Rant thread

[Bearman]

I think there may have been a bit of revisionism in the last but one post.

[Phil]

The heating’s gone off in my daughter’s house, it’s governed to go off anyway between 10:30 and 17:00 but she’s rung the landlord to see if he can get it on between those hours given the temperatures. Now it’s gone off completely including the hot water and he doesn’t want to know. Rent is paid up till June. The way theses landlords treat students is disgusting I’ll be on to the letting agents in the morning. 

Edited March 1, 2018 by Phil

[Bedford Roughyed]

Selling a few bits and bobs on Facebook, and you knock a price down to get a quick sale and knock off the nominal P&P I had put on (it doesn't actually cover the P&P...) and tell the buyer I will post it today or monday at the latest.  I've now had 2-3 messages asking if it will get posted today or not!  He's got a massive bargain, couldn't pay the P&P cause it went over his budget and now he's pestering over the delivery day.  In two minds whether to say stuff it and give a refund.  

(i won't because I'm nice and will hike miles though the snow to get to the post office...)

[graveyard johnny]

why can't anyone on tv be interviewed (eg on the news) without starting their answer with the word "absolutely"-  makes my blood boil!!!!!!!!!!!!

Edited March 3, 2018 by graveyard johnny

[Mumby Magic]

6 minutes ago, graveyard johnny said:

why can't anyone on tv be interviewed (eg on the news) without starting their answer with the word "absolutely"-  makes my blood boil!!!!!!!!!!!!

Had a div on ebay recently. He bought an Xbox360 in full working order and still doesn't seem happy. It's nearly 3 weeks since the sale and he's still messaging about bits and bats.

[ckn]

I just saw one of the new army adverts. The one about the squaddie getting the tea bag then getting all emotional. Absolutely disgusting. Just gives a bad impression of the army.

No squaddie on exercise would ever have kit ironed to parade ground standard... And that camo on that helmet, not even the TA have standards that low. Then you get the fire and field discipline that the scouts would sneer at. 

 

[groundhopper]

I have a new organisation to hate, Travelodge

Two of us got stuck in Glasgow on Wednesday with no train back

The railway companies did there best including rescuing us south of Carstairs Wed night and what their staff did, I cannot imagine but some was visibly impressive

We waited 90 mins Thursday for a possible train but they could not clear the route. we then went to get a change of clothes as only took two days worth with me. We then received a message via my employer that Travelodge had closed the hotel as staff could not get there. No suggestions were put forward as to what we should do and it was minus 5

For those who believe in the free market, the national chains put prices up into the £150 to £400 range ' as prices follow demand'. with some luck and desperation we found a place, probably locally run, near the university for £46.   

Got home late Friday after a lift, the borrowing of someone else's rental car to reach Preston and three trains from there

Still thinking about my letter to Travelodge but will be to the MD, probably beginning dear Cu.. 

Thanks to many local staff in many organsiations as total failure by all large companies    

[ckn]

Not a major rant, just a frustration really.

We've finally had enough of BT and are moving to Sky for broadband and landline.  (See here for past context)

Trying to leave BT is about as fun as dealing with rampant herpes.  First, they sent me a "leaving cost" of £121 and said they'd bill that if I didn't call them.  I called them and spent 40 minutes with someone justifying it despite me making it clear they'd broken the contract first.

Then they tried the "I have to discuss this with my manager" trick.  Oh FFS...

"We can offer you a discount if you stay that will match the Sky offer plus throw in BT Sport (but not the HD version but we won't tell you that)"

Trying to convince me to stay by giving me viewing rights to football and union is not exactly a winning argument!

"If you leave then you'll lose your BT email address".  I have my own domain and don't even know my BT address.

"If you leave then you'll lose access to BT's world class service".  Really?  World class?

"Did you know we have to invest heavily in broadband infrastructure and that's why the small companies undercut us?"  No, BT Openreach, a different regulated body to the consumer BT and one that is funded by equal levies on all companies, invests in broadband infrastructure.  BT don't.  They seemed to be surprised I knew that.  Also, Sky a "small company"?

"It'll cost you £5 per month to keep your BT email address".  See answer above.

"It'll cost you (can't remember how much) to keep BT Sport."  I don't want it, make sure it's still cancelled.

"We can give you an even better deal than Sky for six months (but won't tell you that you'll pay twice the Sky price for the rest of the 18 month contract)."  They were as slippery as Boris Johnson discussing his infidelity when I asked them if they meant the whole contract and would put that in writing.

So, today, I move to Sky.  No leaving bill from BT.

My next BT bill was confirmed as 13th March covering the month ahead of the bill into April.  The computer says "no" about cancelling it despite me no longer being a customer.  I have to pay it then expect them to refund it.  Their finance folk haven't heard of the Direct Debit Guarantee and, when pressed, said that it doesn't apply to them.  Oh, and if I cancel my direct debit then the partial refund of this month's money won't happen because it'll bounce and I'll have to "apply" to get it by other means.

BT...  FFS... If only we could privatise them to make them more efficient and effecive.

[Phil]

We all know when we’re driving we have to be aware of other drivers being potentially semi crazed idiots at best and homicidal maniacs at worst. Expand that to include pedestrians. I’m heading into town this morning in my nice new car (Citroen berlingo) when I see a young woman holding a baby at the side of the road, she’s looking right at me, I’m doing 28-30 mph, the traffic volume is typical for Pellon Lane in Halifax for those who know it. Anyway for some reason my spider senses start tingling and say “look out Phil, she’s going to step out” and lo and behold she does right in front of me!!! Nowt wrong with brakes on the new motor!!! 

“I didn’t see you!!” She bleats

”I’m not too bothered about killing you love, but your baby’s got a life to live” 

bloody hell the adrenaline didn’t hit me till later, had to go and have a sit down and a cup of tea. 

Edited March 10, 2018 by Phil

[ckn]

It’s fun negotiating with a car dealership over prices. “You do know that price is 3 times what the OEM cost is for that part, don’t you?”  “But it's a genuine BMW part!” “That has a OEM price of 1/3 what you’re charging me, all it has is the BMW stamp on the invoice as ‘value add’”.  “Ah, you don’t want to pay the default mug price then, you want the customer who knows something but not everything price”

[ckn]

13 hours ago, ckn said:

It’s fun negotiating with a car dealership over prices. “You do know that price is 3 times what the OEM cost is for that part, don’t you?”  “But it's a genuine BMW part!” “That has a OEM price of 1/3 what you’re charging me, all it has is the BMW stamp on the invoice as ‘value add’”.  “Ah, you don’t want to pay the default mug price then, you want the customer who knows something but not everything price”

A perfect advert that’s been on this site all day. No one cares for your BMW, like BMW. Now, either BMW don’t care for my BMW or that comma shouldn’t be there. 

 

[Futtocks]

13 minutes ago, ckn said:

A perfect advert that’s been on this site all day. No one cares for your BMW, like BMW. Now, either BMW don’t care for my BMW or that comma shouldn’t be there. 

 

Either that or it was meant to be a full stop, with the last two words expressed as an order.  

[ckn]

1 minute ago, Futtocks said:

Either that or it was meant to be a full stop, with the last two words expressed as an order.  

 now you mention it, it does look like someone got Neuro-linguistic Programming for Dummies for Christmas. 

[tonyXIII]

Craig, what is your attachment to ultra-expensive German cars? Your old Audi needed a brake pad for about £4000, didn't it? Now BMW are trying to overcharge you for something. There is a pattern here.?

Edited March 14, 2018 by tonyXIII
To insert smiley

[ckn]

1 hour ago, tonyXIII said:

Craig, what is your attachment to ultra-expensive German cars? Your old Audi needed a brake pad for about £4000, didn't it? Now BMW are trying to overcharge you for something. There is a pattern here.?

It was a £4k gearbox it needed and it signified its end-of-life as that was more than its value.

I like German cars, they just last but you expect their maintenance to be expensive.

My current car is a 5 series BMW that I got with 60,000 miles on the clock when I handed my NHS car back.  It cost me £5000 and was about all I could spare from my redundancy money therefore it came with the caveat "for £5000 it must have something wrong with it". I needed one I could put the miles on and be reliable and I took the gamble on this car because it was just one hell of a lot of car for the money.  It took me six months to stop the "what's REALLY wrong with this?" as it was an immaculate car with immaculate maintenance and rode perfectly with zero noticeable issues and is still an absolute bargain for what I paid for it.

Eight months after I bought it, it developed a cracked radiator at about the mileage expected for the thing to start to fail (60,000-70,000 miles), beyond that it's a very comfortable petrol car that can get me to Scotland on a single tank (450 miles) while still having around quarter of a tank left.  You can't get one of the premium German branded cars without expensive maintenance.  It has 65,000 miles on it now and there's plenty of examples of this car still going strong with 200k on the clock with good maintenance.  Its next service is due in May (or so) and it's one of the bigger services that'll cost me £450 or so.

The car I owned before that was a top-end Audi A6, again just under £5k, it did me for almost three years with virtually no maintenance beyond services and tyres and I sold it for £2500 when I got my NHS car.  £69 per month that works out around.

The car before that was a top-end Audi TT, 3.2 quattro, £5000 exactly I paid, that did us for almost three years and I took it from 80k miles on the clock to 140,000 in that time.  I got £1800 (or was it £1600?) from the knacker's yard for it when the gearbox died spectacularly.  I had to spend £1k on maintenance for that car outside of services so that's £116 per month.

[tonyXIII]

Wow! My post was seriously tongue-in-cheek, but thanks for the detailed reply. My interest in your motoring preferences is largely down to a mate of mine who is a car mechanic who dabbles in a bit of car dealing on the side. He won't personally own anything other than BMWs. The last time I saw his car, he told me it was worth 70k. I could easily believe him as it had every comfort enhancer I could think of and some that sounded like they belonged on the Starship Enterprise. I pull his leg about this BMW fixation, too.☺

For myself, I couldn"t care less about the make of car I drive, but I can't be doing with breakdowns so I have bought new cars for the last 20 years or so. A Fiat Brava (I know the jokes about Fiat, but it was a damn good car). On return to the UK, I got a Hyundai i20 (very pleased with the car, disgusted with Hyundai Motor Finance). On returning to Greece, I got a Hyundai i10 (small, but there's only me and my wife). I like the i10 and it suits me as my annual mileage is only about 5000 (8000km/yr).

Happy motoring, Craig.

 

[Copa]

On 05/12/2017 at 5:11 AM, ckn said:

I have a pair of Lonsdale slip-on shoes with a reinforced front sole grip that are great for outdoor martial arts practice.  I occasionally wear them in summer when out in shorts as well.  I was told they were racist and I was supporting racist causes.  Nothing to do with the brand or corporate stance, simply the NSDA part of the name.

I still wear them and let the slack-jawed get confused over it.

Dear god that is stupid. I have a Lonsdale jacket that I’m always wearing out and about.

[Copa]

On 05/12/2017 at 4:36 AM, Phil said:

This is going to be a bit of a political rant with a bit of swearing, so heads up.

Why do we keep giving racists things, or let them take away things from us? If I wear red laces in my boots, I have to explain to people that it has NOTHING to do with racism, it is just the colour of my laces

Shaved head? Still nothing to do with racism.
Fred Perry gold and black polo shirts are the new thing racists are claiming, and I know of so many people who are giving up on that style, and even the brand. Fred Perry has come out against hate time after time, but it doesn't seem to matter.

****racism, ****hate, ****letting racists take things from other people making it theirs. Things that belong to different cultures, different subcultures, different styles, religions and fashions are not theirs to twist and ruin.

I had a shaved head and red laces in boots for most of my 20s. Living in Australia though that’s the first time I’ve ever heard of the red laces thing. In fact, I still occasionally wear black shoes with red laces at work as I simply like the combination.

[JohnM]

On 14/03/2018 at 4:11 PM, tonyXIII said:

Happy motoring, Craig.

 

[gingerjon]

Obviously nobody should drink drive and nobody should forget that the genuine victims of drink driving are the people who get hit but ...

... I am more than a little hacked off seeing people who happily put up their mental health awareness/addiction understanding posts deciding to have a very unsympathetic go at Ant (of Ant & Dec). There isn't a finite amount of sympathy in the world, it is more than possible to understand that of course he did wrong and should face legal consequences for that whilst also realising that here, right in front of you, is someone who is clearly in trouble.

Because that's the thing about mental health problems. They're not all kooky and fun. They can make you behave like a complete selfish wotnot because self destruction and disgust can often be part of it.

[Bob8]

33 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Obviously nobody should drink drive and nobody should forget that the genuine victims of drink driving are the people who get hit but ...

... I am more than a little hacked off seeing people who happily put up their mental health awareness/addiction understanding posts deciding to have a very unsympathetic go at Ant (of Ant & Dec). There isn't a finite amount of sympathy in the world, it is more than possible to understand that of course he did wrong and should face legal consequences for that whilst also realising that here, right in front of you, is someone who is clearly in trouble.

Because that's the thing about mental health problems. They're not all kooky and fun. They can make you behave like a complete selfish wotnot because self destruction and disgust can often be part of it.

Indeed.

I will say more broadly, that the new acceptance is very limited.

The man ranting in the street at hallucinations is still going to be largely shunned, which is understandable but shows the limits.  What is acceptable now is short term treatable conditions and minor conditions. 

Those suffering from schizophrenia are heavily stigmatized.  Women who get in in their early twenties are often able to recover, but women in less healthy environments and men (who usually get it as teenagers) are still outcasts.  Even those who recover are largely outcasts.

Autism is acceptable if it is like the nice sympathetic character on the TV.  But, it usually is not, someone in a dark place is rarely cuddly.  On the surface, the autistic person is, as you put it, behaving like a complete selfish wotnot. 

[gingerjon]

5 minutes ago, Bob8 said:

Indeed.

I will say more broadly, that the new acceptance is very limited.

The man ranting in the street at hallucinations is still going to be largely shunned, which is understandable but shows the limits.  What is acceptable now is short term treatable conditions and minor conditions. 

Those suffering from schizophrenia are heavily stigmatized.  Women who get in in their early twenties are often able to recover, but women in less healthy environments and men (who usually get it as teenagers) are still outcasts.  Even those who recover are largely outcasts.

Autism is acceptable if it is like the nice sympathetic character on the TV.  But, it usually is not, someone in a dark place is rarely cuddly.  On the surface, the autistic person is, as you put it, behaving like a complete selfish wotnot. 

As you might imagine, autism acceptance is something very close to my heart.

All the sympathetic clicks in the world are of no use if you're still going to act horrified when Little Ginger tears at his face in frustration and then shouts some random swear words.

[ckn]

39 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Obviously nobody should drink drive and nobody should forget that the genuine victims of drink driving are the people who get hit but ...

... I am more than a little hacked off seeing people who happily put up their mental health awareness/addiction understanding posts deciding to have a very unsympathetic go at Ant (of Ant & Dec). There isn't a finite amount of sympathy in the world, it is more than possible to understand that of course he did wrong and should face legal consequences for that whilst also realising that here, right in front of you, is someone who is clearly in trouble.

Because that's the thing about mental health problems. They're not all kooky and fun. They can make you behave like a complete selfish wotnot because self destruction and disgust can often be part of it.

When my wife was in the Priory mental health hospital, I remember talking to the hospital director over a coffee and he mentioned that they often have to hire in security guards when they get certain celebrities in, especially when into their addiction treatment wing.  The guards weren't there to keep patients in but paparazzi and journalists out from even the "respectable" media, all hoping to get a snap of an unhappy looking celebrity and damn whether it invades the privacy and security of the other patients. 

The worst he'd heard of was when Susan Boyle went into one for "respite" and there were reports of journalists physically blocking entrances with cars so that they had plenty of time to get shots of everyone coming in and out.  The police would come, shuffle them away then as soon as the police cars left they'd get another car to block it.

As long as people are clicking the clickbait pictures and articles on places like the Mail then it'll continue as it drives their income sources.

[ckn]

I've decided that contracting directly with the NHS, with no intermediaries such as an agency, is one of the more stressful things a self-employed person can do.  The NHS REALLY doesn't like paying anything other than a random basis.  I got one invoice paid within two days of sending it in, I got the invoice before it paid today and a month late.

It makes planning for cash flow just that bit difficult.

No point fighting it either as you'd have more chance of converting Boris Johnson into a Buddhist monk.  The worst part is that they don't see a problem with having an accounts payable (or receivable) system that is dysfunctional.

[ckn]

Sennheiser.

I've been a Sennheiser headphones/earphones fan for a long time but I've had enough really.  My current pair of in-ear headphones have the rubber ear-buds secured on with blu-tack because they keep falling off and I'm fed up losing them.  They're also losing their sound quality despite only being 18 months old.

My wife's set of earphones died with the left earpiece just stopping, again hers are only just over a year old.

I decided to see if I could get another set.  They've fallen right into the scam around branding now that they previously avoided.  Here's the CX 5.00i from Amazon for £42.75, here's the IDENTICAL set but with "for iOS" branding for £59.99 on "sale".

Also, it seems like most of the Sennheiser brand kit have quality issues where they mysteriously break just after the warranty finishes.

So, any recommendation for a good in-ear set?  I need something that'll be happy being stuffed in my bag and not be too expensive.  I'm not into the audiophile "need" to spend a lot for excellent quality, I have artillery tinnitus so the really squeaky highs and perfect precision are a bit lost on me.