The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'd have said that nowadays Halloween is much bigger here than 5th Nov. The fireworks get spread out over at least a week, so it's hard to tell which they're for, but there are far more pumpkins, skelingbones, and people going out dressed as zombies, than Bonfire stuff.

[Kim]

Of course in Silly Oak we get zombies 10 months a year.  The combustion, on the other hand, tends to be seasonal (late June by the builders, early November by the students).

There's a house on a nearby road that was done up like a horror-movie crime scene last Halloween, and the decorations never taken down.  I suppose it might be a real horror-movie crime scene.  Or possibly a Scooby-Doo one.  If I meet a ghost I'll make a note to check if it's a landlord wearing a mask.

[Cudzoziemiec]

"Scooby Dooby Doo, where are you? We got some work to do now" etc, singing.

[cygnet]

I'd have said that nowadays Halloween is much bigger here than 5th Nov. The fireworks get spread out over at least a week, so it's hard to tell which they're for, but there are far more pumpkins, skelingbones, and people going out dressed as zombies, than Bonfire stuff.

Bonfire stuff, (and bonfire related Fireworks) require less interaction than scroungers kiddies knocking on your door. Loads of people wander up my local hill for good views of fireworks. 0 kids come knocking on my door at Halloween.

[Kim]

A convention that seems to have developed over recent years is the interpretation of the presence of a pumpkin lantern by the door as an opt-in to trick-or-treating.  This seems eminently sensible.   

[Beardy]

Dr Beardy likes Halloween and insists that I carve he a pumpkin or two (which I don’t actually mind) and then places one outside to attract becostumed urchins* for them to be liberally plied with cheap sweeties which I have been dispatched to the local shope to purchase. Given how much I detest a)being bothered of an evening, b)the commercialisation of festivals and holy days anc c) festivals and holy days, I do send a lot of my time preparing for them so that Dr B can enjoy the nonsense.

*actual well over half of the evenings visitors will be driven around** the neighbourhood in a suitably large and rugged of road vehicle as befits the countryside dwellers of the Far Eastern wastes of the Angles.

** mostly to protect them from all the extra vehicles that will be on the roads that evening.

[perpetual dan]

I’m happy to do the preparing, and feeding sugar to kids. They’ll be in bed by the time any summoning gets going.

[fd3]

My wife is incredibly smart, so why does she do stupid things?
Today she asked some builders to give a quote on some roofing.  We could do it now they say, to which she agrees.  3 hours later she has a £500billans isn't sure what they did. 
3 people, 3 hours work + parts, 500 is on the high end but it's not the worst thing ever.  I just don't get why she didn't check what they would do, agree price, and if she did why she's now unsure that they did the right thing.

[mrcharly-YHT]

I'm trying to book train tickets via LNER website.

Get to payment stage; "sorry, an error has occurred"

Try again, an hour later. Same thing

Give it another hour, try via a different browser. Same error.

Get on their customer support and they very


very


slowly

ask what train I'm trying to book.

I just want the damn website up, so I can pick my tickets

[Mr Larrington]

“Ratknackers!” exclaimed Mr Larrington, adverbially.  “The sole of my left Perfectly Good Gentleman’s Mountain Bicycle shoe has gone from ‘coming unstuck a bit at the heel’ to ‘coming unstuck for 3/4 of its entire length’!”

Equal quantities of glue and foul cursing will hopefully see it reattached and remaining thus for another seventeen years.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Equal quantities of glue and foul cursing will hopefully see it reattached and remaining thus for another seventeen years.

This unit approves of this service and sentiment, or attempt thereat, and wishes the esteemed Mr Larrington much success in his venture.

[T42]

While this unit sympathises: BTDT.



Those shoes were only 3 years old, which maybe explains why Carnac went phut.

[Mr Larrington]

Those seventeen years have included thirteen years of sitting on a shelf, mind.

[rafletcher]

Google maps, you have an annoying habit of titling roads that otherwise are in-named with the name of a property there on. Hence we have “Model Row” which are 8 cottages in fact, not the whole bloody road. Worse still the green lane between our village and the next is now called “Rectory Farm Cottages”. Muppets.

[T42]

Those seventeen years have included thirteen years of sitting on a shelf, mind.

That'd make anyone come unstuck.

[Mrs Pingu]

I'm surprised they've not disintegrated rather than come unstuck after that time.

[Tim Hall]

Perusing a website with the aim of purchasing tickets to see a band.
Price £xx.yy
Fees £n.mm

So far, so usual

But what's this? Delivery charge for e-ticket £1.65

Gouging abstrads.

[Cudzoziemiec]

But what's this? Delivery charge for e-ticket £1.65

Gouging abstradcts.

FTFY. It doesn't get much more abstract than a delivery charge for a pattern of electrons.

[ScumOfTheRoad]

My car lives in an underground car parl with rollder shutter doors. Simple blip on the central locking to lock. I am reasonably certain it will be there the next day should I wish to use it.
My bike lives in the same car park in a locked cage. Wheelbender aluminium racks or hung by front wheel. It has a big chain, a D lock and a cable. So three additional keys to secure it, and I'm not sure it will be there as thieves have cut their way into these cages.

I've said this before - why is it not as convenient to use a bike to go shopping? i wouldnt dare leave a bike outside out local Tesco.

[Mr Larrington]

Equal quantities of glue and foul cursing will hopefully see it reattached and remaining thus for another seventeen years.

Obviously not enough of one or other ingredient as the bloody thing came loose again on the way to Mr Sainsbury’s House of Toothy Comestibles just now   Requiring me to remove foot from shoe before shoe could be removed from pedal chiz.  At least a session of walking around stuck it down enough not to have to repeat the foot-shoe-pedal comedy on getting home.

More glue, more clamps, more swearing and liberal quantities of d/s tape applied.  Otherwise it’s new shoes time.  Or flat pedals.

[T42]

Needs Shoe Goo + 24 hrs to cure.

[Kim]

I think I've worked out who these are for: https://youtu.be/DD0hlruv9vo?t=166

(Though I note that mountain bicycling in them is probably best left to the antipodians...)

[Mr Larrington]

Needs Shoe Goo + 24 hrs to cure.

Seems there’s a stockist in 'stow Central.  May have to check 'em out.  Except I'd need the Perfectly Good Gentleman’s Mountain Bicycle to get there…

[T42]

Two perfect cycling days - 23°C and light winds today and tomorrow - fucked up by medicrap. Thursday the wind ramps up to 40 kph gusts, then we get rain at the weekend and the temperature plummets. 

[Diver300]

The second closest post box to here has now got the last collection time as 9:00 am on weekdays. It now matches the closest post box to here, and puts reasonable collection times well outside walking or cycling during lunch time distance and into driving or keen cycling down main roads distance.