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

[Mr Larrington]

What’s this?  No Channel 4 News because of a bloody foopball mat…

… England v. Germany, you say?  And that presenter is a dashed pretty gel!  I think I can live without TV's Cathy Newman applying her pointy shoes to Cabinet ministers for 24 hours

Oh.  Bollocks!  Germany have just scored.  Bollocksbollocksbollocks!

[ian]

I'm in the same boat, or plane, possibly need to make a trip to Egypt later in the month.  I haven't done foreign for two years.

I did do a trip late last year, so I figured out the fundamentals of the new mothership's travel booking system. Then forgot them.

On a plus side, I've discovered I'm immune to the 'out-of-policy' settings you get when a hotel is £1 over the stipulated limit. Ain't nothing stopping me eating all the stale Ritz crackers in the mini-bar now.

[Feanor]

Me three.

<glances at corporate credit card>
Wonder if this still even works? Can I find the PIN for it?

At least it's not an Amex.
Policy Droid: "Why did you not put all these things in your expense report on the company Amex per policy?"
Omnes: "Because nowhere fucking accepted it!"

[ian]

I used to get the Amex policy violations all the time for the same reason. I ignored them, there really aren't a lot of opportunities to use Amex in places like Malawi or Tanzania. I also used to get a spanking for not booking my own trips and getting an agent to do them, like it was cheaper for me to spend a couple of days organizing a multi-stop itinerary in five countries than spending $60 for the agent to do it.

Nothing so fancy as a corporate card aboard this mothership though.

[andrewc]

2 weeks ago they replaced my electricity meter with a Smart Meter.  I've now got a remote display in the living room telling me what I'm using.    I'm now scared to turn the Hi-Fi on!   It turns the light from green to amber      The valve amp is rated as 200W input, 50W output.  It keeps the place lovely & warm....

[Mrs Pingu]

Oman for me on Saturday. 2 weekends wasted during what passes for Furrybootoon summer. We couldn't have gone there in the winter or spring when the weather might have been tolerable? Oh no, too easy.

[andrewc]

Isn’t that one of those places they bang you up for enjoying a cool beer? 

[ElyDave]

Not in Oman, shirley, being an ex-British colony and all that. 

I can't imagine one of my uni mates would have spent 15 years there without a beer

[Mr Larrington]

On the subj. of travelling to Abroad — the abode of FOREIGNS, lest we forget — I have been not phoning the motel in Battle Mountain to check whether the reservation I made for the cancelled 2020 event has been carried over for about four months, and really ought to make sure I've got somewhere to stay before booking a flight, reserving a motor-car, getting a fresh ESTA and an International Driving Permit (1949), insewerants ect and, moreover ect.

Then I'll test positive for Plague and not be allowed on the æroplane

[Mrs Pingu]

Isn’t that one of those places they bang you up for enjoying a cool beer? 

I'm sure it'll be fine in Muscat. Next Saturday we shall be in the field, apparently one of the USanians from executive accounts has deemed we shall be having a BBQ out there.

[hatler]

Harrumph. Faithfully listening to TMS

(click to show/hide)

from the first ball and wincing at NZ's progress. Then work intervened and I had to join an unbelievably dull tedious and, to me, largely irrelevant, call, and yup, two bloody wickets.

[andrewc]

The painters told me they were planning to start work on my balcony today,  unless it was raining.......   guess what....... it's raining.

.... and still waiting....

[CAMRAMan]

The rear Schwalbe Hurricane tyre on my Haibike has a smallish sidewall split that I've only just noticed when cleaning the bike.

Now, that could be a manufacturing defect, or it could be down to the fact that I put it on in dim light and read the 55psi maximum pressure as 5.5atm and pumped it up accordingly! Anyhoo, a replacement has been ordered and it was only £18.

Pressure reduced for the ride home, although it could have been there for months.

[Mr Larrington]

So when booking Stuffs with BRITISH Airways yesterday I had to enter things like passport details.  Today another bit of BA's webby SCIENCE decided it hadn’t got enough information to satisfy something or other and wanted me to enter things like passport details.  sort it out u muppets!

[Polar Bear]

Feeling below par again.  Light-headed, slight throat irritation, thickly cough, a few aches around the body and a small amount of congestion. It's been coming on since Sunday.  Also feeling weary.

I had two years of feeling top of the world and since then it's just one thing after another.

Bah, humbug.  🙁

[SoreTween]

Interested in crossing a military range in 'ampshire?  Look no further than here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/south-east-training-estate-firing-times

A handy list of all the firing times for last month.  Outstanding.

[ian]

So when booking Stuffs with BRITISH Airways yesterday I had to enter things like passport details.  Today another bit of BA's webby SCIENCE decided it hadn’t got enough information to satisfy something or other and wanted me to enter things like passport details.  sort it out u muppets!

God, I hate that and I want to hunt down the person who came up with the idea of paying for bags with tigers and chopsticks. I don't want to pay extra for bags, and honestly, I've not packed so I don't know how many I need. In fact the entire process of online check-in and the like. Oh for the days when you turned up at the airport, waved your passport and ticket at the desk, and they took your bags (and sent you to NYC and your bags to Bogata). Now you spend a week online fucking around so you can still go and stand in line at the airport (in a process identical to old skool in-person check-in, just with a longer queue) to wave your passport and whatever paperwork your computer vomited which will inevitably be somehow wrong to the tune of £48 or you will be 'fined' for missing step 16b part ii of the online check-in process. I suspect the deftly diabolical and perfectly manicured hand of Finestre, the Demon of Such Things.

[Mr Larrington]

Being one who travels heavy the whole online check-in thing for me is naught but a waste of time and voles, albeit that with BA at least you can bagsy your choice of seat for free.  Except that the desirable seats* on your flight were bagsied by someone willing to pay extra for the privet hedge six months ago.

* This is Cattle Class, obv.  I wish I could afford to travel in Raddled Posho Class, so then I wouldn’t.

[ian]

I still remember the dread edict aboard the last mothership: no more will subdeck minions travel to the US business class. Oh, the wails, the gnashing, the beckoning torments of economy class hell. Still, such torments were avoidable (with two tiers of management approval) on flights to the far east and Oztralia and other distant destinations, which was nice, though they spoiled me and made me soft for the next trip Stateside.

Current motherships say no business class with director-level approval... that said, my next couple of flights are EasyJet. I'm not missing my routine trips to the US.

[Kim]

Dog emptiers!  Bastards.

[Mr Larrington]

Been out triffid-slaying*.  The wheels fell off my brown wheelie bin, garden waste for the disposal of, years ago and since then my sack trolley has absented itself from the space 'twixt fridge and wall where it's lived since its bungy cords were still, well, bungy.  Dragging bins full of dismembered triffid up steps is hard work and I'm going for a lie-down.

* Some professional busybody and, I presume, triffid-slayer knocked on the door last night to tell me that:

• the Raised Garden is a mess (I know)
• the neighbours have been complaining (not to me they haven’t, as haven’t the council)
• ”you'll be evicted” (by whom?)

and then got mardy when I closed the door on him and went back to my peanuts, fizzy pop and Six O’clock News

[andrewc]

My security clearance is due to expire.  Don't worry sez the boss.  I've applied for renewals for all the team.  He's dun it wrong sez Security...


Apparently it now needs a DBS check as well.   I had to download an app to my phone, scan my passport & take a selfie.  I wasn't wearing a shirt at the time.......   I'll probably be flagged as some sort of pervert & charged £18 for the privilege!

[Beardy]

Ah the joys of being interviewed about ones sex life by some aged and retired oscifer of Missis Kwenies Nobel armed services. And that’s after you’ve filled in a 90billiin page questionnaire about that and how much money you haven’t got.

Nope, don’t miss the three yearly renewal of security clearances.

[andrewc]

I've never needed that level of clearance,  and apparently they've now decided that a BPSS is adequate.   The DBS came through about 10 minutes ago.  Hooray for automation.     Now the battle of claiming back the £18 fee!

[Mr Larrington]

The Man emptied my brown bin today.  Now I have no excuse for putting off further triffid-killin', except that it'll be too hot tomorrow.