The RANT thread (often contains fruity language)

[Cudzoziemiec]

Sure I've read that hippos are responsible for more deaths by wildlife than any other African animal.

[hatler]

Bzzzt. Mosquito, surely.

Or the water buffalo.

ETA, based on the first google hit it's Mozzy, Hippo, Buffalo.

[Mr Larrington]

I know more people^* who've been killed utterly to DETH by buffaloes than either mosquitos or hippos.

* sample size = 1, one Rick Hopkins whose Lard-Rover was knocked into a ravine by said Large Cow.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Yeah, good point. I'm sure humans account for more too. Hippos are more lethal than any other wild mammal in Africa.

[slowfen]

For the fens, need to add FO big tractors

https://www.caseih.com/apac/en-int/products/tractors/steiger

Thet tend to ignore smaller things

I must admit, I've found tractor drivers OK on the whole...

These tend to be independent contractors, with teams of drivers operating 24/7 for the relevant period.

Individual farmers are ok/helpful, the large farm contractors/management companies are not. Eg bad commute days would be a convoy of tractors 3+ long followed for 6 miles, despite spaces for them to pull in (A142 Sutton to Chatteris)

[ian]

Sure I've read that hippos are responsible for more deaths by wildlife than any other African animal.

We learned little from Hungry Hippos, they're quite aggressive and protective. An African friend of mine once told me that he wasn't bothered by lions but hippos were serious run-away-quickly-territory.

Admittedly, a few years later he confessed that he'd never ever seen a lion.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Admittedly, a few years later he confessed that he'd never ever seen a lion.

Because the lions ride Raleighs:

[The Family Cyclist]

That case/steiger is brilliant for low pressure on the ground despite weighing around 30T. I've driven one with nothing behind and was hideous as used to dragging many tonnes through the ground

[mrcharly-YHT]

Lawn is being grown on the fields around me. Last week they came round to spray the green fertilizer - the tractor had super balloon tyres. Hardly left a mark on the ground. Must be running at barely above atmospheric.

[Giraffe]

A couple of times I've steered a cow(!) back to a field or farmyard. In a village I saw a cow come out of a farmyard onto the road so prepared to put her back. Got closer - well, she had horns and her eyes were of the staring mad variety. I wasn't going to mess with that so swerved out and sprinted past. I would have gone to the farm but she was too close to the entrance.

[The Family Cyclist]

I once helped coral a pig which had fallen out of a trailer. One idiot laughed at me as I went an grabbed a pallet before approaching a large, angry, slightly scuffed up pig. They soon shut up when it went for us and I could back it to the corner of the car park till the owner and farm it had been to to be served turned up and grabbed a hock each and pulled into the trailer. They had a bit of a struggle and were both big guys. Had the nickname pig dog for a while.

[Ginger Cat]

Why oh why do people always cut down trees in the middle of the nesting season?

IIRC that's an offence.  When I worked in civil engineering, we had to plan clearance works for the winter, 'cos you ain't allowed to do it in the summer 'cos birds.Quite right too.

You should not be removing trees during nesting season.  It is an offence to intentionally damage or destroy the active nest of any wild bird - Section 1 Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981.

Unfortunately this has led to the scourge of developers netting trees, to prevent nesting.   Something our planning committee takes a very dim view of.  If trees do have to be removed - and we do everything we can to deter that approach - we routinely recommend conditions which include no netting and removal out of nesting season.

We've upset our Tree Officer by commenting on every tree removal application that doesn't have a valid reason. We've declared a Climate Emergency as has the District Council. Vanity tree removal doesn't sit well with those declarations.

We've been very liberal with the TPOs.   

 

The "new" estate I live in (built in early 1990's) is nicely laid out, and at building time a tree was planted at the front of every 3rd front garden or so. When I first moved here ~25 years ago, there were lots of trees starting to look nice and have birds in.

Then people started cutting them down to make way for widening of existing driveways to add more cars. As a bit of a protest, when I finally sorted out our front garden (until then a patch of turf adjoining that of the neighbour) in summer of 2004, I planted a silver birch tree at the front of the front garden along with a Yew hedge along the boundary.

Over the years, the trees originally put in were cut down to make way for driveways. About a year ago, the last one was cut down . Along our street/culdesac bit, the only tree left now is the silver birch I planted in 2004. I crown-lifted it a few years ago and it's got a nice shape. At certain times of year it's filled with little birds (coal tits I think) hunting for things to eat. The yew hedge is mature and I clip it to just over a metre high.

I've had a bit of critism over the years from neighbours who moan when leaves from my tree "mess up" their bricked driveways every autumn and "require them" to sweep said driveways which as we all know must have lest specks of dust on than my living room carpet 

At the time I planted the trees in the front, I also put an ornamental cherry, a couple of Japanese maples and a thuja-type conifer in the back garden. They all look good now, and this past year or two, complaints have stopped as people realise how trees actually improve a street (no-one has planted any more mind you).

The street would look SO much better and be far more friendly to little birds if all of those original trees had been protected from cutting down by issue of lots of TPOs!

(What they should have done was plant victoria plum, hazel nut and apple trees* with strict TPOs on and by now we'd all have free fruit every autumn too!)

GC

*PS: I retain the birch tree- outside my bedroom window- even though my hayfever has expanded to include birch tree pollen in the list of things that cause it. On reflection a plum or apple tree would have been a better choice!

[Ginger Cat]

OK, Lush. I like your stuff and usually you've been OK with delivery.

I get that COVID-19 stretched you, when I ordered in mid-May I accepted I would wait a couple of weeks for my order to be dispatched rather than a couple of days.

BUT you cretinous lot, it's now July and my order shows "still processing." Yet your website is crowing that "next day delivery is back" and also claimed that delivery times were "back to normal" a couple of weeks ago.

I have to wonder whether you achieved that return to normality by just dumping into a Black Hole all the orders from the patient tolerant customers like GC. I shouldn't need to chase you on LiveChat to remind you of my back-order but now I have we'll see whether you keep your promises.........

Grrrrrrr.

GC

[fuzzy]

Fucking Insewerants Shysters

A couple of weeks ago we came home to find a note from a near neighbour asking us to make contact.

It transpired that whilst he was gathering BBQ and other summer bits from his garage which is adjacent to ours in a block, he dislodged a heavy folding table from the rafters, which slid accross the dividing wall and landed on mrs F's pride and joy, denting the roof etc.

Immediate acceptance of liabiltity and promise to sort it out via his liabiltiy insurance.

We got a quote for repairs- £1650 or thereabouts, which we sent to him and he sent to his insureres. Over a week later they e mailed Mrs F asking for details of her claim of negligence aginst their client.

Mrs F, who wasn't present when it happened, recounted the explanation neighbour gave. Fucking Insewrants Shysters replied that recounting the details of what happened does not constitute detailing her claim of his negligence.

Bunch of idiotic, small minded cunts We are going to make it plain. If neighbour wasn't such a fucking idiot as to fail to keep control of his folding table whilst it was in his garage, it would not have crossed the boundary between our garages and caused damage to our property which was locked away minding its own business. I hope that detailing our claim of his neglignece is clear enough for them.

Fucking Insewarants Shysters. A painful THE BEAR induced death is far too good for them.

[Mrs Pingu]

Thing is, don't the insurers basically tell you never to admit liability, even if it is your fault?
If his insurers don't pay up he should.

[MattH]

That's only because of the Britishness thing of saying "sorry" when someone walks into you.
The first thing many nice people do is apologise, which can be taken as an admission of liability, when actually it wasn't your fault. And in the rush of adrenalin and panic in an accident, you may not be fully competent or in full possession of facts to make that admission.
In something clear cut, it makes no difference.

[fuzzy]

They have accepted the allegations of incompetence/ negligence against their client and are settling in full.

[rafletcher]

They have accepted the allegations of incompetence/ negligence against their client and are settling in full.

 

[Kim]

Buzzed awake by the doorbell at 4:06 this morning.

I stumbled downstairs while attempting to make a dressing gown work, to see blue lights flashing through the window above the door.  As I fumbled with the lock, it occurred to me that it might be related to the burning smell, rather than paramedics being called for $neighbour, who has form for such things.

I opened the door to see a) a Mk 1 fire engine, chugging away in the middle of the road  b) a several of young men in black t-shirts standing at our door.

I uttered a confused "..er, I don't think there's a fire here?", at which point they apologised, one of them offered me a fist-bump, and they turned around and left.  Rubbing increasing numbers of neurons together, I realised these weren't firefighters, but drunken zombie students, doing that ringing-on-your-door-in-the-middle-of-the-night-then-apologising thing, and the fire engine was coincidental.

As I closed the door the doorbell went off again, which confused me.  I opened it to see if there was something wrong with the button, at which point the fire engine drove off.  Barakta then appeared, having found a hearing aid and dressing gown to ask me complicated questions like "What's going on?".  I don't think she really believed me about the fire engine.

As my brain had finally booted, further investigations confirmed a) no fire  b) generic BloodyStudent party spilling onto the street from the house opposite in the usual noisy manner, with no obvious signs of distress  c) an unimpressive spike in PM10s (the sensor's on the other side of the house) from around 03:50

I conclude that the students must have had some sort of combustion incident that had been successfully brought under control while we slept, and that arriving revellers were too drunk to get the right house, in spite of there being an extremely large flashing-blue-lighted clue parked outside.


I went back to bed and after lying there for about 5 hours got about an hours sleep, before giving up at 12pm ish.  I now feel like crap and my neck has gone stiff (poor sleep exacerbating the wrenching I got in yesterday's Learning Opportunity).

[Basil]

The dog has an annoying habit of running herself along the hall wall to dry herself out when wet.  It has left a sightly darker lower strip at the bottom of the 'sell the house magnolia' paint.
I finally got around to the long planned paint job (summer blue) yesterday.  Having completed the satisfying rollering, I was up a ladder with loaded paint brush for the irritating cutting in when I heard Mrs B returning with the dog.
"DON'T LET THE....."
"Oh fuck"

Blue dog in the shower.  As cold as I could get it. The little shit

[Mrs Pingu]

I thought I was going to have a similar moment the other day when Pumpkin did her cheek marking thing on the kitchen door frame, but fortunately it was dry enough.
Pingu however, has a white streak on his blue t-shirt.

[fuzzy]

The dog has an annoying habit of running herself along the hall wall to dry herself out when wet.  It has left a sightly darker lower strip at the bottom of the 'sell the house magnolia' paint.
I finally got around to the long planned paint job (summer blue) yesterday.  Having completed the satisfying rollering, I was up a ladder with loaded paint brush for the irritating cutting in when I heard Mrs B returning with the dog.
"DON'T LET THE....."
"Oh fuck"

Blue dog in the shower.  As cold as I could get it. The little shit

Sorry Basil but-
 

[Mr Larrington]

The dog has an annoying habit of running herself along the hall wall to dry herself out when wet.  It has left a sightly darker lower strip at the bottom of the 'sell the house magnolia' paint.
I finally got around to the long planned paint job (summer blue) yesterday.  Having completed the satisfying rollering, I was up a ladder with loaded paint brush for the irritating cutting in when I heard Mrs B returning with the dog.
"DON'T LET THE....."
"Oh fuck"

Blue dog in the shower.  As cold as I could get it. The little shit

Sorry Basil but-
 

This Unit hereby endorses this product, service or sentiment, and so does Professor L.

[spesh]

Quoth Charlie Chaplin: "Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot."

[Canardly]

A few miles from me there is a huge quarry producing yellow building sand. My estate is built with mortar using yellow building sand. Can I buy this produce anywhere locally, er no. The nearest source is 43 miles away. Is it me?