The grumpy thread

[richardmorris]

11 minutes ago, myglaren said:

Sitting here quietly minding my own business, waiting for the laptop to reboot and there was an horrendous racket, thought the harmon/kardon amp linked to the laptop had taken a wobbly.

But it was the phone on the windowsill, emergency announcement from the government, not a nucular war, just an admonishment not to be lighting and fires or barbecues.

Only one I have had.  Didn't get any of the test ones.

Was on the phone to my mum when her’s went off. She was confused about it as it was in Welsh. Then my phone did it

[St.Jude]

I had it twice on the same phone, and I thought someone was taking the piss.

All I thought about were the ones who have hidden phones because they get knocked about by their partners. That will have gone off for them.

I think far more are getting hurt with this system than it’s saving really.

[Zelandeth]

Having been involved in disaster response and emergency planning on a region wide scale (albeit as a very small cog in a large machine) this really pisses me off.

One of the cardinal rules with a system like this is that it absolutely only should be used when there is severe and immediate danger to life and property.  Any other use massively dilutes the effectiveness of the system as people get used to it.

Messages should only be sent out if it is absolutely necessary, and be targeted at those most at risk.

Such as "that river within a mile of you has just burst it's banks - get out and to higher ground and do it right now."

Telling people not to be stupid three days after the horse has bolted through the system is beyond fucking stupid.

If there's a wildfire IN MY AREA, then by all means send me an alert telling me of that...but how about just using ya know... normal channels to tell people not to be absolutely stupid?

If you've consciously made the decision to be doing anything that could conceivably start a fire anywhere in England/Wales in the last week, a bloody message on your phone isn't going to make the slightest difference anyway!

[richardmorris]

7 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Having been involved in disaster response and emergency planning on a region wide scale (albeit as a very small cog in a large machine) this really pisses me off.

One of the cardinal rules with a system like this is that it absolutely only should be used when there is severe and immediate danger to life and property.  Any other use massively dilutes the effectiveness of the system as people get used to it.

Messages should only be sent out if it is absolutely necessary, and be targeted at those most at risk.

Such as "that river within a mile of you has just burst it's banks - get out and to higher ground and do it right now."

Telling people not to be stupid three days after the horse has bolted through the system is beyond fucking stupid.

If there's a wildfire IN MY AREA, then by all means send me an alert telling me of that...but how about just using ya know... normal channels to tell people not to be absolutely stupid?

If you've consciously made the decision to be doing anything that could conceivably start a fire anywhere in England/Wales in the last week, a bloody message on your phone isn't going to make the slightest difference anyway!

I totally agree. 

[Zelandeth]

Also having now seen the text of the message - in addition to my previous comments, no mention of discarded cigarettes?

That seems a glaring oversight.  

Though the whole thing is utter nonsense from start to finish.

[St.Jude]

53 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Also having now seen the text of the message - in addition to my previous comments, no mention of discarded cigarettes?

That seems a glaring oversight.  

Though the whole thing is utter nonsense from start to finish.

Don’t point that out. They’ll only send out another one with the correction on it.

[Markeh]

It was certainly an experience sat in a large, busy beer garden hearing hundreds go off.

I'm told that it was quite a sight at Boomtown festival too!

[loserone]

3 hours ago, St.Jude said:

All I thought about were the ones who have hidden phones because they get knocked about by their partners. That will have gone off for them.

Depending on where they are sourced, they may not get these alerts (at least, not audibly)

[DavieW]

It's a bad state of affairs if a once great engineering/manufacturering country can't make and install our own wind farms. 

 

[loserone]

5 minutes ago, DavieW said:

bad state of affairs if a once great engineering/manufacturering country can't make and install our own wind farms. 

Didn't our previous government decide that wind farms were woke and make all the UK companies bankrupt?

[Popsicle]

3 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

The emergency alert system?!?

What utter BS nonsense is going on sending a message saying "Don't be stupid" through that?

Sure, carpet bomb the country through the SMS system if you absolutely must, but the emergency alert system should absolutely be reserved for actual imminent danger to life situations.  Or people will just switch it off because of false positives.

...Also wouldn't it have been smart to send that out *before* the sequence of 30+C days rather than when it's about to cool down significantly?

As with the last tests, three phones between the two of us currently in the house, zero alerts received.

It shit me up twice, while I was driving along, once in English and then in Welsh as I crossed the border.

[Metal Guru]

2 hours ago, Markeh said:

It was certainly an experience sat in a large, busy beer garden hearing hundreds go off.

I'm told that it was quite a sight at Boomtown festival too!

Fuck knows what they’d do if we’re in imminent damage of being nuked!

[Zelandeth]

8 hours ago, Metal Guru said:

Fuck knows what they’d do if we’re in imminent damage of being nuked!

Nothing.

There's nothing meaningful that the general public can do in that situation - all it would do is cause a few minutes of ineffectual total panic which is likely to get more people outside the immediate blast radius killed.

In all honesty, I'd not *want* to be one of those to survive the initial incident anyway given the hellscape that would follow.

[myglaren]

[rovingtrucker]

When you come back to your own lorry after a week off and find agency lad has been using it. Fuel cards gone and some of my cleaning equipment has been taken and wagon has been left a state. I've got to now sort it all out and make it tidy to spend a week out in it. Why can't people just respect other peoples things. 

[myglaren]

Went brambling, came home with four kilo's and lots of scratches and nettle stings that still sting, just to remind me.

There were far more and far better a few days ago but most have 'gone over' now, with the heat and lack of rain presumably.

Did a Brian Rix, got tangled in among the brambles, hands full and my trousers fell down, good thing there were no witnesses.

I have sewn many extra buttons on my trousers as they need tightening up progressively throughout the day.

Yes, I know, belt, but I don't like them.

[Remspoor]

 

[Zelandeth]

Fine Halfords.  If you honestly will not sell me a bulb unless your computer says it fits my car, I will just buy it online from another retailer.  Which seems a daft additional carbon footprint for such a small, basic consumable.

Sadly a 40+ mile round trip to the only other halfway decent pair of factors around here I'm aware of being left seems equally overkill.

Why does everything these days just need to be so bloody *difficult*?  

[Momentary Lapse Of Reason]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/128027830110

 

FFS!

[Mr Livered]

22 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

If you honestly will not sell me a bulb unless your computer says it fits my car

What's that? Like, they actually refuse?

[Zelandeth]

2 minutes ago, Mr Livered said:

What's that? Like, they actually refuse?

The bulbs are all behind the counter, and they flat out refused to go and get one unless the computer said so.

Unsurprisingly, the computer doesn't have a match for the tail light bulb for a Trabant.

[Wibble]

4 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

The bulbs are all behind the counter, and they flat out refused to go and get one unless the computer said so.

Unsurprisingly, the computer doesn't have a match for the tail light bulb for a Trabant.

Bloody ridiculous but can you give them false details of a car they do recognise that uses the same bulb?

[Pieman]

22 hours ago, St.Jude said:

I had it twice on the same phone, and I thought someone was taking the piss.

All I thought about were the ones who have hidden phones because they get knocked about by their partners. That will have gone off for them.

I think far more are getting hurt with this system than it’s saving really.

Another reason to ban men from existing, cos if you believe the media only men ever abuse anyone.

I was forewarned the emergency alert was going to happen, cos a Welsh friend got the one in Welsh about five minutes before I got the English one and told me it was coming!  (I'd had one before a year or two ago while working in Spain, which was a storm warning if I remember rightly.)

[Zelandeth]

8 minutes ago, Wibble said:

Bloody ridiculous but can you give them false details of a car they do recognise that uses the same bulb?

Probably, but I don' honestly know what else uses 264s off the top of my head.

I kind of expected to just be able to walk in and buy a pair...especially as I had the old one literally in my hand as reference!

Edited August 15 by Zelandeth
Grammar

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

The bulbs are all behind the counter, and they flat out refused to go and get one unless the computer said so

Why, I wonder. In ours they're on shelves for you to pick up. Maybe lots of bulb thiefs in you area.

[hairnet]

bbc proms paul simon graceland thing

no paul simon and only a few ladysmith

wtf

dug out the original...............

[Zelandeth]

18 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Why, I wonder. In ours they're on shelves for you to pick up. Maybe lots of bulb thiefs in you area.

Pretty much all the consumables are now.  Bulbs, wipers, batteries, oil filters, probably a bunch I've forgotten.  About the only things you can pick up yourselves are oil and screen wash.

Think it's the standard layout they're doing in all stores as they're updated - has done away with the separate parts desk as well.

Never more than two tills staffed either so the queue is about five times longer than it used to be as well.

If it weren't for the place being five minutes from home therefore having major convenience points when I need something randomly they never would see me through the door.

[cobblers]

Decided to be "healthy" this morning and had a natural yoghurt for breakfast instead of my usual shit. Opened it up and as I was about to lick the stuff off the back of the lid the phrase "lick the lid of life" came into my head and I chuckled to myself at how naff it was. As I licked the clarted up stuff off the lid, I managed to slice my tongue in half on the rough torn edge of the foil causing a fairly significant loss of blood.

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, hairnet said:

bbc proms paul simon graceland thing

no paul simon and only a few ladysmith

wtf

dug out the original...............

Wife said it was a celebration. I'm not a Paul Simon fan, but I'd say they ruined it.

[sheffcortinacentre]

3 hours ago, cobblers said:

Decided to be "healthy" this morning and had a natural yoghurt for breakfast instead of my usual shit. Opened it up and as I was about to lick the stuff off the back of the lid the phrase "lick the lid of life" came into my head and I chuckled to myself at how naff it was. As I licked the clarted up stuff off the lid, I managed to slice my tongue in half on the rough torn edge of the foil causing a fairly significant loss of blood.

That'll teach you stick to a safe fry up.