though they did go over to discs at the end of '68, and a toss stud pattern.The pedal is spot on with the handbrake on, so I agree that the shoes probably need to be adjusted inwards.

[mattblack]

1. Digital odometers. Why can't they display the mileage as soon as you switch the ignition on? I want to write it down on the vehicle log sheet NOW, I do not need a 'oil ok' message for a minute, I get the idea, the oil is 'ok', I know it is, I checked it the other day with that terriby old fashioned 'dipstick' affair... and WTF does 'ok' mean anyway... when it's just been changed, does the display say 'oil fuckin' brill'....?2. Taps in public toilets. What's wrong with a gentle stream of water? Why do they have to produce a 2000 PSI array of needle-like jets that bounce off the surface of the laughably small sink and all over the front of my nice beige slacks?

[pogweasel]

  mattblack said:

1. Digital odometers. Why can't they display the mileage as soon as you switch the ignition on? I want to write it down on the vehicle log sheet NOW, I do not need a 'oil ok' message for a minute, I get the idea, the oil is 'ok', I know it is, I checked it the other day with that terriby old fashioned 'dipstick' affair... and WTF does 'ok' mean anyway... when it's just been changed, does the display say 'oil fuckin' brill'....?2. Taps in public toilets. What's wrong with a gentle stream of water? Why do they have to produce a 2000 PSI array of needle-like jets that bounce off the surface of the laughably small sink and all over the front of my nice beige slacks?

1. Because 99% of the motoring public don't know where the dipstick is.Can you skip the 'oil ok' by pressing the reset button on the odometer? That's what I have to do with my van. 2. Because public toilet designers are having a laugh. They are all sat round the corner sniggering as you exit looking like you've pissed down your trousers.

[M'coli]

^^^If the pedal's spot on with the handbrake on, then it just needs adjusting, but not bleeding.

[dollywobbler]

  mattblack said:

1. Digital odometers. Why can't they display the mileage as soon as you switch the ignition on? I want to write it down on the vehicle log sheet NOW, I do not need a 'oil ok' message for a minute, I get the idea, the oil is 'ok', I know it is, I checked it the other day with that terriby old fashioned 'dipstick' affair... and WTF does 'ok' mean anyway... when it's just been changed, does the display say 'oil fuckin' brill'....?

That right royally pisses me off. I can look through the window on the 2CV and read the mileage. I don't even have to open the chuffing door! New MINIBIGISHITI things are dreadful for this. I think the Citroen C5 I borrowed a while back showed it when the door opened. That's better.

[Dukestar25]

My contribution to this thread:I hate family holidays. I have just spent a week with the family (although it felt like longer) in a Static caravan in a fairly remote part of Wales and, while I don't generally have anything against the place, it was a truly miserable experience.It rained most of the week, the club was only open for 3 nights, the pool was outside, the Polish bird at reception was decidedly dim, the caravan had seen better days and there was generally nothing to do without driving for miles through the countryside trying to dodge minibuses on lanes just barely big enough for my Matiz (let alone my Synergie) to drive on. I never thought I'd say this but it's good to be home...

[Rusty Pelican]

Bloody L,oreal adverts , seem to be on telly every 2 minuites , containing ingredients ive never even heard off , fixing things that dont need fixing on vain women that read womens mags like its the be all and end all of life , Coz im worth it , COZ YOUR PISSING ME OFF ,

[Father Ted]

  Dukestar25 said:

My contribution to this thread:I hate family holidays. I have just spent a week with the family (although it felt like longer) in a Static caravan in a fairly remote part of Wales, and it was a truly miserable experience..

Not just me then - I spent a week in Tenby, with the wife, three kids and the mother in law - and it was only for the fact that the only spade I had was a plastic one that I didn't twat the fugging bint over the head with it and bury her by the dustbins by day 3. Even the wife was getting sick of her as we tried desperately to shake her off and do our own thing. But noooohooho evening telly was banished to play the evening game of Trivial Pursuit. I couldn't even get my 3G interweb dongle to work there - there was no reception at all, so not even an escape into interweb land for me. I tell ye, I kissed the (oil stained) driveway when we got home...

[Albert Ross]

I'd have told the wrinkled bint where to get off.......... "You're here to keep the kids company while we have fun, now fuck off or you're walking home!" Of course, she may not have heard me......I would have said it quietly. Not wishing to cause offence etc.