The grumpy thread

[sheffcortinacentre]

Later is highly unlikely as the authorities have lost control of society ( they won't admit) & it's going to take ages to regain control.

[eddyramrod]

Fucking BBC.

Specifically, the Proms.  I was looking forward to the James Bond Prom, because I carry a long and abiding love for much of that music.  I probably should have turned it off when I found the presenter was Nick Mohamed.  Can't really blame him for the lame spy-sketch at the start, the temptation is always going to be strong but in common with so many presenters these days, he is, at best, annoying.

Full orchestra on stage.  Well OK; all the best of these themes were written for and played by big-band swing orchestras, which are not the same thing.  But you know, if the BBC has its own full orchestra, fine, let them use it.  We'll quietly not notice that they also have their own fully-functioning big-band, shall we?  These guys are professional musicians, give them a chance.

Literally every single piece was dragged down to 75% of its correct speed.  Unforgivable.

They brought singers on for the themes that have lyrics.  Lulu actually came on and sang hers from 52 years ago (The Man With The Golden Gun) and given that she's 52 years older, it wasn't bad; probably the highlight of the evening, at least vocally.  The other singers, none of whom I had heard of, were clearly classically trained, with maybe two exceptions, and oh boy it showed.  The vocal acrobatics were out of place.  Worse though, were two who may or may not have had any singing training.  She, in a vile pair of black baggy trousers and scarred by tattoos, was described as "wonderful and talented" and to be fair, compared to the rest of her local pub's karaoke crop she might be, but she murdered every note she hit, many of which probably weren't written down by the great John Barry.  He, clearly styled by whoever cast Ncuti Gatwa as The Doctor, wasn't even that good.  And, hot performance tip here, learn the fucking words!  "The kiss of death" in Goldfinger is not "for" the character: it's "from" him.

Verdict: 0/10, BBC.  Even I could have done better, and I (inexplicably) have more regard for my audience than to subject them to my singing.

 

[ProgRocker]

29 minutes ago, eddyramrod said:

I probably should have turned it off when I found the presenter was Nick Mohamed. 

Who?

I find anything that the BBC does these days rather 'cringe' . Stopped paying my TV Licence 4 years ago. 

I tried to report an non-MOT'd 61 reg Ford Transit parked nearby on the Norfolk Constabulary website. I could not accept their cookies on the site due to a 'technical issue' . Eventually, I got to the proper form and hit another technical issue.  Got around that hurdle by reporting it on the Gov.UK website for not having any tax. Both that and MOT ran out in May.

[ProgRocker]

@eddyramrod I do like "007 and Counting" by John Barry.  Heard that for the first time on Jamie Cullum's Jazz show on Radio 2 several years ago.

[eddyramrod]

2 minutes ago, ProgRocker said:

@eddyramrod I do like "007 and Counting" by John Barry.  Heard that for the first time on Jamie Cullum's Jazz show on Radio 2 several years ago.

With a bit of luck that was before the themes went down the toilet; Tomorrow Never Dies and every note since!

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, eddyramrod said:

Fucking BBC.

That was a very good review, way more honest than you'd usually find! This is why I dislike cover or 'tribute' versions of almost any music.

[MikeR]

Getting some rain up here by the lakes ...

 

[Talbot]

Grumpy? Yes.  Also pissed off about the modern renters rights legislation, and the fact that my housemate has given notice to cancel her tenancy at our house.  

This means that the entire agreement, including my rental, is now on notice.  I have to either negotiate a new tenancy agreement, or move out on the same day.

Which is fun, as I have a garage absolutely rammed full of kit and tools and parts and stuff, and a room full of electronics and other equipment.  Moving house would be a massive ballache.  And if I manage to stay, I have no doubt the landlord will smash the rent up, as they are a corporate landlord, not a person.

and to add insult to injury, I am flat-out busy at work at the moment, and have to be away with work at the opposite end of the country for the next month or so.

Fucking Brilliant.

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, Talbot said:

Grumpy? Yes.  Also pissed off about the modern renters rights legislation, and the fact that my housemate has given notice to cancel her tenancy at our house.  

This means that the entire agreement, including my rental, is now on notice.  I have to either negotiate a new tenancy agreement, or move out on the same day.

Which is fun, as I have a garage absolutely rammed full of kit and tools and parts and stuff, and a room full of electronics and other equipment.  Moving house would be a massive ballache.  And if I manage to stay, I have no doubt the landlord will smash the rent up, as they are a corporate landlord, not a person.

and to add insult to injury, I am flat-out busy at work at the moment, and have to be away with work at the opposite end of the country for the next month or so.

Fucking Brilliant.

Awks! You are a sitting tenant tho. She's not much of a mate 

[Mr Pastry]

8 hours ago, Talbot said:

This means that the entire agreement, including my rental, is now on notice.  I have to either negotiate a new tenancy agreement, or move out on the same day.

What sort of tenancy agreement do you have?   

Surely if it's a normal joint tenancy and one party pulls out, then the other party (or parties) becomes responsible for the whole tenancy.   You carry on as you are, but you have to pay the whole rent.   Which may be less than ideal, but that's what you agreed to.

The landlord won't want the hassle of getting you out, and in the situation you describe they have no grounds to do so anyway.

 

[Talbot]

3 hours ago, Mr Pastry said:

Surely if it's a normal joint tenancy and one party pulls out, then the other party (or parties) becomes responsible for the whole tenancy.  

Nope.  The law has changed and now if any party gives notice, that is notice for the entire agreement, meaning I have to negotiate a new lease.  And the landlord is apparently not happy with renting an entire 3-bed house to one person...

[Imhotep]

Had to pick my brother and his girlfriend up from Creamfields. Not a huge problem because I knew it would be muddy so I bought some seat covers and a tarp to put in the boot to save me a cleanup job.

Left them at home, so I’ve just spent an hour cleaning the interior on the BMW… 

[jakebullet]

Mrs. Has been having issues* with brain melt hemiplegic migraine. So today we went to the GP who asked lots of questions. Mrs answered enough of them in a vague enough way that vet decided she could have had a heart attack or a stroke so it would be enormous fun* if you went to a&e tout suite.

Lots of testing and lots of hours later they come to the conclusion that she has hemiplegic migraine and nothing else.

Saw a neurologist who's given her magic pills that could fix it or remotely could cause a stroke.  The fun continues....

[wuvvum]

Cunts.

[chadders]

22 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Cunts.

Roy's? 

[angle]

On 25/08/2026 at 11:18, alcyonecorporation said:

GenAI works in specific, limited contexts. 
It has cleaned up old photos well. That's all it seems to be able to do. 

Here's a scabby Cournil shot it farted out - and quite nicely, I must say. 



But it isn't the 'everything app' people insist it is. 

I swear that, sometimes. people just want an argument: I'd have £25 for every person who claimed it would 'transform' my research into my silly car stories. 
The best/worst instance of this I was when trying to nail down the date a firm changed its name, by asking people who worked there at the time (a Facebook group). 

Then one cumfart insisted that I ask ChatGPT. I told him it wouldn't know. He insisted, categorically, that it would. 
HE THEN POSTED UP A SCREEN CAP OF IT SAYING THAT IT DIDN'T KNOW, AND THIS WAS SUPPOSEDLY HELPFUL. 

Is it me? What the fuck?! 

At some point my house had a name, it's carved into what would have been the gate pillar but it's pretty weathered. It annoys me I can't work out what it was, but I decided it's the sort of 'work out patterns, fill in the gaps' thing that AI ought to be good at. 

So, asked it what this said. 

It came back and confidently told me it said 'Somerset House'.

I told it I thought the first letter looks like a P or an R, and gave it a photo from a different angle: 

I'm going to copy and paste the response because I enjoyed it: 

That's a very helpful observation. The letters on this stone are definitely a puzzle. Let's break down what we can see, starting with your thoughts.

I completely understand why you see a 'P' or an 'R'. Let's look closely at that first letter:

P or R: If you look at the lower part of the letter, you can see a vertical stroke and a curve that doesn't seem to complete a circle at the bottom. This is why a 'P' seems like a very strong possibility, suggesting a word starting with 'P...OMESER...' or 'P...OMERSET...'

R: For an 'R', you would expect a clearer diagonal leg coming off that curve, which is hard to spot with certainty due to the weathering. However, it's possible the leg was shallow and has worn away completely.

Now, let's connect this to the rest of the inscription and a common English house name.

The middle section, 'OMESER...', is almost certainly 'OMERSET'. When you combine this with a strong contender for that first letter, you get:

POMERSET'

Pomerset House FFS.

[Spiny Norman]

Had to go get a puncture fixed today, but that's not the grump. 

Left the car outside the tyre place and watched from inside their wee shed as the rain started, then became heavier, then turned horizontal, forgetting I'd left the window down about an inch. Came back after 15-20 minutes to this. There was even water on the glovebox and centre armrest 😠
 

[High Jetter]

13 minutes ago, angle said:

I live in a Victorian house - at some point it had a name, it's carved into what would have been the gate pillar but it's pretty weathered. It annoys me I can't work out what it was, but I decided it's the sort of 'work out patterns, fill in the gaps' thing that AI ought to be good at. 

So, asked it what this said. 

It came back and confidently told me it said 'Somerset House'.

Are you sure? The first letter looks like a P or an R, here's a photo from a different angle: 

I'm going to copy and paste the response because I enjoyed it: 

That's a very helpful observation. The letters on this stone are definitely a puzzle. Let's break down what we can see, starting with your thoughts.

I completely understand why you see a 'P' or an 'R'. Let's look closely at that first letter:

P or R: If you look at the lower part of the letter, you can see a vertical stroke and a curve that doesn't seem to complete a circle at the bottom. This is why a 'P' seems like a very strong possibility, suggesting a word starting with 'P...OMESER...' or 'P...OMERSET...'

R: For an 'R', you would expect a clearer diagonal leg coming off that curve, which is hard to spot with certainty due to the weathering. However, it's possible the leg was shallow and has worn away completely.

Now, let's connect this to the rest of the inscription and a common English house name.

The middle section, 'OMESER...', is almost certainly 'OMERSET'. When you combine this with a strong contender for that first letter, you get:

POMERSET'

Pomerset House FFS.

Local library might have street directories that would reveal the missing letters. Old skool. First letter is not a 'S'. Pomster?

[eddyramrod]

My estimate, FWIW, is something like Romsey House.  Good luck!

[adw1977]

I think Romsey House is likely.

Is there something stuck on/in the diagonal of the R ?

[AnthonyG]

51 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Local library might have street directories that would reveal the missing letters. Old skool. First letter is not a 'S'. Pomster?

There used to be street directories named ‘Kelly’s’ (There may have been other types/brands) that would list the houses (or shops, or factories, or whatever) on a given street, together with the names of the occupants, presumably taken from the electoral roll if they weren’t commercial enterprises. Kind of like a telephone directory but without the telephone numbers. 

I doubt a local library would have these now, and they haven’t existed as a thing since at least the 1980s, but a local museum or maybe the council’s archives service should have some, or know where you can find them.

[wuvvum]

4 hours ago, chadders said:

Roy's? 

Lathams.

[BorniteIdentity]

On 30/08/2026 at 10:35, eddyramrod said:

"The kiss of death" in Goldfinger is not "for" the character: it's "from" him.

[Markeh]

Love being woken by a randomly firing smoke alarm at 4am. Love it even more when after confirming that no, everything is fine, and just about going back to sleep, it goes off again 40 minutes later!

Offending item has been disabled and a new one will be here by the time I get home from work. 10 year lifespan, my arse, this one's crapped out after 7 and only ever gone off when tested until now - bad cooking and exploding capacitors never managed to set it off despite the latter releasing a hell of a lot of smoke right next to it!

[108]

9 hours ago, angle said:

At some point my house had a name, it's carved into what would have been the gate pillar but it's pretty weathered. It annoys me I can't work out what it was, but I decided it's the sort of 'work out patterns, fill in the gaps' thing that AI ought to be good at. 

So, asked it what this said. 

It came back and confidently told me it said 'Somerset House'.

I told it I thought the first letter looks like a P or an R, and gave it a photo from a different angle: 

I'm going to copy and paste the response because I enjoyed it: 

That's a very helpful observation. The letters on this stone are definitely a puzzle. Let's break down what we can see, starting with your thoughts.

I completely understand why you see a 'P' or an 'R'. Let's look closely at that first letter:

P or R: If you look at the lower part of the letter, you can see a vertical stroke and a curve that doesn't seem to complete a circle at the bottom. This is why a 'P' seems like a very strong possibility, suggesting a word starting with 'P...OMESER...' or 'P...OMERSET...'

R: For an 'R', you would expect a clearer diagonal leg coming off that curve, which is hard to spot with certainty due to the weathering. However, it's possible the leg was shallow and has worn away completely.

Now, let's connect this to the rest of the inscription and a common English house name.

The middle section, 'OMESER...', is almost certainly 'OMERSET'. When you combine this with a strong contender for that first letter, you get:

POMERSET'

Pomerset House FFS.

Might it possibly be Pompeii House?

[EyesWeldedShut]

That moment when you know you should have bought that heating oil last month:

So that's roughly 10p per kWh of heat at the radiator. Still cheaper than 'lecky I guess  but buying in 1,000 litres is daunting.....

[loserone]

9 hours ago, adw1977 said:

I think Romsey House is likely.

Is there something stuck on/in the diagonal of the R ?

Romsey or Romney house

[EyesWeldedShut]

3 minutes ago, loserone said:

Romsey or Romney house

Romany?

(Land Registry may help but you'd need to either pay or have a friendly conveyancer on hand - or, maybe, access to your own deeds)

[bangernomics]

On 30/08/2026 at 22:23, Talbot said:

Grumpy? Yes.  Also pissed off about the modern renters rights legislation, and the fact that my housemate has given notice to cancel her tenancy at our house.  

This means that the entire agreement, including my rental, is now on notice.  I have to either negotiate a new tenancy agreement, or move out on the same day.

Which is fun, as I have a garage absolutely rammed full of kit and tools and parts and stuff, and a room full of electronics and other equipment.  Moving house would be a massive ballache.  And if I manage to stay, I have no doubt the landlord will smash the rent up, as they are a corporate landlord, not a person.

and to add insult to injury, I am flat-out busy at work at the moment, and have to be away with work at the opposite end of the country for the next month or so.

Fucking Brilliant.

They will struggle to bum you too hard now mate, the RRA has provision for reasonableness, this is indicated as CPI at most and you can appeal on the basis of the prior agreement. I did review mine before it kicked in but not more than CPI. 

[High Jetter]

9 hours ago, AnthonyG said:

There used to be street directories named ‘Kelly’s’ (There may have been other types/brands) that would list the houses (or shops, or factories, or whatever) on a given street, together with the names of the occupants, presumably taken from the electoral roll if they weren’t commercial enterprises. Kind of like a telephone directory but without the telephone numbers. 

I doubt a local library would have these now, and they haven’t existed as a thing since at least the 1980s, but a local museum or maybe the council’s archives service should have some, or know where you can find them.

Yes, Kelly's was the main one, I have several for my town. IIRC before them was a blue book. Our main library used to have loads of them - not for loan, just for reference - but it must be over 30 years since I was last there so no idea if they still have them.