The grumpy thread

[pogweasel]

Hey Pillock, stop sodding about with poncey screwdrivers, and get on with fixing my computer, hey?Oh and why can I not 'stalk' you on a well known social notworking site?

[Pillock]

You'd be surprised how little you get for a quarter of a million.... and one of the quotes we got was little more than angle iron. It looked like it should have clothes on it in BHS, and would probably collapse the first time we dropped a 60" telly on it.Pog, I didn't realise we had your laptop in at the moment? PM me your repair details and I'll escort it through the process And I think you'll find we need poncey screwdrivers, chances are the guy fixing your machine is currently doing it with a black and decker hammer drill - that's what happens when you have to buy tools yourself!Have you tried to stalk me on facefook? Not very successfully.....

[pogweasel]

Pog, I didn't realise we had your laptop in at the moment? PM me your repair details and I'll escort it through the process And I think you'll find we need poncey screwdrivers, chances are the guy fixing your machine is currently doing it with a black and decker hammer drill - that's what happens when you have to buy tools yourself!Have you tried to stalk me on facefook? Not very successfully.....

I'll find the details for the repair in a bit. I've had a few 'updates', which are akin to a grimy garage man sucking though his teeth and saying things like "...hard to get the parts you know". You appear not to be very 'clickable' on faecesbook... on the other hand it seems I am....

[RedSparrow]

Hirst man, you can come and work in my office if you like.

OK but on the following terms.

 

- New executive company car with a petrol card. Preferably a Hyundai Grandeur, but would settle for a Chevrolet Epica in metallic beige.

- Generous and largely unmonitored expenses account for trips to Little Chef, Travelodge, Wetherspoons, etc.

- Private office with a mahogany desk and a reclining high-back leather chair which swivels around, so I can face the window when people come in.

- Liquor cabinet and cigar box, to be re-stocked at regular intervals.

- Two old GPO telephones - one black, one red (for urgency).

- Secretary who could be described as "a bit tasty".

 

I can start Monday if you like? I'll probably turn up about noon-ish, depends if I fancy a lie in.

 

CJ?

[Pillock]

I'll find the details for the repair in a bit. I've had a few 'updates', which are akin to a grimy garage man sucking though his teeth and saying things like "...hard to get the parts you know". You appear not to be very 'clickable' on faecesbook... on the other hand it seems I am....

Aye, I unclickerabled myself a while ago when my whorey ex-wife was being all psycho-nutjob-stalker. She's now being quieter about it but I can't remember what privacy settings I applied, I think only people who I contact first can add me and see my pictures and stuff.As for the repair, yeah we have some kind of useless SMS update system on the go, I was sat next to the guy responsible for it last week. All it really highlights is how many times we try to avoid a difficult repair, as it automatically tells you it's being repaired when parts arrive, and then again when we 'lose' the parts and have to reorder them.

[Mr H Sceptre]

This bastard, Ed Hall, really boils my piss.

 

 

Him, & others such as Nick Knowles etc etc, try to bring a 'whacky' appeal to everything they present on the telly. Doing a load of DIY or whatever in a house is not 'whacky' or 'fun'.

 

Die, bastard, die.

[RedSparrow]

This bastard, Ed Hall, really boils my piss.

 

 

Him, & others such as Nick Knowles etc etc, try to bring a 'whacky' appeal to everything they present on the telly. Doing a load of DIY or whatever in a house is not 'whacky' or 'fun'.

 

Die, bastard, die.

Is he still on tv? Not seen him on anything for ages, thank goodness.

 

Blimey, we're rapidly approaching the 200 pages mark here...

[Mr H Sceptre]

This bastard, Ed Hall, really boils my piss.

 

 

Him, & others such as Nick Knowles etc etc, try to bring a 'whacky' appeal to everything they present on the telly. Doing a load of DIY or whatever in a house is not 'whacky' or 'fun'.

 

Die, bastard, die.

Is he still on tv? Not seen him on anything for ages, thank goodness.

 

Blimey, we're rapidly approaching the 200 pages mark here...

Sadly, yes he is still on TV. He co-hosts one of the daytime Cash in the Attic to Buy or not to Bargain Hunt type shows, which I detest.

 

Eamonn Holmes, he's a prick as well.

[Cavcraft]

I think he was on just now in 'To buy or not to buy' wearing his 'fashionable' pink jumper.

[ChinaTom]

To buy or not to buy.Just sat through it - it is one of the disadvantages of working from home and having to use the dining room table as an office.I much prefer Kirsty Allsop.

[mnde]

Hey RedSparrow, are they Acorn Archimedes screenshots on your avatar/signature? Mark.

[Guest]

I much prefer Kirsty Allsop.

+1

[garethj]

Air travel.Right now I'm in India, and as I wouldn't be allowed to claim the 12000 miles round trip as petrol allowance I came by plane. The only thing wrong with the plane is the pitiful amount of legroom if you're taller than a dwarf but hey, it's only for 12 hours.The main problem is with the other people, how difficult is it to listen to what the ground crew and cabin staff say ffs? If they say "those boarding with children or who are disabled should come forward now" it doesn't mean it's the January sales and everyone should rush the poor sod at the gate. This isn't even Easyjet, everyone's already got a seat allocated to them. It just adds to the aggro to form another massive queue for no reason.The reason they all have to rush is to get their hand baggage on first. Now waiting for your bags to be unloaded is a bit of a pain so if you can just about squeeze everything into a holdall, good for you. But some people were bringing suitcases onto the plane bigger than the one I checked into the hold Those metal frames with "maximum allowable baggage" are all over the place, I must have passed at least 5 between checking in and getting on the plane, but it's just a waste because nobody takes any notice.And because nobody takes any notice you often have to hunt around for some free space in a locker, hoping that some other sod doesn't cram a suitcase with wheels on top of it then have 3 goes at slamming the locker shut because it doesn't quite fit.Rant over. I blame the jetlag, and the fact that I had more near-death experiences in the taxi ride to the hotel than I had commuting through London on a motorbike over 5 years

[RedSparrow]

Hey RedSparrow, are they Acorn Archimedes screenshots on your avatar/signature? Mark.

Yep. That Micromen programme prompted me to dig out my old computer stuff.I just bought an Archimedes A3020 'cos we had them at school. They were so much better than PCs with Windows 3.1 which was the equivalent at the time.

[FredTransit]

Sent a snotty email to Tesco. So far, nothing. Why an I not surprised?

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Windows is just a fad. They told us that at school as we were becoming proficient in RISC OS.

[ChinaTom]

Air travel.

 

Right now I'm in India, and as I wouldn't be allowed to claim the 12000 miles round trip as petrol allowance I came by plane. The only thing wrong with the plane is the pitiful amount of legroom if you're taller than a dwarf but hey, it's only for 12 hours.

 

The main problem is with the other people, how difficult is it to listen to what the ground crew and cabin staff say ffs? If they say "those boarding with children or who are disabled should come forward now" it doesn't mean it's the January sales and everyone should rush the poor sod at the gate. This isn't even Easyjet, everyone's already got a seat allocated to them. It just adds to the aggro to form another massive queue for no reason.

 

The reason they all have to rush is to get their hand baggage on first. Now waiting for your bags to be unloaded is a bit of a pain so if you can just about squeeze everything into a holdall, good for you. But some people were bringing suitcases onto the plane bigger than the one I checked into the hold

 

Those metal frames with "maximum allowable baggage" are all over the place, I must have passed at least 5 between checking in and getting on the plane, but it's just a waste because nobody takes any notice.

 

And because nobody takes any notice you often have to hunt around for some free space in a locker, hoping that some other sod doesn't cram a suitcase with wheels on top of it then have 3 goes at slamming the locker shut because it doesn't quite fit.

 

Rant over. I blame the jetlag, and the fact that I had more near-death experiences in the taxi ride to the hotel than I had commuting through London on a motorbike over 5 years

O the joys of travel. 12 hours? Where are you, Nagaland? Pretty sure 9 hours should have been enough - pilots probably "arguing"

 

Indian taxi drivers are great - you get a ride in a Hindudstan Ambassador, and a free trip to his sisters shop on the way to several hotels, possibly even the one you are booked in! Yay!

 

Helpful top tip: go business class. Stick to southern India. The Red, Green and Yellow stuff at the buffet all tastes the same.

 

I hired this chap (right) and his wheeled biscuit tin for a couple of days - utter utter maniac. Fun though

 

Seriously though, which city?

[RedSparrow]

Windows is just a fad. They told us that at school as we were becoming proficient in RISC OS.

Exactly the same at my school. RISC machines were much more efficient. As far as I know, Windows/IBM became the standard because Acorn wouldn't licsence their OS to other manufacturers, so that they would have the monopoly on worldwide computing. Sadly because of this, everyone turned to Windows.Great shame as Britain could have lead the world with computing, and the country would probably be a fait bit more economically stable today!

[Guest]

More dullard computer nerd stuff: My old school had a redundant and dusty computer room filled with BBC Micros at the turn of the century, it probably still does! It was off-limits, no one ever went in there, most didn't even know what was in there. I got on quite well with the science teacher, so me and a few other lads were eventually allowed in there on our own to do our work/mess around on numerous occasions in lieu of doing it with a HB pencil like everyone else.Was quite funny staring into the "Cub" monitors as we knocked up our work on the graphs program, then printing them out via dot matrix printers. This was in 1999! Loads better than their crippled Windows 95 PCs though, which were still struggling along with 486s if I recall.

[Pillock]

Poor management and a lack of progression led to Acorns being superceded in schools... They could never quite decide which way forward they wanted to go, and a lot of the machines were rehashes of older ones, with an added slot or another 256MB of memory. In contrast PCs were advancing at a great rate, processors were faster every week, flash video cards that you could just slot in...Had they had the open PC approach, where anyone could make a compatible machine, they'd still be around today. I remember our A400s (?) in CDT at school being superb to use, and the A3000s elsewhere good too. Nice learning curve too, there were a couple of guys who knew more about the OS than the IT staff did and got up to much mischief :)It's like the Commodore Amiga story all over again. Management forget to keep computer relevant and it disappears.

[Station]

If Acorn HAD held the monopoly, you can be guaranteed, it'd be overseas by now, in some other company's pocket - even Microsoft was a multi-million pound company in the early 90's.There is no other option but to fuck it up as soon as it gets to be something good in the UK. Why does EVERYTHING end up that way in this country?

[RedSparrow]

My school threw all their Archimedes and Micros in a skip circa 1999. No-one cared at the time. I wish I had nicked a couple of them like a few people did!

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Don't forget ARM. Their processors are in countless mobile phones, iPods etc.

My school threw all their Archimedes and Micros in a skip circa 1999. No-one cared at the time. I wish I had nicked a couple of them like a few people did!

That would have been me - I had an A3000(?) an A5000 with CD-ROM and two BBC Micros. All from the skip.

[mnde]

More dullard computer nerd stuff: My old school had a redundant and dusty computer room filled with BBC Micros at the turn of the century, it probably still does! It was off-limits, no one ever went in there, most didn't even know what was in there. I got on quite well with the science teacher, so me and a few other lads were eventually allowed in there on our own to do our work/mess around on numerous occasions in lieu of doing it with a HB pencil like everyone else.Was quite funny staring into the "Cub" monitors as we knocked up our work on the graphs program, then printing them out via dot matrix printers. This was in 1999! Loads better than their crippled Windows 95 PCs though, which were still struggling along with 486s if I recall.

Sorry to continue veering OT, but my old school (89-96) also had a redundant and dusty room alongside the main computer room filled with BBC Micros, except it wasn't particularly off limits. I used to love going in there and would make it a mission to get one or more of the Beebs up and running. The room also held a treasure trove of old 5 1/4 inch floppy discs, old computer magazines and archaic printers: a daisywheel one and a massive one with a rotating type cylinder. The main computer room had a mixture of Mac Pluses and Mac Classics... but there was another computer room elsewhere that had RM Nimbus machines.... ah, those were the days.Mark.

[michiel]

Computers in school? I feel old... or maybe I just don't remember that there were any in my school. In which case I feel even older.

[garethj]

O the joys of travel. 12 hours? Where are you, Nagaland? Pretty sure 9 hours should have been enough - pilots probably "arguing"

I'm not sure how long it took, the flight was a BA one to Chennai and then a Kingfisher flight to Coimbatore where I'll be staying until Monday night. It was about 24 hours travelling, door to door which is similar to when I used to go to Taiwan for work.

Indian taxi drivers are great - you get a ride in a Hindudstan Ambassador, and a free trip to his sisters shop on the way to several hotels, possibly even the one you are booked in! Yay!

As the driver led me out into the airport carpark there was a white Hindustan Ambassador and a silver Mitsubishi (what's the one that's a bit smaller than a Galant?) White Hindustans are for government use only I think so I new straight away it would be in the Mitsubishi.

Helpful top tip: go business class. Stick to southern India. The Red, Green and Yellow stuff at the buffet all tastes the same.

Sadly I'm stuck in cattle class but you're right about everything else.

I hired this chap (right) and his wheeled biscuit tin for a couple of days - utter utter maniac. Fun though

Is that a Tata? I've seen a few go zipping past. I'll be out with the camera this weekend so I'll post a few pics up. There seems to be a kind of early '60s Fiat around that must be the modern version of the Hindustan? I'll try and get pics, while not getting run over.

[Mr H Sceptre]

a silver Mitsubishi (what's the one that's a bit smaller than a Galant?)

Mitsubishi Carisma?

[ChinaTom]

I recall a few Carisma's there. The odd Lioncel too (Lancers I think). Chennai is by far the most pleasant Indian city. Small world man! I was in Coimbatore about 2 years ago - Trichy Road to be precise. Used to get black and yellow tuc-tucs across the city every day to the offices. Stayed for a few days before bouncing up to Sathyamangalam in a Toyota Innovo. At a million miles an hour.My pic is an Indicar V2. Tata was too middle class for my particular needs (that was up in Uttar Pradesh). The Fiat-clones are Padminis - please post some pics. An extra bottle of Kingfisher beer if you spot a Montego or a Victor. A litre of draft Sandpiper if you see an SD1Bet the weather is nice.

[Station]

Read an obituary in the local paper to a "farther", and then another for 'Gradnad'.

FFS, use a spellchecker or check what you are writing!!!

[garycox]

Should it be 'grandad' or 'granddad'?I always write 'grandad' but spellcheckers don't usually like it.