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

[CAMRAMan]

Seems there were standards but these were voluntary and no kept up-to-date...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_box

That, on the other hand, is thoroughly BRITISH

There must be a standard, as those router boxes Matthew talks about only just fit through modern post boxes with a hair's breadth to spare. Some folk on my round have unfeasibly small letterboxes. I feel a tinge of guilt at having to fold over birthday and xmas cards, but they must realise it's too small, so go ahead anyway.

[hellymedic]

I suspect the standards were too sensible and useful to survive the bonfire of the QANGOS and were seen to be 'unnecessary red tape'.

[matthew]

Anyone with a new door or a new-build house with a low-level letter box thoroughly deserves to have their post folded over and creased. Not that I would approve of such an action, no, not me.

Anyone with an external letter box (normally a good thing) that barely has room for one sheet of tracing paper, but nothing thicker, deserves to have to traipse to the sorting office to collect their mail.

And anyone with a letterbox ~ 1"x4" who gets the saturday and sunday times delivered can expect it to come through in about 8 bits with the outer pages shredded or agree to it being left on the doorstep. 

[Butterfly]

Seems there were standards but these were voluntary and no kept up-to-date...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_box

That, on the other hand, is thoroughly BRITISH

There must be a standard, as those router boxes Matthew talks about only just fit through modern post boxes with a hair's breadth to spare. Some folk on my round have unfeasibly small letterboxes. I feel a tinge of guilt at having to fold over birthday and xmas cards, but they must realise it's too small, so go ahead anyway.

Ours is stupidly small but was nothing to do with us as I suspect it is the original 1913 or thereabouts door. If it were our house I would be tempted to make it larger.

As I was a papergirl in my teens, I have utter sympathy with the view that such things Should Not Be Allowed.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I expect it was not so much bonfire of the quangle-wangles as something that never got enforced anyway, so builders used whatever was cheapest or looked ok.

My sister's house is late Victorian and I suspect has the original letter box. Even a small card won't fit through. I guess more paper, more money, fewer servants.

[jsabine]

I think with Victorian letter boxen, it's more that they wrote unfeasibly small on very tiny pieces of paper, then folded them over before putting them in an envelope that could reasonably be expected to fit in the letterbox of a dolls house.

Ergo, a 4in letterbox and door furniture to fit seemed reasonable - and they made piggin postboxes to match.

[CAMRAMan]

And another thing (or two)...

There must be many, many (mainly) OAPs who will be saying "Didn't you get my card? The chiselling wotsits at Royal Mail, I bet they had it!". Well Granny/Grandad: we have to read addresses that are barely legible; you don't use a postcode; and you get the number/road/town part of the address wrong. I realise that writing becomes a challenge to you as you get older and you have my sympathies, and we really do try to deliver every card and some of the old hands know almost every address in the town I work in, so virtually every card gets there, but please, please get someone to check the address for you, if possible.

Oh, number 39, the reason I asked you if your dog was secure should have been obvious. You have an external letterbox (often a sign of a vicious dog) and your mutt launches its snarling self at the door whenever I approach. Most dog owners thoughtlessly open the door with their loveable hound loose. Said mutt then tries to get out the door to get a bite of Homo Patrickus, so self preservation outweighs your sensibilities and feelings. And yes, number 72, I have every right to hold your door closed until I'm sure your horrible canine is fettered. And no, number 3, I don't want to get acquainted with your dog so it feels better about me; just keep it away from me.

And, as for owners of those pressed concrete drives that desperately try to look like block paving (done on the cheap), which, at the merest hint of frost, are more use to Torville and Dean than as an access to your property; either put salt down or expect to have to collect your mail from the office. They are lethal. Don't do it!

And finally, to those people who thank me for posting to you when it's cold and frosty or wet: thank you, it's nice to be appreciated. Notes only, please, no coins or cheques. 

[CAMRAMan]

Oi, my body clock!: on my rare days off when I can lazily lie in bed; don't insist on a bowel movement at silly a.m. That way you don't make me write grumpy messages on fora shortly after.

[Polar Bear]

Is there a standard size for letterboxes?  It's the sort of thing that would be a good idea, and therefore thoroughly un-British.

I discovered this year that there seems to be no standard.   In our new door I had the biggest that we ould fit on the basis that small packages can now be posted.    I have painstakingly pointed this out to our two regular posties who now comply.   

I note that some cheap upvc doors have wafer thin slots.   

[CAMRAMan]

I can confirm that PB has lovely flaps...

[Polar Bear]

I thought you must like then cos you kept fingering thrm...

[CAMRAMan]

I think I managed to get my whole hand in. Shiny flaps too.

[Polar Bear]

And, not a bristle in sight.

[CAMRAMan]

The way they open up to your warm inner sanctum is glorious.

[ian]

Southern Trains. They'd been forecasting frost on Friday/Saturday night for several days. It's winter. Maybe you could put a bit of salt on the platforms and stairs before it gets frosty, rather than the day after (yes, that's you Upper Warlingham, which isn't in Warlingham and if it were, it'd be lower because it's at the bottom of the bloody hill)?

[Cudzoziemiec]

Graun.

“A” is a must-have accessory in Russia too. It is the last letter of each of the top eight girls’ names – Sofia, Maria, Daria, Arina, Anastasia, Varvara, Victoria and Anna

Well, do you think there might be a reason for that? I bet it's the last letter of the bottom eight too!

[hellymedic]

Partner: thank you SO much for putting my spectacles on the dining room table while we breakfasted in the kitchen. I am quite happy for you to do this with your OWN spectacles but DO NOT HIDE MINE!
I am more myopic than you.
I am much less mobile than you.
You went up to the bathroom where you MUST NOT BE DISTURBED after a lengthy phone call, whilst I was in the downstairs loo.
I returned and couldn't find my specs anywhere that I could have left them but couldn't see much.
Good thing I keep some old specs here in the kitchen!
Then I twigged what might have happened to my specs.
I bet you won't know what I'm talking about if I thank you for hiding my specs.
We will see...

[T42]

Just when the weather is driving the field-mice into the barns & houses, the idiot supermarket management clear out all the mouse poison and fill the shelf with Christmas bloody decorations.  This morning at 5 am it sounded as if the wee buggers were decking our bloody bedroom with bows of holly.

[jsabine]

Were they tying knots in it?

[tiermat]

I have a list of things I need to get done today

I appear to only have enough spoons to do a small number of them.

I am sick of these fucking tablets, waking at 04:00 EVERY fucking morning is, most definitely, not in my game plan.

In the meantime, agency, get a fucking grip, I am heading to $PARTS_FURRIN tomorrow, and would REALLY REALLY like to know the address that I am to report to, or do I have to wander around the fucking town asking all and sundry?

[essexian]

When sitting in my lonely cheap hotel bedroom in that London yesterday morning, I learnt an interesting fact from the BBC News….. some 4 million passenger journeys are made on the tube next work every day. Impressive I thought for a system parts of which are more than 150 years old, although most is just over 100 (I went on the Victoria line the first day its extension to Walthamstow Central opened…and no, it wasn’t 100 years ago!).

So, 4 million passenger journeys eh…. Did it seem that most of them were trying to get my tube Monday morning! How people commute in that London is beyond me! Please consider the evidence…. It took me just under 90 minutes to travel from Stafford to Euston and then 90 minutes to get from there to my destination in Hounslow. I have checked and the TFL journey checker says that should take less than 50 minutes. What it doesn’t factor in, is the fact that it was impossible to get on the first 8 Victoria Line trains heading south to the interchange with the Piccadilly Line at Green Park. I really don’t understand how TFL gets away with the loadings it allows. If TFL ran animal transfers then I am sure it would be picked up by whoever regulates such things.

Anyway, on to my grumble. People wishing to get onto packed tube trains….it is quite simple and indeed the Platform Staff even give you a clue…. PLEASE let people off first. It’s not hard and it will make things easier for everyone. It is really irritating the number of people who are so selfish and demand to get on when there is no space for them: yet, to do so.

Thanks for listening.

[bumper]

Weather Bomb

FFS

I think the met office are just trying to make their work sound more interesting than it is. There's a storm coming in from the Atlantic. I think they've hired the writers from the Expendables or Die Hard to jazz the weather reports up.

[David Martin]

It is a bit windy and wet out there today

[ian]

...What it doesn’t factor in, is the fact that it was impossible to get on the first 8 Victoria Line trains heading south to the interchange with the Piccadilly Line at Green Park. I really don’t understand how TFL gets away with the loadings it allows. If TFL ran animal transfers then I am sure it would be picked up by whoever regulates such things.

Anyway, on to my grumble. People wishing to get onto packed tube trains….it is quite simple and indeed the Platform Staff even give you a clue…. PLEASE let people off first. It’s not hard and it will make things easier for everyone. It is really irritating the number of people who are so selfish and demand to get on when there is no space for them: yet, to do so.

Entry to the Victoria line is restricted during the peak at mainline stations (it's standard at Victoria), they open and close the gate above ground to avoid platform overcrowding. Although we like to think ourselves especially aggrieved, public transport at peak times in any large metropolis is always going to be busy. TfL could restrict the numbers on trains, but that would leave a lot of people above ground and fuming even more. It's all part of the fun.

And yes, there's always the idiot squad who try and get on as others are getting off. It doesn't seem to occur to them that still be first and there'd actually be space if they waited. It's the same on the trains. Also the people who don't move down the carriage and clog the vestibule. Always the case on my train, doubly stupid because they're all getting off at London Bridge so they may as well go down the aisle and find some space.

Actually, you were lucky it wasn't London Bridge because the rebuild work means narrow platforms and a very, very slow exit.

[Mr Larrington]

Want to get onto the Northern Line at Kings Cross during peak hours?  Forget it.  Doubly so if there's been a signal failure somewhere upstream.