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

[Kim]

Just got the super-soaker treatment in the eyes from an overtaking bus.  I memorised the registration number, which I've fed into google and obtained more detail about the vehicle and its operator history than I could ever need courtesy of bus spotters (can't remember who to thank for that top tip, thanks YACF).  I'll be sending a sternly-worded email to the bus company about driver attitudes and maintenance standards of essential MOT test items, and if they fail the attitude test, following up to Nobby and Vimes.

ETA: Done.  First (for it was them) have a form for it, complete with lots of useful fields for identifying the bus/driver.  I'm not sure whether that's a good sign or not.

...and I've just had an extremely stock-sounding reply:

Thank you for letting us know about your concerns with the way our driver was operating our number 144 bus on 26 July 2017. I am sorry to hear this and I can imagine how alarming it must have been for you as a cyclist.

We train all our drivers extensively, and they are well aware of the standards we expect of them at First. As such, all complaints are treated with the utmost seriousness and investigated accordingly.

Using the information you have provided, the driver will be identified and interviewed regarding this incident. If the driver's response is not satisfactory, then we will treat this as part of our disciplinary process. While I cannot go into detail as to what action will be taken for confidentiality reasons, please rest assured that this will be dealt with appropriately.

We are also taking proactive steps to make sure our drivers meet our expectations. All our buses are fitted with a ‘drive green’ system which monitors the drivers’ acceleration, braking and manoeuvring. If our drivers fall short of the high standards we train them to, the system will alert us by going from green to amber or red. We can then investigate and, if there is a problem, take steps to stop it happening again.

Furthermore, our drivers also undertake Hazard Perception style workshops. A module throughout this programme is dedicated to cyclists, and the workshops have been designed through liaison with local cycling groups. We raise awareness of the space that cyclists need, and reinforce that cyclists must only be passed only at a safe distance.

Once again thank you for letting us know what happened. I appreciate your contact.

Yours sincerely


Amber Todd
Customer Service Advisor
 
For and on behalf of First Midlands

[hellymedic]

Three cash machines were out of service on our perambulations this afternoon; is there a national problem?

[ian]

The train footbridge near my house which took a day to build in the 30s (so says the local rag) is being replaced. Fair enough, it's an old concrete structure and I imagine they have a lifespan and it's probably best to replace them before they fall on a passing train.

It's apparently seven weeks of work (which started at 8am on the dot this morning with a valley-filling grinding and sawing, forcing me to get up and close the window), won't be complete till October. And they have had to remove all the equipment from the local park (which they council installed two months ago). I'm not joking, they've cleared about a football field of space and it seems they're building an actual road to the site. Admittedly they can only access from the park side, the other side is an alley between two houses (I presume it was wider at one point, then someone squeezed a house in).

It seems an epic amount of work (plus a long circumnavigation for me from the local bus stop, bah – they forgot to mention at any point whether there was going to be temporary replacement, so I assume the omission is my answer) for what is a very basic footbridge over two tracks. Still, it explains the cost of a train ticket, I suppose.

[T42]

Why do bloody smokers always choose to sit upwind of all the other seats outside cafés?

[Bledlow]

The train footbridge near my house which took a day to build in the 30s (so says the local rag) is being replaced. Fair enough, it's an old concrete structure and I imagine they have a lifespan and it's probably best to replace them before they fall on a passing train.

It's apparently seven weeks of work (which started at 8am on the dot this morning with a valley-filling grinding and sawing, forcing me to get up and close the window), won't be complete till October. And they have had to remove all the equipment from the local park (which they council installed two months ago). I'm not joking, they've cleared about a football field of space and it seems they're building an actual road to the site. Admittedly they can only access from the park side, the other side is an alley between two houses (I presume it was wider at one point, then someone squeezed a house in).

It seems an epic amount of work (plus a long circumnavigation for me from the local bus stop, bah – they forgot to mention at any point whether there was going to be temporary replacement, so I assume the omission is my answer) for what is a very basic footbridge over two tracks. Still, it explains the cost of a train ticket, I suppose.

I remember when the bridge over the Kennet I used to use to get between Newbury Racecourse station & my office was replaced.

It took ages, & the replacement looked as if it was built to the wrong scale. Everything was too big! The railings at the side were too high to lean on for anyone less than about 2 metres tall, for example, & worryingly, the bottom rail was so high that I was worried that if I slipped on the wet wood, I could go under it & into the river, bike & all. It looked as if someone had done it from plans with the wrong scale marked on them.

[ian]

I've no idea how big the resulting the replacement bridge will be – but they've chopped down loads of trees. There's probably enough space to squeeze in a Saturn V launch facility.

I evidently don't know much about these things (add it to the list), but given they could do this in a day back in the 1930s probably with six Irish navvies and a donkey, seven weeks seems a lot (not a solid seven weeks, mostly weekend stuff but still). I thought they just have some kind of prefabricated structure they could hoist onto some foundations. It's just two sets of stairs and a walkway. I doubt they'll fit in a ramp, there's no space on the other side of the tracks with the alleyway and a railway cottage that opens out onto it.

I'm not entirely sure why the council put in an entirely new set of park equipment fewer than two months before and now NR have removed it all (just in time for the summer holiday) either.

(Lots of whinging about car parking with all the works vehicles. Anyone would think the people up there didn't live on a public road.)

[mrcharly-YHT]

We had a patronising company speech about the history of the company that went like this "Most of you are too young to remember, but when I was young, mobile phones were so large you needed a bag to carry them in, I bet you can hardly believe it."

No, I can hardly believe it. When I was young, the phone in my house looked like this:

Not because it was 'retro', but because that's what you needed to work the local exchange; crank the handle, a bell rang in the exchange, then you told them the number you wanted.

[Kim]

I bet texting was a complete arse, too...   

[Basil]

Ours was similar, no dial, but you didn't have to crank it.  You just picked it up and waited until a nice lady said "Hello dear. Would you like a connection? "
I doubt that she listened in on me.  I was only 7, but my mum reckoned that she never had a private  conversation.

[hellymedic]

I am older than mrcharly but pretty sure all phones had rotary dials, even when I was tiny.
I am a townie!

[mrcharly-YHT]

I grew up in redneck hicksville. The next house we moved to had a telephone with a rotary dial, but we didn't have electricity.

[hellymedic]

I am a townie, born to townies.
My Mum was born and grew up about 100 metres from Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen and Dad lived in West Hampstead after leaving Antwerp in WWII.

[hellymedic]

Royal Mail are closing down their Online Prepay Postage accounts from March 2018 so I should withdraw funds or use them up before then.
It seems £10 in that account is non-refundable. That was the amount of my most recent Top-Up.
In September 2016.

[Pickled Onion]

Chateau Pickles is shipping a fair amount of water due to a few slipped tiles. The first so-called "roofer" came round last week, complained that my roof was too high and said his ladders wouldn't reach. A "roofer" without a long ladder, srsly?

Second roofer was on holiday, so we collected another bucket of water over the weekend. I left him a very clear message that the roof was quite high, much higher than a modern two-storey house. He arrived promptly Monday morning, then said "your roof's quite high, I'll have to come back later in the week with my longer ladders"    Let's hope it doesn't rain too much in the meantime.

[ian]

Pah. Our first phone was a BT rotary dialer. Grey because they didn't have cream. Them were the days. My mum to this day refuses to use the phone or let anyone use it on account of the potentially ruinous expense. That was partly my fault for being home for the holidays and having somehow acquired an American girlfriend who was also home for the holidays. Sweet telephonic nothings cost a lot more back then*. My parents got my gran a phone. She'd use it once a year on Christmas morning to tell my dad to come and get her. She'd just shout 'we're ready' down the phone and hang up. I don't think she ever got how phones worked.

I saw my first mobile phone in the wild on Wall Street. The owner was talking too loudly into it. So I killed him, obviously. I should have hunted down the rest. I could have put a stop to it.

Anyways, the march of progress. In a presentation the other week I was explaining the world before the internet and social media, that horrible past dystopia of pen and ink and typewriters and Molly Ringwold when some perilously young scamp pointedly asked 'well, how did people know what you were doing?'

You should have seen the horror gouged into her face when I told we ate food rather than instagram it.

*this being my motivation for stumbling onto the internet and spoiling it for everyone else.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Anyways, the march of progress. In a presentation the other week I was explaining the world before the internet and social media, that horrible past dystopia of pen and ink and typewriters and Molly Ringwold when some perilously young scamp pointedly asked 'well, how did people know what you were doing?'

Someone in a trenchcoat followed us around writing it down.

[ElyDave]

Oneof my bonsai hand carving tools seems to have gone rusty in the shed over winter. I seem to have been able to restore the edge, but it looks scruffy now.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The train footbridge near my house which took a day to build in the 30s (so says the local rag) is being replaced. Fair enough, it's an old concrete structure and I imagine they have a lifespan and it's probably best to replace them before they fall on a passing train.

It's apparently seven weeks of work (which started at 8am on the dot this morning with a valley-filling grinding and sawing, forcing me to get up and close the window), won't be complete till October. And they have had to remove all the equipment from the local park (which they council installed two months ago). I'm not joking, they've cleared about a football field of space and it seems they're building an actual road to the site. Admittedly they can only access from the park side, the other side is an alley between two houses (I presume it was wider at one point, then someone squeezed a house in).

It seems an epic amount of work (plus a long circumnavigation for me from the local bus stop, bah – they forgot to mention at any point whether there was going to be temporary replacement, so I assume the omission is my answer) for what is a very basic footbridge over two tracks. Still, it explains the cost of a train ticket, I suppose.

I remember when the bridge over the Kennet I used to use to get between Newbury Racecourse station & my office was replaced.

It took ages, & the replacement looked as if it was built to the wrong scale. Everything was too big! The railings at the side were too high to lean on for anyone less than about 2 metres tall, for example, & worryingly, the bottom rail was so high that I was worried that if I slipped on the wet wood, I could go under it & into the river, bike & all. It looked as if someone had done it from plans with the wrong scale marked on them.

Parapets on new railway bridges have to be that high to prevent hooligans throwing stuff (or themselves) on the tracks and to protect against accidental contact with overhead line electrification. Almost every bridge between London and Cardiff has been rebuilt over the last couple of years in readiness for electrification (which they've now "put on hold" of course).

[Basil]

A whole morning of "Please continue to hold for our next available adviser" 

[barakta]

Royal Mail are closing down their Online Prepay Postage accounts from March 2018 so I should withdraw funds or use them up before then.
It seems £10 in that account is non-refundable. That was the amount of my most recent Top-Up.
In September 2016.

Urgh, that's crappy... Will they not be allowing pre payment of postage?  I do think swiping £10 from people is CHEEKY... Small claims them?

[hellymedic]

A whole morning of "Please continue to hold for our next available adviser" 

 
GGGRRR!!!

I feel your frustration!

[T42]

We had a patronising company speech about the history of the company that went like this "Most of you are too young to remember, but when I was young, mobile phones were so large you needed a bag to carry them in, I bet you can hardly believe it."

No, I can hardly believe it. When I was young, the phone in my house looked like this:

Not because it was 'retro', but because that's what you needed to work the local exchange; crank the handle, a bell rang in the exchange, then you told them the number you wanted.

When I was a nipper we lived next door to a telephone engineer who gave me all kinds of fascinating bits, including the generator out of a 1920s/30s wall-mounted phone. Those things could give you a hell of a kick.  Great fun.

[Ham]

Would it have been particularly evil to tell schoolmates one of those little gennies was a lie detector, get them to hold the wires and then turn the handle no matter what they answered? No? Oh, good.

[fuzzy]

My Nan had a bakelite monstrosity with a chromed steel rotary dial, braided cloth covered wires and a little drawer in the base that had a cler plastic cover and a grid to write cob]ntact numbers down on.

The thing was so heavy that I wouldn't be surprised if it or a sibling had been a murder weapon.

[Jurek]

I still have a GPO 746 connected to my landline, for the sole reason that I like the ring. I hate electronic ringtones.
I cannot make or receive calls from it, but I have other, more modern phones, about the place which can do that.
ETA - Landline..... exactly how much use does that get - aside from calls from Mother?