The RANT thread (often contains fruity language)

[Kim]

I paraphrase Right Said Fred, who are right on this one: don't talk, don't respond, (and hang up). It might not be true, but I like to believe that in some big database of spam numbers, this gets chalked up and the value of your number decreases.

Best way to achieve that is to play the 'Intercept' Special Information Tone at them as early as possible.  Humans just hear beeps, but the robo-dialler may interpret it as a disconnected number, immediately hang up and remove your number from the database.

You can put this in your outgoing voicemail message, for example.

[essexian]

Last week I had a call from my energy supplier which I wasn't expecting so I explained that I didn't take sales calls abd if its about my account please send me a secure PM.

No, no they said its not a sales call but would we like a smart meter....

What part of no sales calls don't you understand I asked as I hung up.....

And don't talk to me about door to door salesman. I had to physically remove one of their feet from inside our front door a couple of weeks ago.

[Jaded]

If i have the time I like to play with them.

Can you open Windows? “Oh, no, it is far too cold!”

[Cudzoziemiec]

No caller had more than 20 connected seconds.

19 seconds too long. As soon as you've established it's not a hospital or far-flung relly, put the phone down, no words necessary.

[PaulF]

GWR: thanks for sending me a touch card "the quick and easy way to store your train tickets". Great no more messing around with their e-ticket that works about 30% of the time.

Except, which I discovered after 30 minutes of searching and their online support, it only works for season tickets. Thanks for nothing

[Mr Larrington]

That SIT thing looks interesting but the Legions of the Pesky seem to hang up as soon as they get the rnsering machine anyway.  Sadly Lt. Col. Larrington (retd.)’s ACME "Thunderer" - a relic from his Rugby refereeing days - seems to have gone AWOL.

[Tim Hall]

That SIT thing looks interesting but the Legions of the Pesky seem to hang up as soon as they get the rnsering machine anyway.  Sadly Lt. Col. Larrington (tetd.)’s ACME "Thunderer" - a relic from his Rugby refereeing days - seems to have gone AWOL.

This post is the second in an undetermined series where Mr.Larrington makes a passing reference to something that appeared in The Guardian quiz.  Two weeks ago it was the turn for the Acme Thunderer.

[Kim]

Stupid pissing BRITISH weather.  And lying Wet Office bastards.  10% chance of rain, my arse!

Guess who ended up re-enacting the BHPC's double-bill dePreston skogfest from earlier in the month?  On the Pershore Road.  With wankpanzers instead of inadequately mudguarded tricycles.  (Ambulance stopped play, for added realism.  And a No 45 bus that seemed to be doing well in the fully-faired class pulled over, presumably because its chain came off.)

[Basil]

And a No 45 bus that seemed to be doing well in the fully-faired class pulled over, presumably because its chain came off.)

Grin. 

[Beardy]

Just because it rained when they said a 10% chance of rain doesn’t make the met office liars, it must makes you unlucky 😁

[Kim]

Just because it rained when they said a 10% chance of rain doesn’t make the met office liars, it must makes you unlucky 😁

I did check the radar image to make sure that was 10% in the "we don't think it's likely to rain" sense, rather than "we think it's going to piss it down, but it's probably going to be somewhere else" sense.

Funnily enough, the Wet Office were claiming something very different when I got back.

[ElyDave]

they promised me donner und blitzen this afternoon, all I've had is rain from about 5pm,

I feel cheated

[Canardly]

Antwerp and Dutch environs seems to be having a wild old time this morning. I remember how fierce the storms could be in West Flanders, hence the presence of conductors on many farms. UK map seems pretty clear apart from some activity in the channel.

https://www.lightningmaps.org/#m=oss;t=3;s=201;o=0;b=0.00;ts=0;z=6;y=52.1065;x=-1.7688;d=2;dl=2;dc=0;

[cycleman]

Just because it rained when they said a 10% chance of rain doesn’t make the met office liars, it must makes you unlucky 😁

I did check the radar image to make sure that was 10% in the "we don't think it's likely to rain" sense, rather than "we think it's going to piss it down, but it's probably going to be somewhere else" sense.

Funnily enough, the Wet Office were claiming something very different when I got back.

   
Did you have your rain legs with you?  If you didn't............       

[Mr Larrington]

I have just had cause to ponder the "logic" that exists in the tiny minds of Waltham Forest Council's Highways Department.  Somewhere north of a year ago a rufty-tufty hairy-arsed chap with a lorry and a chainsaw cut down the tree on the pavement outside Larrington Towers.  At half past seven on a pitch black Saturday night.  About a Several of months later they repeated the process with another tree on the opposite side of Larrington Gardens Road.

Today they unleashed a Thing on the stumps which would have swept the board on "Robot Wars", being a Device on tracks with an Evil Spinny Blade ov DETH on the front, a noisy diesel engine in the middle and a grinning rufty-tufty hairy-arsed chap with a remote control at the back, which converted the stumps to sawdust while simultaneously making a noise like Sunn O))) played through speakers the size of Stonehenge.  I wouldn't have minded quite so much were it not for their:

• parking their lorry right where I need to put my motor-car that I might rearrange its seats and fill it with TPoC to take to the tip, and
• DOING IT WHEN I'D HAD THREE HOURS SLEEP

I am now wondering what they will do in another six months time.  They can't install a pointless "slow down, you're passing a skool" blinkensign which operates

• during skool hours, and
• outside skool hours, including weekends, holibobs and three o'clock in the fucking morning

because we've already got one of those.  Probably start building flats to fill in the missing numbers in Larrington Towers Road, at the same pace being exhibited by the mob rebuilding a fire-damaged GP's practice round the corner i.e. "Heavily-drugged slof".

I'd go back to bed were it not for having much to do before going to Forn Parts¹ on the morrow.

1. Saarrff Londonton and then Shetland, for Culture.  And puffins.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Are you sure it's the council cutting those trees down? Not seen a local ad for cheap firewood?

[Kim]

Just because it rained when they said a 10% chance of rain doesn’t make the met office liars, it must makes you unlucky 😁

I did check the radar image to make sure that was 10% in the "we don't think it's likely to rain" sense, rather than "we think it's going to piss it down, but it's probably going to be somewhere else" sense.

Funnily enough, the Wet Office were claiming something very different when I got back.

   
Did you have your rain legs with you?  If you didn't............       

I did, but:

a) It was warm and I wasn't that far from home.
b) I think their Rainlegs magic may have worn away with the silicone coating.
c) As discovered on the Meriden 160, with the high BB of the Red Baron, they function mainly as a combined aerobrake / water-to-crotch delivery system.

[pcolbeck]

If I give you a diagram for cross datacentre switch patching for a new fabric with all the links and switch ports clearly labelled you don't effing go off and patch it differently just because you felt like it and if you do at least write down what you did and make sure you patched the correct fibre ends at each end. When this doesn't work don't come bleating to me that it doesn't work and get me to go and tell guys that ran the fibre that they did it wrong as when they waste their time re checking their work and I then check yours and find you are a complete muppet I will definitely not be pleased as it now looks unlikely we will be ready for the change window!!!!!

[pumpkin]

there is dog s**t on my lawn . If you are the dog's owner, pick the s**t up and dispose of it. If you are one of my neighbours and I find out who you are I may feel inclined to find some s**t and lay it on your path/lawn.

To my cycling colleague at work:

yes I do have a pump and yes it is a good one. It's a quality pump because like you I have the 25 mile round trip and the less time I spend pumping a tyre on the way in/out is better for me. If you choose not to carry a decent pump perhaps you should revise that decision. Having a 'good one at home' is no use in the wind/rain on a Salford road.

To Mario the cyclist on my commute last night:

normally you are a v.good rider. predictable, quick and steady but going thro' a red light as you need to get home may turn out not to be the time saver you hoped it was. I still caught you up 0.5 miles later and i was on a fixed gear and you were in/out of the saddle and we arrived at the traffic lights at the next junction at the same time.

[spesh]

Arnaud Amalric applies.

[Pingu]

FFS some fucking loony sleb is selling Psychic Vampire Repellent 

Ingredients:

Sonically tuned water, rosewater, grain alcohol, sea salt, colloidal silver, therapeutic grade oils of: rosemary, juniper and lavender; a unique and complex blend of gem elixirs, including but not limited to: black tourmaline, lapis lazuli, ruby, labradorite, bloodstone, aqua aura, black onyx, garnet, pyrite and nuummite; reiki, sound waves, moonlight, love, reiki charged crystals

Disclaimer: This product has not been evaluated by the FDA. Gem Elixirs are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical condition. Gem Elixirs are not intended to replace the advice or care of a medical professional.

[ian]

That's brilliant. If there's a volunteer to test it, I know where there are actual vampires.

[citoyen]

WTF is a gem elixir?

ETA: google tells me it’s the “vibratory essence of a single crystal imprinted in water”. Well, I’m glad to have cleared that one up.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Sounds like homeopathy for minerals.

[citoyen]

I’ve just realised which loony sleb it is that’s selling the stuff... ah, that all makes perfect sense now.