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

[Cudzoziemiec]

Yes, I once had a car on which I thought for a time one of the rear doors was broken, because a passenger had somehow set it to child lock without me noticing. 

[Kim]

Kids today probably never get left in a car unsupervised for long enough to read the entire manual and learn how to disable the child locks...

[Cudzoziemiec]

My Bil and Sil used to leave theirs in the car, parked in the garden, with the key in the ignition so he could amuse himself by blowing the horn constantly. He was about two years old, so too young to read.

[Mrs Pingu]

Finally got out on our first bike ride since October. Quite cold when I got home.
Stupid pissy electric shower.
That is all.

I insisted on an over spec combi-boiler just so,I could,have hot water in the shower at close to mains water pressure. This is something I’ve insisted on ever since that first combi. You’ve got to do it Mrs Pingu, you know it makes sense.

It's high up on Mrs P's list of stuffs I can tell you.

It's top of my list of stuffs. I just need to see if my employer sees fit to dispense a decent bonus this year to fund it...

[ian]

Finally got out on our first bike ride since October. Quite cold when I got home.
Stupid pissy electric shower.
That is all.

We have a pumped rainfall shower thing. It's the most awesome thing possible to have. It also has digital temperature settings and a blinky light and beep when the temperature is ready. It even gives you a pause so you can press the on-button and withdraw before the flow starts.

The non-pumped shower that just takes water from the hot cylinder is like holding a leaking kitten over your head. There's something messed up about the hot water in the Asbestos Palace, it takes weeks, for instance, to get from the cylinder to the hot water tap in the bathroom, despite the fact they're about 2.5 metres apart. I think the pipework must go via Kent.

[Hot Flatus]

Maybe you had a Soviet plumber?

I love all the dystopian tales from the Eastern bloc era, such as the Yugoslav town which had one central plant outside town to provide hot water and central heating for everyone.

Need I say more?

[rogerzilla]

Finally got out on our first bike ride since October. Quite cold when I got home.
Stupid pissy electric shower.
That is all.

We have a pumped rainfall shower thing. It's the most awesome thing possible to have. It also has digital temperature settings and a blinky light and beep when the temperature is ready. It even gives you a pause so you can press the on-button and withdraw before the flow starts.

The non-pumped shower that just takes water from the hot cylinder is like holding a leaking kitten over your head. There's something messed up about the hot water in the Asbestos Palace, it takes weeks, for instance, to get from the cylinder to the hot water tap in the bathroom, despite the fact they're about 2.5 metres apart. I think the pipework must go via Kent.

The gravity-only shower in the Shrine To 1980s Pampas works well considering that the head available is about 0.5m.  It's a Mira Agile EV, which was the mixer I found that would run off the lowest pressure.  I used all-swept bends, a separate feed from the cold water cistern, and a Warwick flange on the cylinder.  There is about 18" from the cylinder to the mixer, so it runs hot almost instantly.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Finally got out on our first bike ride since October. Quite cold when I got home.
Stupid pissy electric shower.
That is all.

We have a pumped rainfall shower thing. It's the most awesome thing possible to have. It also has digital temperature settings and a blinky light and beep when the temperature is ready. It even gives you a pause so you can press the on-button and withdraw before the flow starts.

The non-pumped shower that just takes water from the hot cylinder is like holding a leaking kitten over your head. There's something messed up about the hot water in the Asbestos Palace, it takes weeks, for instance, to get from the cylinder to the hot water tap in the bathroom, despite the fact they're about 2.5 metres apart. I think the pipework must go via Kent.

The gravity-only shower in the Shrine To 1980s Pampas works well considering that the head available is about 0.5m.  It's a Mira Agile EV, which was the mixer I found that would run off the lowest pressure.  I used all-swept bends, a separate feed from the cold water cistern, and a Warwick flange on the cylinder.  There is about 18" from the cylinder to the mixer, so it runs hot almost instantly.

I have no idea what a Warwick flange is but I'm not at all surprised that it's in 1980s Pampas.

[rogerzilla]

Oddly, it's nothing to do with *that* episode of Inbetweeners.

It's an independent shower outlet from the top of the cylinder that should be free of air bubbles and won't suffer a significant pressure drop (ooh, cold shower) if someone in the house uses a hot tap.

A Surrey flange is very similar, just with a horizontal instead of vertical shower outlet.

An Essex flange does the same job but requires drilling the side of the cylinder.

[T42]

On screen keyboard on a mobile without the apostrophe, where you have to go back and forth to symbols.

Not if you use the French layout.  Or is that illegal in the UK these days?

[perpetual dan]

On screen keyboard on a mobile without the apostrophe, where you have to go back and forth to symbols.

Not if you use the French layout.  Or is that illegal in the UK these days?

French layouts are confiscated at the border.

Mostly I let the phone insert apostrophes. That approach to correct words is sriskier on an apple, where getting a cursor into the middle of a word seems to break some design principle.

[T42]

On screen keyboard on a mobile without the apostrophe, where you have to go back and forth to symbols.

Not if you use the French layout.  Or is that illegal in the UK these days?

French layouts are confiscated at the border.

Death of my life and sacred blue. (GMF thx)

Mostly I let the phone insert apostrophes. That approach to correct words is sriskier on an apple, where getting a cursor into the middle of a word seems to break some design principle.

Aye well, apples are sold by grocer's.

[Mr Larrington]

On screen keyboard on a mobile without the apostrophe, where you have to go back and forth to symbols.

Not if you use the French layout.  Or is that illegal in the UK these days?

These days, you get arrested and thrown in prison if you use a French keyboard.
</Stewart_Lee>

[Kim]

I thought one of the main benefits of brexit was that we could throw the French keyboards in the same bin as the SCART connectors?

Anyway, my mobile keyboard has the apostrophe on the 'v' key.  It's the colon and semicolon (on 'b' and 'n' respectively) that I tend to struggle with, because my eyeballs don't have enough pixels to tell them apart in poor lighting conditions.  (And if you're having to use a colon, semi or otherwise, from a mobile device you're already having a bad day.)

[MattH]

It’s the car battery that’s flat, and this being a 2006 A3, it has a visible conventional lock on the drivers door, but nothing on the passenger side. I’m still of the mind the passenger door is bust, any door should be openable from the inside,no matter the state of the central locking.

If the car has deadlocking, it may not be possible to open the passenger door without the central locking working. That's the whole point of deadlocking - you can't smash a window and reach through to pull the handle.

In normal operation, once the car is unlocked, the deadlocks are off. Even if lock it from inside (or it autolocks on drive off) by pressing the lock button, it doesn't deadlock and you can get out by pulling a handle in an emergency. You can only set the deadlocks from the outside, either by the remote or some incantation of double or long locking using a key.

Interestingly (or not) the hidden mechanical lock on at least some JLR products is in the passenger side door, not the driver's.

[ian]

...
An Essex flange does the same job but requires drilling the side of the cylinder.

It's at this point I fear the internet has got away from me.

I blame the manky pipework at The Asbestos Palace on the usual fact the former owners were BBC set designers. I assume the super-low flow rates are down to the fact that much of the pipework is actually now-illegal drinking straws and sticky-backed plastic.

[Mr Larrington]

After The Man redid all the water mains in the area a few years ago,  by stuffing plastic pipes inside the existing antediluvian ones, my water went from “boiler supplies screamingly hot water when bath tap is wide open” to “more than 3/4 of a turn on tap = luke-warm bath”.  And you only have to nudge the cold tap by about bugger-all to render the boiler's efforts null and void.

This makes no sense.

Additional: Bugger off, Officer Biggles, and take your helichopter with you

[T42]

Bloody Stannah rides again, or rather doesn't.  Fixed a month ago, the wretched electric chair went clunk and stopped dead in exactly the same place as last time.  Last time which cost us 300€ that could have been better spent ripping the thing out and dumping it in a ditch. Stannah's after-sales service switchboard tells me "To remain close to you at all times, we cover the whole of France" but the mechanic is based around 200 km from here and has to cover the whole of Alsace and Lorraine as well.

And now our stairs are 50% blocked into the bargain.

[Mr Larrington]

While it is admirable that the motor-ists of E17 are showing support for striking teachers this Unit would rather they didn’t do so by sounding the horns of their motor-cars when said Unit's normal getting-up time is still an hour and a half in the future.

(Reaches for matches)

Omnes:	Bethany (12)!  You gotta rival!
Bethany (12):	Fck! Off!
ML Maire:	To prop my eyelids open, cretins!

[Tim Hall]

Additional: Bugger off, Officer Biggles, and take your helichopter with you

Jbex took me to sunny Bromley by Bow today. A Wokka flew over, heading north then seemed to pause off in the distance. I wondered, idly, if it was was hovering over Larrington Towers, just to annoy you.

[Jurek]

Additional: Bugger off, Officer Biggles, and take your helichopter with you

Jbex took me to sunny Bromley by Bow today. A Wokka flew over, heading north then seemed to pause off in the distance. I wondered, idly, if it was was hovering over Larrington Towers, just to annoy you.

I think it lands / parks / docks at North Weald - so it is going to pass Mr.L's place pretty much wherever it is crime busting in London.

[Mr Larrington]

Officer Biggles seems to spend an inordinate amount of time hovering around E17 thobut, mostly in the middle of the night or on Sunday afternoons.

Jeeves!  Fetch my MANPAD!

[Tim Hall]

Additional: Bugger off, Officer Biggles, and take your helichopter with you

Jbex took me to sunny Bromley by Bow today. A Wokka flew over, heading north then seemed to pause off in the distance. I wondered, idly, if it was was hovering over Larrington Towers, just to annoy you.

I think it lands / parks / dock at North Weald - so it is going to pass Mr.L's place pretty much wherever it is crime busting in London.

In my world, and possibly others, according to teh intarwebs, a Wokka is a Chinook, on account of the sound. I don't think London's Finest, who keep their aircraft at North Weald, use them.

[Jurek]

Additional: Bugger off, Officer Biggles, and take your helichopter with you

Jbex took me to sunny Bromley by Bow today. A Wokka flew over, heading north then seemed to pause off in the distance. I wondered, idly, if it was was hovering over Larrington Towers, just to annoy you.

I think it lands / parks / dock at North Weald - so it is going to pass Mr.L's place pretty much wherever it is crime busting in London.

In my world, and possibly others, according to teh intarwebs, a Wokka is a Chinook, on account of the sound. I don't think London's Finest, who keep their aircraft at North Weald, use them.

The Polis copter lives, I believe, at North Weald.
The Chinooks are, as far as I know, Army jobbies which relax with cocktails in Woolwich barracks.
They have to fly down the Lea Valley and along the Thames.
Flying elsewhere is verboten is my understanding.
Tim Collins may enlighten us further in due course.

[robgul]

Additional: Bugger off, Officer Biggles, and take your helichopter with you

Jbex took me to sunny Bromley by Bow today. A Wokka flew over, heading north then seemed to pause off in the distance. I wondered, idly, if it was was hovering over Larrington Towers, just to annoy you.

I think it lands / parks / dock at North Weald - so it is going to pass Mr.L's place pretty much wherever it is crime busting in London.

In my world, and possibly others, according to teh intarwebs, a Wokka is a Chinook, on account of the sound. I don't think London's Finest, who keep their aircraft at North Weald, use them.

The Polis copter lives, I believe, at North Weald.
The Chinooks are, as far as I know, Army jobbies which relax with cocktails in Woolwich barracks.
They have to fly down the Lea Valley and along the Thames.
Flying elsewhere is verboten is my understanding.
Tim Collins may enlighten us further in due course.

The police choppers used to be based at Sewardstonebury/Chingford - just adjacent to Gilwell Park, the Boy Scout place - not sure if they still are.    My father lived at Sewardstonebury and the noise pissed him off immensely.

... and to me a Wokka is also a Chinook