The grumpy thread

[Wibble]

12 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Challenge it. There's someone online who specialises in it, but not difficult. Un-needed stress, tho

We are but yes, don’t need this shit.

[Spiny Norman]

3 hours ago, kevins said:

Another tyre damaged on our 2010  fiesta, 11 tyres in 25,000 miles, all damaged not worn out,  the state of the minor roads around here is appauling and 195 45 16 tyres just don't seem up to it. 

Bit the bullet and spent £250 on a set of secondhand 15" wheels and 60 profile tyres hopefully that will fix it.

195/45 is just  under 3.5 inches of tyre sidewall. There's no way I'd risk driving a car where I live on tyres like that, even the 215/65s with 5.5 inch sidewalls thud into some of Glasgow's craters so hard I apologise to the car.  
 

[kevins]

6 hours ago, Spiny Norman said:

195/45 is just  under 3.5 inches of tyre sidewall. There's no way I'd risk driving a car where I live on tyres like that, even the 215/65s with 5.5 inch sidewalls thud into some of Glasgow's craters so hard I apologise to the car.  
 

with it loaded on the front theres only 55mm between the road surface and rim!

[comfortablynumb]

9 hours ago, Wibble said:

We are but yes, don’t need this shit.

You have my sympathy @Wibble, life seems to be handing you a plate of shit currently 🙄

[Leyland Worldmaster]

On 24/01/2026 at 23:12, Lord Sterling said:

On 24/01/2026 at 11:26, Leyland Worldmaster said:

Expand  

I just don't understand why many people need to create a toxic environment.

In my case, it was probably likely to do with campaigning for a place to rest and eat meals when we learned at short notice- think email on Friday; lose existing facilities Monday...

This was some eight years ago. So it has been eight years of office managers taking every opportunity to build a case against me.

Perhaps the most amusing* one was using the wrong type of ink... yes; really.

And although that office manager was advised not to play dirty with me- as were others before... they went ahead anyway.

I remain greatful to the allies I have. 

I used to be a bus enthusiast...

[Leyland Worldmaster]

9 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Challenge it. There's someone online who specialises in it, but not difficult. Un-needed stress, tho

I recall 'Pepipoo' was a thing once. This appears to have replaced that site:

https://www.ftla.uk/index.php

No idea if it is any good though.

[scaryoldcortina]

I'm properly annoyed about this, but not sure what to do next. 

Last Thursday at about 11.30pm the police went to my autistic son's house to investigate a report of domestic violence in the lane behind his house. No, not IN his house, in the public street behind it... 

Because he's polite (and autistic, and quite rattled that coppers are here in the middle of the night...) he let them in. Even though he didn’t match the description,  said he lived alone and noone else was there and the house was dark and quiet with him in his night things and obviously sleepy they insisted on searching the house.

He collects film and tv props/replicas and similar, they noticed a 6' long sword (he says it's a flamberge, recent purchase and completely legal to have in your home, also blunter than a butterknife) and immediately put him in cuffs and led him outside to the van while they called more officers to search for illegal weapons. It's midnight,  freezing cold and raining hard, they had him in the van for an hour before deciding nothing else was suspected illegal but they were taking the big sword for further investigation.

They left no paperwork. There is no record on the police computer except the original DV report. I've been complaining for a week but no-one has answers and the police station they came from never answers the phone.

My son is now scared in his own home, of the police! He's got no criminal record ,  this was his first ever interaction with the police, he was trying to help their unrelated enquiry (I think he was the only person to answer the door to them) and they cuffed him, detained him and took his property then didn’t even write it up and they wonder why everybody hates them!

FFS. I'm writing a full complaint including doorbell footage.

[primeradoner]

It would probably be better to complain to your local police and crime commissioner @scaryoldcortina. At least your complaint will then be acknowledged and recordered.

[scaryoldcortina]

Just now, primeradoner said:

It would probably be better to complain to your local police and crime commissioner @scaryoldcortina. At least your complaint will then be acknowledged and recordered.

already done, they also haven't got back to me yet.

[Mr Livered]

I'd be going to the local MP too, it's surprising what they can achieve if you happen to have a half decent one.

[BorniteIdentity]

19 hours ago, reb said:

My broadband is down. They're currently saying it will be back at 6pm on the 2nd. My neighbours phoned the ISP and found out that it's planned maintenance/upgrades in the area. It would be nice if they gave notice of such things given how common remote work is these days. I currently cannot access the stuff on my LAN and the internet at the same time, because I'm relying on the hotspot on my phone. This is a massive ballache and getting in the way of me getting any useful work done. It went down for 20 minutes around lunchtime, then came back up for an hour, now been dead since then.

Hotspot is shite because I'm only getting 35/2 rather than the usual 900/100 of the fixed line or 100/100 I get on 5g outdoors.

If they really don't get it fixed before Monday it will probably make me lose money, or at least put me a day or two behind on an upcoming project. I rely on the gigabit quite heavily because I regularly have tens of gigabytes of footage to download from clients. The internet at the office is shared so I'm limited to 20mbps down, it is usually more time efficient to download at home the night before and take it there on a physical drive. Not sure how that's going to work now.

 

The worst part of it though is it has convinced me to give the ISP an extra tenner a month for them to supply a mobile data failover device.

You get the usual grunts out of them in my rich experience: using it for work? Don’t have domestic broadband. 

I would heartily recommend Starlink despite OMG-ELON-LOL. My friend is stress testing it at the moment and simply can not break it. 100 each way and it’s been up and solid for two months. She’s constantly pinging and checking logs hourly - it’s literally perfect. 

Location can - I guess - vary, but it’ll be my next move and I live in a big new town 40 miles from London. 

[comfortablynumb]

Have you spoken to National Autistic Society @scaryoldcortina? They've given us good advice and help before 

[reb]

2 minutes ago, BorniteIdentity said:

You get the usual grunts out of them in my rich experience: using it for work? Don’t have domestic broadband. 

I would heartily recommend Starlink despite OMG-ELON-LOL. My friend is stress testing it at the moment and simply can not break it. 100 each way and it’s been up and solid for two months. She’s constantly pinging and checking logs hourly - it’s literally perfect. 

Location can - I guess - vary, but it’ll be my next move and I live in a big new town 40 miles from London. 

If my business was Actually Successful I'd be getting a leased fibre ethernet connection run to the house, along with both 5G and satellite failover. And while I'm at the What Ifs, I'd buy the whole building and kick out my annoying neighbours and turn their flat into an office and datacentre.

Alas in reality I am... Kind of shit at what I do. And I don't charge enough.

 

On the plus side, the broadband came back at 5pm yesterday just in time for me to have spent the afternoon fiddling with the offline copy of a planning document and given up for the day. So I played Minecraft with my lady friend, which is more important than work anyway 

[scaryoldcortina]

1 hour ago, comfortablynumb said:

Have you spoken to National Autistic Society @scaryoldcortina? They've given us good advice and help before 

no, but that's a good shout. Apparently he told them about the autism on the doorstep too.

[mercedade]

That is appalling, @scaryoldcortina - nothing more to add than what's already been said,  other than We are the Independent Office for Police Conduct | Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) might also be worth a visit.

Complain and complain and complain.

Good luck

[Leyland Worldmaster]

Why does this industry struggle with staff retention?

https://news.sky.com/story/london-bus-driver-sacked-after-chasing-and-punching-man-who-stole-passengers-necklace-13500615

Oh yeah...

[Sunny Jim]

Was he arrested or just detained @scaryoldcortina? INAL but if was arrested what you're describing sounds like it could be a case of wrongful arrest if that was a route you wanted to pursue. Were the officers wearing body cams? 

[scaryoldcortina]

No arrest, just a very uncomfortable hour in the van while they searched his house for something they could arrest him for. I presume they had cameras, but as there's no record of the visit it's probably not been retained. Ring doorbell on the other hand proves they were there.

Its all because he let them in when he didn't have to. I can understand wanting to make absolutely sure there isn't a female in distress inside the house but they had no right to intefere with anything else when they failed to find said scared woman. Also, actual abusers tell them to piss off!

[grogee]

I don't really know where to post this, but it occurred to me tonight that most* of this decades' problems have been caused by:

Wet Belts

Or

Wet Bats

[SunnySouth]

Ello Ello… what’s all this then?!

Parked up at 9pm this evening, on a central reservation where Plod also like to station proper speed camera vans, was this thing:

Despite the writing all down the side proclaiming to be protecting road workers (which is entirely noble) this thing was parked nowhere even vaguely close to any roadworks, looking very much like it was doing a bit of normal speedcamming on the side. Have we honestly reached the desperate stage in this miserable nation where we’re letting private parasites run speed cameras on behalf of the authorities?! Please no…

[DavieW]

I saw a similar van at roadworks on the M80/M876 junction last year sitting on the hard shoulder. There was work getting done. 

I didn't see it until I was level with it and went past it at 75 in the outside lane ( 4 lanes away from it).  Either they don't have access to vehicle reg numbers or my number was hidden by cars I was overtaking but nothing came through the door. 

[SunnySouth]

3 minutes ago, DavieW said:

I saw a similar van at roadworks on the M80/M876 junction last year sitting on the hard shoulder. There was work getting done. 

I didn't see it until I was level with it and went past it at 75 in the outside lane ( 4 lanes away from it).  Either they don't have access to vehicle reg numbers or my number was hidden by cars I was overtaking but nothing came through the door. 

Definitely no roadworks of any sort anywhere near this one!

[sheffcortinacentre]

Didn't think this was legal on several levels , Inc daily calibration of equipment, fines only being legal via courts ,etc.

[sheffcortinacentre]

6 minutes ago, SunnySouth said:

Definitely no roadworks of any sort anywhere near this one!

Again surely that comes under some kind of deception,fraud type of thing.also surely this is an unnecessary distraction actually causing danger.also isn't that borderline impersonating a police officer & any payment received obtaining money by deception.

But you must remember it's all in the name of road safety & the cash cow motorist can afford it.

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, SunnySouth said:

Ello Ello… what’s all this then?!

Parked up at 9pm this evening, on a central reservation where Plod also like to station proper speed camera vans, was this thing:

Despite the writing all down the side proclaiming to be protecting road workers (which is entirely noble) this thing was parked nowhere even vaguely close to any roadworks, looking very much like it was doing a bit of normal speedcamming on the side. Have we honestly reached the desperate stage in this miserable nation where we’re letting private parasites run speed cameras on behalf of the authorities?! Please no…

Carnell needs Fu in front of it 

[warch]

A friend (K) has been racially abused by someone else (M) who also lives in my village. K works for the local housing association M doesn’t really do anything apart from trading in horses (sort of cash in hand stuff) and lives in a housing association house. M and his family basically live off benefits and food banks but can afford a smoking habit.
 

Not content with abusing K, M decided to have a go at K’s husband,  also using racially abusive language outside the village petrol station where it was caught on cctv. The station attendant did ask if the police would like the footage (they did) but has been blocked from releasing it by the station owner presumably because she doesn’t want to lose M’s custom (probably buys all his fags there). 
 

Absolutely gutless behaviour, they’ll certainly lose my custom over this fwiw.

[SunnySouth]

46 minutes ago, warch said:

A friend (K) has been racially abused by someone else (M) who also lives in my village. K works for the local housing association M doesn’t really do anything apart from trading in horses (sort of cash in hand stuff) and lives in a housing association house. M and his family basically live off benefits and food banks but can afford a smoking habit.
 

Not content with abusing K, M decided to have a go at K’s husband,  also using racially abusive language outside the village petrol station where it was caught on cctv. The station attendant did ask if the police would like the footage (they did) but has been blocked from releasing it by the station owner presumably because she doesn’t want to lose M’s custom (probably buys all his fags there). 
 

Absolutely gutless behaviour, they’ll certainly lose my custom over this fwiw.

Surely that’s obstructing police?

[Sunny Jim]

Arses, that's that fucked then at only a few months old. NSF on the eNV200.

Hit a pothole hidden in a puddle in the dark on the way home last night. Didn't fancy putting the spare on in the rain and dark so opted to go out in the C15 only to discover that full beam has left the chat.

In remarkable feat of planning* and foresight* the MOT on the Nissan is due on 5th Feb and the C15 on 12th Feb. Tyre for the Nissan will hopefully arrive Tuesday to be fitted Wednesday ready for MoT Thursday. Hoping rain will stop for long enough to sort C15‘s headlights at some point.

Lot of hoping going on.

[hairnet]

10 hours ago, warch said:

A friend (K) has been racially abused by someone else (M) who also lives in my village. K works for the local housing association M doesn’t really do anything apart from trading in horses (sort of cash in hand stuff) and lives in a housing association house. M and his family basically live off benefits and food banks but can afford a smoking habit.
 

Not content with abusing K, M decided to have a go at K’s husband,  also using racially abusive language outside the village petrol station where it was caught on cctv. The station attendant did ask if the police would like the footage (they did) but has been blocked from releasing it by the station owner presumably because she doesn’t want to lose M’s custom (probably buys all his fags there). 
 

Absolutely gutless behaviour, they’ll certainly lose my custom over this fwiw.

tell cops about it and station gadge will have to - couldnt k speak to ha about m also?

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, hairnet said:

tell cops about it and station gadge will have to - couldnt k speak to ha about m also?

Hairnet makes sense...

(Not something you hear every day 😀 )