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

[Mr Larrington]

Loose crank on the Perfectly Good Gentleman’s Mountain Bicycle.  Can I find the outsize Allen key required for tightening it?

Why, no!  No, I cannot!

[Beardy]

So it’s currently an almost perfectly good gentleman’s mountain bicycle then?

[Cudzoziemiec]

So it’s currently an almost perfectly good gentleman’s mountain bicycle then?

Is that a gentleman's mountain bicycle that is almost perfectly good or a mountain bicycle for an almost perfectly good gentleman?

[Beardy]

So it’s currently an almost perfectly good gentleman’s mountain bicycle then?

Is that a gentleman's mountain bicycle that is almost perfectly good or a mountain bicycle for an almost perfectly good gentleman?

I plead the 5th!

[Mr Larrington]

So it’s currently an almost perfectly good gentleman’s mountain bicycle then?

Is that a gentleman's mountain bicycle that is almost perfectly good or a mountain bicycle for an almost perfectly good gentleman?

Yes.

[Wowbagger]

My Dear Wife and I decided at short notice to partake of a pub meal. We are sitting outside the Peterboat in Leigh. I am drinking tap water. The asking price for a pint of ordinary IPA is £7.05.

[Kim]

So it’s currently an almost perfectly good gentleman’s mountain bicycle then?

Is that a gentleman's mountain bicycle that is almost perfectly good or a mountain bicycle for an almost perfectly good gentleman?

Shirley the latter?  A gentleman should always have Allen keys handy.  After all, he'll need them for adjusting the lathe.

[andrewc]

One of the flats below me is being renovated.  Hammering & banging since 08:00 this morning, and a big pile of removed kitchen cabinets left outside.   It had been on the market for ages.  I'd guess another slumlord has snapped it up for his portfolio. 

[mrcharly-YHT]

Mrsc really wanted a picnic bench in the garden for when we had guests. Just in case there was some sunshine someday.
Very expensive £600 picnic bench selected. We agree I will go back and pick it up in the car because it is flat pack and I'll have to put some on the roof and some in the back.
Get home, lift it off the car. It was a ton. I promptly drop the top on my face, bend my glasses and bruise my face. I then spend the next 4 hours in the absolutely pissing rain putting the bloody thing together. £600 and some of the parts didn't fit. A circular saw was involved in making adjustments.

[woollypigs]

Well this is fun. If you are a Brit and took your driving licence before 97 you have C1 added automatically. But as a Dane who took his before 97 in DK, that didn't get added to his UK licence. So now I'm trying to apply to get a provisional licence so that I can take the various tests and get the C1 licence. The new online system at DVLA tells me since I don't have a UK passport I have to use the old system (and it shows ) but the old system just says no.

I updated/changed my DK licence to a UK one, because the EU rule said that you can only use the DK one for a year in another EU country before you had to get the local one (easy thing to do 8 years ago). Never really had to use or do it beforehand. Since I didn't drive or owned a car before 8 years ago in the UK. And when I rented I just said I was visiting for a wee while or had only lived here for 4-5 month. To sneak past that rule and check by the rental place.

I have now asked the DVLA online to send me the two forms (D2 and D4) so that I can fill them in and send back. To see if it is possible to apply for a provisional C1 licence via old school snail mail.

[woollypigs]

Update on the C1 licence. I can't fill it in online, reason unknown/untold by the DVLA chat tool (first a bot then a helpful and fast person) But I can do it via snails. the D4 medical test is cheaper if you go with companies than your GP (£50 vs £140). And for some reason it's only valid for 3 months. Where as your licence you get at say 18 is valid aaallllllll the way to your are 70 (bar any major medical) heck your eye sight isn't really informed to the DVLA unless you say or your doctor update your medical paper with something like person lost eyes.

Update on the C1 licence: just talked to an instructor who told me to hold fire as I could end up saving £1000+ As the government is in talk with the various orgs (RAC, AA etc) to add C1 back onto all driving licences. This is due to be finished by October, but yes the gov could use the next 6+ months nattering and general faffing about before they agree to anything. Though there's also the question is this applied to people who swapped the native licence to a UK one. And there's pressure for the government to get the C1 on all driver's licence since they (the industry) are in desperate need of driver's. The instructor told me to give them a bell in mid Oct to see if they had heard something new.

They are taking in bookings in for driving tests in Nov/Dec. And DVLA is known to take 2-10 weeks to send back your provisional licence, so plan ahead if you are thinking about getting extras to your licences. 

[Beardy]

Talking of excessive bureaucracy, I’m in Swindon this evening my Ms Beardy the younger so she can take the OSKE nursing exam.

She’s a qualified and experienced nurse, but because she had the audacity to be poorly for a couple of years and didn’t complete her 3 yearly professional assessment, she now has to be reassessed as an overseas applicant to regain her PIN so she can carry on nursing. At a cost of £800 pulse the expense of travelling from east Anglia to Swindon. And this is the streamlined version because they are so desperate for nurses.  Before last year, she would have had to enrol on a 4 month ‘return to practise’ course.

[arabella]

Reminds me that when I wanted a year off after childbirth back in the late 1990s.  I was told I couldn't as I'd forget everything. (or somesuch).
A few years later on the rules changed so they had to let people take a year off after maternity.  How I laughed, very dryly.

When are they going to make a similar adjustment to paternity leave I wonder? After all, Bojo "I don't know how many chilren I have" and JRM "I've never changed a nappy" may be on their way out.

$employer told me they couldn't afford to implement the same maternity and paternity schemes.  Does that mean they are deliberately employong men rather than women to reduce their cost base, I ask myself.

[Beardy]

With my ongoing annoyance at not being able to get a decent feed with English commentary for F1 in any way approaching reliability, I started to cave in a bit and look into getting Sky TV. I won’t be caving an any more given that to pay for 400 sportball matches and an unknown quantity of golfist carryons, neither of which I’m even slightly interested in. Not to mention further payment for a shed load of entertainment channels that we probably won’t watch.

Oh, and that’s before you consider the generally opaque presentation of what it really costs with discounted prices shown and 18 months minimum contract periods with the rider ‘costs could increase within this time.

I don’t think I’ll be investing in sky any time soon.

[ElyDave]

My IPX7 rated dash-cam got rained on on Thursday and now has water inside it, which considering it's IPX7 is not where the water should be able to get to.  As a result, I have no footage of Thursday or Friday, Friday being when I would have had soem decent footage of some of the climbing I did.

[Beardy]

We’re watching some programme on Netflix about a set of twins who swap places with each other. It’s a bit complicated because that fact wasn’t initially introduced. I’m having a hard time following it, mostly because the sub-titles have slipped and I can’t work out who is saying what to whom. That coupled with the loss of interest because I wasn’t that interested in it to start with  a bit slow with nothing blowing up or anything.
Dr Beardy seems hooked though.

[ElyDave]

You have just explained  very well why I detest subtitles, because they very rarely match the action, I also find them very visually intrusive and attract my attention away from the thing I'm watching.  So because I refused to watch the latest Bond with them on yesterday, Mrs ED was trying  my patience by
a) asking pointless questions such as where is Dame JD?
2) asking "why is he doing that" questions repeatedly when I'd seen as much of the film as her, or asking  "what did he just say" (she alleges her hearing is better than mine despite mine being regularly tested) and
iii) eating crunchy shit in my ear'ole

Do I qualify as a grumpy old curmudgeon yet?

[mrcharly-YHT]

You have just explained  very well why I detest subtitles, because they very rarely match the action, I also find them very visually intrusive and attract my attention away from the thing I'm watching.  So because I refused to watch the latest Bond with them on yesterday, Mrs ED was trying  my patience by
a) asking pointless questions such as where is Dame JD?
2) asking "why is he doing that" questions repeatedly when I'd seen as much of the film as her, or asking  "what did he just say" (she alleges her hearing is better than mine despite mine being regularly tested) and
iii) eating crunchy shit in my ear'ole

Do I qualify as a grumpy old curmudgeon yet?

I rather like films or programs where the story or background of the characters slowly unfolds. You don't know what is going on. They don't know what is going on.

MrsC does not enjoy these: "What is this about? What is the point of them doing that, why is this happening?"  Just watch the damn movie and find out.

So you have my sympathy.

[chrisbainbridge]

I think all women are programmed to ask those questions if there is a man sat next to them. 😂😂

[Basil]

I think all women are programmed to ask those questions if there is a man sat next to them. 😂😂

It's the other way around in our house.

[Mr Larrington]

My aunt points at Shir Shean on the telly and asks: “Why's he dressed as a Russian?”

The film?  “The Hunt For Red October”

[andrewc]

At Christmas I was given a £50 voucher for Waterstones.   Can I find it ?  Can I hell.  I suspect I've got until late November to find & use it. Time to do some tidying. 

[Beardy]

Bloody stupid idiotic and moronic .gov.uk webform.

First it asks me for a 16 digit number AND 5 digit offence code (yes, I’m a bad boy and I’m paying a speeding charge)

Then it asks my for my payment details, and then it gives me a 24 (twenty four) digit reference number which it then tells me is a transaction number that is issued regardless of whether the payment was successful or not. Apparently I need to check my bank statement to see if the transaction was successful.

Ok, that’s done then.

Nope.

I have a paper form that they sent me with the initial number and offence code which now requires me to copy the 24 digit number into a too small box, and also write my FULL name in another box which is next to my printed full name and address. I’ve the. To sign and date the form which I’ve to snail mail to them with my driving license so the can annotate the record they have of my driving licence so they can send my driving license unmolested back to me.

Questions;
Who the hell designs these processes, because it sure as hell isn’t someone familiar with process design
Who the hell designs these on line forms, again it isn’t someone familiar with online forms
And finally, the paper form has obviously been updated to support the online process, but not by someone with half a brain.

Even I could come up with a better process and forms and I was only the project manager of such things employing people with skillz to do the actual work.

[Mr Larrington]

Where have you horble gits hidden the Post Office in the High Street?  It used to be next door to the library, and now it isn’t

[rafletcher]

Where have you horble gits hidden the Post Office in the High Street?  It used to be next door to the library, and now it isn’t

I'm sure you'll have found it on How St, next door-ish to Maccy D's.