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

[ElyDave]

Whilst something I ordered from JL on Monday arrived yesterday 

[orienteer]

Something I ordered from John Lewis two weeks ago has apparently remained in Royal Mail's Milton Keynes sorting centre ever since. The tracing system provides no means of pursuing it, so I am now waiting for JL to sort it out.

JL just informed me that the parcel has been "lost", they are out of stock of the items, so will refund me.

I've just ordered alternatives from JL, to be collected at my local Waitrose tomorrow, so Royal Mail is avoided.

Just thought, Royal? Maybe I should complain to Brenda. 

[Mrs Pingu]

I've had work and Mariah Carey stuck in my head since I woke at 4am.

[Bledlow]

Got a bit curious about the post-war quickly built house I was born in (one of tens of thousands of that design) & did some looking up.

And stumbled across this lot of arseholes - https://www.thepropertybuyingcompany.co.uk/

They'll generously take one off your hands, presumably for not much money after having convinced you they're almost unsellable. They have plenty of faults (the insulation was crap, for example), but the gits invent others (e.g. poky little windows - completely wrong. If anything they were too big, because heat fled through their single glazing & steel frames) & mix them up with a completely different style of quick-build post war house which used a different construction method & different materials, & was designed by & named after a different architect. They also say that the house was listed in the 1985 Defective Housing Act, which is wrong. The type they mix it up was. Doh!

Just talking the price down, I expect. I wonder how many people they've ripped off? Claim to have spent about £125 million buying houses & the like, so probably quite a lot).

[robgul]

Got a bit curious about the post-war quickly built house I was born in (one of tens of thousands of that design) & did some looking up.

And stumbled across this lot of arseholes - https://www.thepropertybuyingcompany.co.uk/

They'll generously take one off your hands, presumably for not much money after having convinced you they're almost unsellable. They have plenty of faults (the insulation was crap, for example), but the gits invent others (e.g. poky little windows - completely wrong. If anything they were too big, because heat fled through their single glazing & steel frames) & mix them up with a completely different style of quick-build post war house which used a different construction method & different materials, & was designed by & named after a different architect. They also say that the house was listed in the 1985 Defective Housing Act, which is wrong. The type they mix it up was. Doh!

Just talking the price down, I expect. I wonder how many people they've ripped off? Claim to have spent about £125 million buying houses & the like, so probably quite a lot).

Was the house an Airey ?  - pre-cast concrete - there were several other brands of similar construction but I can't recall the names.   They had all the characteristics you describe and over time they sort of fell apart as the reinforcing steel rusted, expanded and popped the concrete panels.  Lots of them were re-skinned with bricks and still function as reasonable dwellings today.

. . . and yes the link is a real rip-off . . . it and similar outfits have been around for a while - just a step above loan sharks preying on people.

[Bledlow]

No. It was a BISF house. Steel framed & 1st floor steel-clad, like this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BISF_house - designed to a Ministry of Works spec by Sir Frederick Gibberd.
But the arseholes said a BISF house was also known as an Airey house, was designed by Sir Edwin Airey & was "Concrete panels known as ship-lap". Load of bollocks.
https://www.thepropertybuyingcompany.co.uk/news/post/bisf-house

I hate it when people talk bollocks when they're trying to make money. Even if it's just because they're too lazy to get it right & don't give a toss, it's still dishonesty.

[Pingu]

...I hate it when people talk bollocks when they're trying to make money...

That's why I don't do shitverts.

[robgul]

No. It was a BISF house. Steel framed & 1st floor steel-clad, like this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BISF_house - designed to a Ministry of Works spec by Sir Frederick Gibberd.
But the arseholes said a BISF house was also known as an Airey house, was designed by Sir Edwin Airey & was "Concrete panels known as ship-lap". Load of bollocks.
https://www.thepropertybuyingcompany.co.uk/news/post/bisf-house

I hate it when people talk bollocks when they're trying to make money. Even if it's just because they're too lazy to get it right & don't give a toss, it's still dishonesty.

If you were to buy just the Crittall windows today they'd probably cost more than the house when it was built . . . they've become a design-classic with price tag to match.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I remember being mildly surprised to see the Crittall name on an old silo or storage tank in a farmyard a few months ago. It was in a village in Somerset. I guess that must be what they started off doing before they made windows and doors.

[rafletcher]

I remember being mildly surprised to see the Crittall name on an old silo or storage tank in a farmyard a few months ago. It was in a village in Somerset. I guess that must be what they started off doing before they made windows and doors.

I think it refers to the profiled steel used to build them - not sure of it's tha same company

http://www.bennettcropstorage.co.uk/re-use-rather-than-demolition-of-crittall-square-bins/

[phantasmagoriana]

My glasses decided to snap in half this morning, which was somewhat annoying...

[Cudzoziemiec]

I remember being mildly surprised to see the Crittall name on an old silo or storage tank in a farmyard a few months ago. It was in a village in Somerset. I guess that must be what they started off doing before they made windows and doors.

I think it refers to the profiled steel used to build them - not sure of it's tha same company

http://www.bennettcropstorage.co.uk/re-use-rather-than-demolition-of-crittall-square-bins/

Quite possibly, though according to Wiki they did make curtain walling in the 1950s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crittall_Windows#Postwar_history

[robgul]

I remember being mildly surprised to see the Crittall name on an old silo or storage tank in a farmyard a few months ago. It was in a village in Somerset. I guess that must be what they started off doing before they made windows and doors.

I think it refers to the profiled steel used to build them - not sure of it's tha same company

http://www.bennettcropstorage.co.uk/re-use-rather-than-demolition-of-crittall-square-bins/

Crittall Silos Ltd made grain storage stuff - the address was at Silver End, Braintree which is where the Crittall Windows HQ is located so probably a connection?  I think they manuafactured silos at Tolleshunt d'Arcy not that far from Braintree

[canny colin]

A large house in a very Posh Hamlet  in Geordieshire . Has had a very large Marquee erected ( 20 ft X 25 ft at a guess ,Two 3 axel waggon loads any way )
on the car park . For a Christmas soiree . Entitled bustards .

[T42]

Well, that's me pigeonholed: son's SO gave MrsT the latest Prix Goncourt winner for Christmas, while I got a low French comedy of a genre that I despise, and I suspect she does too.

[Basil]

So we are going to a New Year's Eve do at a local restaurant with local chums.  They have asked us if we could give them an idea of what we will be ordering. I couldn't find the special menu on their website, so phoned them to ask if I was looking in the wrong place or something.
"Oh, we put it up on facebook last week"

   Grump.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Justified grump I'd say. Ask them to send a handwritten copy by cycle courier. 

[barakta]

Facebook != online. Honestly any business who CBA to have a basic website with info on starts to not deserve custom.

[SteveC]

Trouble is, it's so much easier to get stuff onto Facebook than it is onto a lot of 'cheap' websites.
A lot of the pubs round here do have websites, but they are rarely up to date.  All the current stuff is on FB.

[Basil]

Justified grump I'd say. Ask them to send a handwritten copy by cycle courier. 

I got them to email me a copy.   

[TheLurker]

Admission.  I'm actually not that fussed about cake.

Have we got a, "Burn the heretic!" thread?  If not, why not? 

[Basil]

 

[Kim]

This is a cycling forum, we're all heretics.

[The Family Cyclist]

Crittal still make windows, the factory isn't in silver end anymore and the old site is basically derelict but listed so in silver end they keep lopping chunks out of the countryside to build houses when there is a great big brown field site being wasted

[robgul]

Crittal still make windows, the factory isn't in silver end anymore and the old site is basically derelict but listed so in silver end they keep lopping chunks out of the countryside to build houses when there is a great big brown field site being wasted

I think you'll find that Crittall has also licenced the designs etc to other manufacturers (and any patents have probably expired) - we had an interior room divider screen/door made (at vast expense!) by Cotswold Casements at Moreton-in-Marsh - to all intents and purposes it's Crittall.