The grumpy thread

[cobblers]

Bethere.co.uk are no nonsense just good internet. Not the cheapest but they won't fuck you around with unlimited* or block thepiratebay or any of that bollocks.

 

 

*fair use policy of 45 seconds of redtube per week

[skattrd]

I've been with plusnet for the past 3yrs and I've no complaints.

The call centre is in Leeds, and when I've had an issue it's been fixed quickly.

 

If you do go for plusnet please put skattrd1 down as referrer as it gets me 50p off my monthly bill /pimp

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I'm with plusnet too and would highly recommend 'em, cant fault 'em TBH

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Plusnet are indeed quite good. They also do a flexible contract, so that you can cancel easily in the event that they do turn out to be shit in your particular area. I'd go for that option, because you never know whether it's the ISP or the phone exchange that's shit.

[warren t claim]

Fucking PC infected with Privitize VPN. Christ knows how I'm gonna get rid of it.

[autofive]

  warren t claim said:

Fucking PC infected with Privitize VPN. Christ knows how I'm gonna get rid of it.

 

 

[trigger]

That bloody DVLA website, I've just gone to tax the Cortina and take it of SORN for the summer and yet again the website's down due to "essential maintenance", Tossers.

[Cavcraft]

Thankyou, gents I will take a look at PlusNet L8R.

I like the idea of being able to jib them if/when needed, as that's what I can do with Tesco at the moment (thank God) so it's a sort of safety net if you like.

[Caffiend]

Family. They never call, they never visit - it always and I mean always has to be me that makes the effort. I'm not exaggerating. Calls don't get returned, invitations to visit are never accepted (well OK, once each. Maybe twice for one of my sisters, I forget. In 10 years since I've been living here). If I stop calling, then it will - and has been - literally years (I'm not exaggerating), until I summon up the mental and emotional energy to get back in touch again because, well, family innit? Still, it's always my fucking fault if we haven't spoken in weeks/months/years. I'll accept 50% of that.

 

I'm getting to the point again where I'm tired of trying so hard all the time and never getting any return. OK, so I haven't got kids or a partner, but I do work full time which makes my weekends precious. I'm not even asking them to meet me halfway, 25% would do, I'm lucky if it's even 5. I think I'm a good person on the whole, but sometimes it gets really hard to believe it when your own relatives apparently can't be bothered to pick up the sodding phone occasionally.

[Rocket88]

Have you guys fallen out over something in the past [none of my business, I know] but I went through the same thing, all due to a horrendous mis-understanding that never got sorted out, and things just sort of festered. Took a fairly traumatic "clear the air" meeting to re-establish the entente cordial

[burraston2006]

Pop on a dirty track suit and get on the Jermey Bile show. THere are Four benefits: 1. All expenses paid holiday to Manchester 2. You get on the telly! 3. You see your sisters again and finally the best one 4. You get £2.5 grand for appearing!

[RedSparrow]

Please tell me it's not true about the vermin being paid £2500 to go on that show...

[Cavcraft]

80 mile round trip to see a car so totally different from the pictures/description it actually defied belief.

 

This...

 

 

...was wearing different (shit) wheels with flat/bald tyres, was absolutely covered in shit, had been parked by a drunken, blind dwarf, had bits missing and was about an attractive proposition as waking up in bed next to your nan and you've got her knickers on your head.

[Caffiend]

  colc said:

Have you guys fallen out over something in the past

Past fall outs were resolved 10 years ago or more. There's no lack of cordiality - as long as it's me that makes the first move. Bottom line: they really don't give a shit about me, I should get over it and move on - but family innit ~shrug. I just needed to vent somewhere where none of them were going to see it - so I can keep trying ~sigh.

[cobblers]

  Cavette said:

80 mile round trip to see a car so totally different from the pictures/description it actually defied belief.

 

This...

 

...was wearing different (shit) wheels with flat/bald tyres, was absolutely covered in shit, had been parked by a drunken, blind dwarf, had bits missing and was about an attractive proposition as waking up in bed next to your nan and you've got her knickers on your head.

 

 

So did you buy it then?

[Cavcraft]

Oddly enough...did we fuck as like.

 

I have to accept partial responsibility as I didn't view it before I hit the 'buy it now' option and as a result I lobbed the seller's dad £20 to cover his eBay costs. Tbh though I sort of regretted doing that, but there you go.

[Lord Sterling]

  Caffiend said:

Family. They never call, they never visit - it always and I mean always has to be me that makes the effort. I'm not exaggerating. Calls don't get returned, invitations to visit are never accepted (well OK, once each. Maybe twice for one of my sisters, I forget. In 10 years since I've been living here). If I stop calling, then it will - and has been - literally years (I'm not exaggerating), until I summon up the mental and emotional energy to get back in touch again because, well, family innit? Still, it's always my fucking fault if we haven't spoken in weeks/months/years. I'll accept 50% of that.

 

I'm getting to the point again where I'm tired of trying so hard all the time and never getting any return. OK, so I haven't got kids or a partner, but I do work full time which makes my weekends precious. I'm not even asking them to meet me halfway, 25% would do, I'm lucky if it's even 5. I think I'm a good person on the whole, but sometimes it gets really hard to believe it when your own relatives apparently can't be bothered to pick up the sodding phone occasionally.

 

Trust me, this is exactly the same situation Ma_Sterling is in, since we moved to Brum 12 years ago, Ma's sisters and Mother have visited probably 4 times, on the other hand, Ma always goes up, we've visited hundreds of times.

 

To be honest, I reckon its all down to laziness/not having the arsed. FATHA_Sterling has a few relatives/friends over here, I have probably contacted them a few times over the years, that is down to my laziness too, and that I feel, probably wrongly, that I haven't got much to say.

[gearoil]

Burst pipe...

[cort16]

That's shite Billy. You really just bought yourself out an ebay dispute giving him the 20 quid as it sounds like you had a genuine case to walk away if it wasn't as described.

 

Damn you ebay!

[John F]

Was planning to pop out for fish & chips as there's no grub in the house, but the Disco's battery is too flat to start it

 

Which means that out of all the vehicles I currently own, the only one with a working battery is the Maserati (!!), and that's down at the unit.

 

So I've ordered a curry.

[Caffiend]

  Lord Sterling said:

To be honest, I reckon its all down to laziness/not having the arsed.

Pretty much the size of it I reckon too. Sorry to hear your mum's in the same boat.

[dollywobbler]

Motorway drivers. I don't drive on motorways very often, so perhaps it was a just a 'holiday' thing, but the ineptitude displayed on Britain's motorways is shocking. All this lovely four-lane motorway they keep building everywhere, and you STILL get idiots doing 65mph in the third lane and NEVER moving over to the first or second. The problem is, this sets things up nicely for twats in AMG Mercs who learn their driving skills on a Playstation, so when you overtake the third lane mong, you have to check new and exciting blind spots to make sure a Playsation Herbert isn't cutting into the third lane from the second. Or first. I saw one idiot in an MX5 changing lanes after every car he passed, even if he immediately had to move back out again for the next car. Plan ahead sunshine FFS! Perhaps he was trying to make up for those who never change lanes.

 

At least most people today did actually seem to indicate as they should, with one notable exception. A fuggin' Traffic Womble, who thought he could drive at 85mph because his car looks like a Police car, and didn't indicate once, despite much lane changing. Thanks for setting such a beautiful example. Mind you, he was in a Land Rover Discovery, so it could be that the indicators no-longer work...

[Des]

I'm afraid it's not just the holidays, the whole business of adding extra lanes has failed, it would have made the same improvement to have removed a lane.

[Lacquer Peel]

  dollywobbler said:

I saw one idiot in an MX5 changing lanes after every car he passed, even if he immediately had to move back out again for the next car.

 

Isn't that what you're supposed to do? Assuming there's quite a long gap between the slower cars.

[phil_lihp]

It's not just a holiday thing, I find it's particularly bad around J27 of the M25 as there's a high concentration of people who only take the car out once a month and can't remember where they left their teeth. I spend the first 20 miles after that junction frozen in this pose.

 

[retrogeezer]

  RedSparrow said:

Please tell me it's not true about the vermin being paid £2500 to go on that show...

 

I think Jeremy Kyle has recently had a pay rise so it could be more that that now..

[Guest]

Uncle passed away yesterday evening. I've just got in from what could have been a lovely meet at Sheffield spoiled by idiot chavs so I've only just found out.

Had a short battle with cancer, was in a lot of pain and was told the tumour was inoperable, despite chemotherapy. He kept nodding off and was finding it increasingly difficult to wake up, and yesterday evening he went to sleep and that was it. No pain for him at least.

 

The man was a one off. He was a brilliant engineer and could fix almost anything - the exact opposite of me. He worked on delta wing aircraft for Fairey in the 60s and later at Trawsfynydd Power Station, working on the team that built the rod extractor for the main reactor. It was the work he did as a teenager on asbestos roofing that did for him in the end.

 

I shot my first ever film in his house and he would often help me with homework when I was too thick to work out algebra. Out of everyone in the family he had by far the coolest cars out of any us - a Renault 8, a Vauxhall Cresta, Jaguar Mk2 and an Alfa Giulia Super. He also had a spectacularly brown CX 2400 with Autoplas louvres that I used to sit in when I was little, and countless Daihatsus along with a really crap Renault 5 with the registration POO 347R. Thanks to his Rover 400 blowing its headgasket I heard new and hitherto unexplored language as he turned the night sky blue in a most entertaining manner.

 

He was the only person I knew who actually understood how the gearbox in my Renault 10 Auto worked.

 

Sir, you earned your rest.

 

Truly the end of an era for all of us.

[vulgalour]

You have my sympathies, sounds like your uncle was a man worth knowing.

 

 

Sorry too, about the Sheffield meet, it's getting moved we just have to decide upon a new venue for it. I'd've been there had I felt up to the drive over to Sheffieldland, didn't feel I had it in me to deal with knobjockeys, or other drivers, or people in general, thought it best to just stay away.

[Guest]

  volksangyl said:

You have my sympathies, sounds like your uncle was a man worth knowing.

 

Sorry too, about the Sheffield meet, it's getting moved we just have to decide upon a new venue for it. I'd've been there had I felt up to the drive over to Sheffieldland, didn't feel I had it in me to deal with knobjockeys, or other drivers, or people in general, thought it best to just stay away.

 

Cheers Gyl, he was a bit of a ledge and the family is definitely poorer without him.

 

Yeah, the Sheffield meet's gone to shit I'm afraid. I know a whinging text is probably the last thing you needed but something had to be said. From what I understand, I'm not the only one who got in touch. You were right to give this one the swerve. I went with a mate from work and he said several meets like this in Chester went to the dogs because of the nob-heads who turned up en masse and ruined it for the core of enthusiasts whose meet it used to belong to.

 

We didn't there until around 8.45. There were a few interesting cars dotted around - a Simca 1000 Rallye 2, a Toyota Starlet KP60, a S2 Land Rover pick-up and an XE powered Mk2 Astra Estate. There were some nice Fords around too - a tidy matt \ satin Capri with a Mk2 front end, a mint Mk3 Escort RS Turbo [along with a very straight Saph Cosworth] and a mental Rieger kitted Escort Cabriolet on hydraulics.

 

The other cars consisted of bazzed up, post-2000 shitboxes that kept roaring up and down the connecting roads. Considering a couple of families were there with their kids the others were acting fucking irresponsibly. One lad in a white Civic and his mate in a diesel Leon kept twatting back and forth, pinging their cars off the limiter before screaming out of the retail park on to Attercliffe Lane. Everything else was bland scally shit including an Astra with a stupid sound system that played that hideously distorted thump thump dance crap they all seem to lap up. The bass was so overwhelming it was shaking the windows in the McDonalds about 100 yards away. Everyone else sat in their cars revving the engines from cold.

 

Last night was the third Meadowhall meet I'd been to, and it was by far the worst. Last time some tit in a pea-engined E30 was trying to drift around the right angled bends in a spectacularly half arsed manner through the rain and standing water. We got talking to a couple of the Ford lads and they said they didn't want to come again if that was the sort of crowd that was piling in. There was a core of like minded enthusiasts there, but I got the overriding impression they weren't impressed at how bad things had become. They were convinced at one point that the police were going to shut it down.

 

I agree with your sentiments - it's time to move the venue on. I don't want to go back to the Retail Park after all of that.

 

What a shame it's come to this. I'll put a few photos up later.

[vulgalour]

Yeah, that sounds pretty bad. I've had a few texts and notes and the like, mostly telling me exactly the same as you did. The sad thing is that it wasn't surprising, it always goes this way with any big public meet and it's always the same crowd that spoils it. There's a few that turn up with some nicely modified modern Fords, not my sort of thing but they at least respect the space and put on a good show, and even they can't stand the idiot behaviour that goes on after about 9pm.

 

I'll get a new venue sorted for May, we'll move it and hopefully not take a bad reputation with us. It'll be fun when I move up north too, I'll need to find a new organiser when that happens and I doubt anyone will want to step up and we'll lose the meet entirely.