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

[hellymedic]

Joseph Green sounds ordinary too.

[Basil]

Joseph Green sounds ordinary too.

 . 

[hellymedic]

Why does the Subsistence Allowance for Jury Service not stretch to paying for a sandwich and a couple of hot drinks?

£5.74 per day; you are having a larf!

[+paul]

Radio3 web bods, is it really so hard to get with the times?  I'm pretty sure nearly all of the devices used to access your web site have no problem displaying characters with diacritics, so why do you give us Bela Bartok instead of Béla Bartók?  No surpise, Jiří Bělohlávek is simplified too.  (At least they don't translate his name - 'George Whitehead' doesn't have quite the same ring to it.)

I work in Toyota and we have two plants in Poland. Of course many of my colleagues from Poland have diacritics in their names, but I wouldn't know where to find them on the keyboard. I normally end up cutting and pasting from their emails on the basis I don't like my name spelt incorrectly, so why should I do the same to their names!

[Wombat]

Why does the Subsistence Allowance for Jury Service not stretch to paying for a sandwich and a couple of hot drinks?

£5.74 per day; you are having a larf!

I can't recall how much I got when I did it for 3 weeks back in about 2004, but it did run to a lunch in their crappy cafeteria.  Everything had baked beans and mash with it, a bit like a transport caff, but minus the bacon rolls.  This was Portsmouth Crown Court, where we started to hear a case about abduction, which promised to be rather distressing, but this was regrettably dropped.  We ended up doing a case about dirty dealings in the motor trade. 
One of the companies that had been stitched up by the fraudulent git in question, was the company who sold my wife a rather used Citroen AX some years beforehand.  "Oh, we've just changed the cambelt".... Lying bastards, when it failed resulting in bent valves about a year later, it was obviously the original belt fitted in the factory, not surprised it failed after 100,000 miles... so, I larfed when they got stitched up!

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

I bought a non-Apple smartphone in a supermeerkat.

Having done so I thought I'd better get a case.  Why is it, in the shop where I bought the thing there is a choice of just one case for my phone (in shocking pink with a real diamond set in it) but literally billions* of cases for Apple's iPhones? 


* I may be confusing that with the profit made by Apple, but there were a great many.

[Guy]

Cold office update.

The sun is pouring through the windows and it's almost pleasant in here.  Lonjohns, thick trizers, brasher socks, t-shirt, shirt, thick jumper and fleece have nowt to do with it of course..

EdiT: Just looked at the forecast and they've issued a wevver-warnin for SNO this afternoon.  Just. Bloody. Marvellous!

[Mrs Pingu]

The new Guardian website. Ugh.

[rafletcher]

The new BBC News app 

[Dibdib]

The new Guardian website. Ugh.

Agreed. 'Orrible. Where shall I get my lunchtime fix now?

[hellymedic]

Aged Parents (78.9, 84.4) are offline.

BT have disconnected Old String and sent them a New Hub with Lots of New String.

Aged Parents are unwilling/unable to crawl on floor connecting New Hub and New String.

Teenage Grandsons are unavailable due to Exams.

Aged Parents then found their landline didn't work.
They summoned 'engineers' (Dad calls them technicians) to fix these things.
They have called today. Parents will be charged.
£129 for the telephone and
£129 for the Broadband.

Being old or disabled are expensive! I'm sure I could have fixed things for them had I been more mobile or had the services of a Mobile Teenager.

[fuzzy]

<SNIP>

No contact from the garage yesterday so I phone them at 4:15 p.m. "Funny you should phone" says FAD, "Your car Babbage Engine has spoken with the Mother Ship Babbage Engine (MSBE) and the MSBE Minions (MSBEM) have sent us a request for further checks- 39 pages of system checks on BCU's, anbaric string connections, resistance etc."

"Am I building up a tab here?" I asks.

"Hang on a mo" says FAD. he returns a little while later to say "If the fault is linked to the work we have done, that will be free. If it isn't, it will be another £114."

"Now wait just one cotton picking moment Hoss" says I. "I have already spent over £600 to be in exactly the same position as I was before I dropped the car off for repair and you might want more money?"

The saga continues.

Dr John sez they've fucked up. They just don't want to admit it.

Dust off and nuke from orbit etc.

As the owner of a series of LR Discoverys, which have more ECUs than anything else in the universe, I feel the pain.

Garages can only do diagnostics to a certain level.
"Fault code says blah. We need to replace the XXX at a cost of £XXX".
OK.

But it doesn't fix the problem.
Back a week later with the same issue.
Replace something different.

Can you put back the expensive thing you swapped last week, and refund me?
"No."

There's no *real* fault finding.
Just guessing ( at your expense ).

Phoned the garage again on Friday- despite them promising to phone me. Having completed the 39 pages of tests suggested by Mazda central, they are no further forward in telling me what the problem is. Now waiting to speak to an Anbaric Systems Wizard at Mazda Central who won't be in till today

Just had ANOTHER call from the garage. Further guided investigation indicates a failure in another body control module type thing. replacement of this will be a further £558. Over a thousand pounds because some fucking blinking lights misbehave

I suggested that maybe the original module change was not required but no, Mazda Babbage Engine suggests that the two modules were fucking with each other and both need changing.

I fucking HATE cars.

So, the part needs to be paid for in advance- £464.85. Purchased.
2 days for part to arrive.
Part fitted and test driven.
All seems to be OK.
Bill settled over the phone. I'm expecting £557.82 minus £464.85 = £92.97. WRONG. Labour quote did not include VAT. Bastards

[Torslanda]

I really, really hope they've got it right this time*

*May contain traces of lies

Actually, I don't. Not because I want fuzzy (retd.) etc. to have misfortune with his jam jar but because I want to see the results of an irate ex-Forces/ex-Police person going ballistic at the cockwomble called a Serviss Mangler.

My guess is we would hear the eruption here in the North Midlands without the need for amplification . . .

Now trade the bastard in and let it be Someone Else's Problem. There's an awful lot to be said for a 3 year/60,000 mile warranty.

[fuzzy]

I really, really hope they've got it right this time*

*May contain traces of lies

Actually, I don't. Not because I want fuzzy (retd.) etc. to have misfortune with his jam jar but because I want to see the results of an irate ex-Forces/ex-Police person going ballistic at the cockwomble called a Serviss Mangler.

My guess is we would hear the eruption here in the North Midlands without the need for amplification . . .

Now trade the bastard in and let it be Someone Else's Problem. There's an awful lot to be said for a 3 year/60,000 mile warranty.

My ire is but a pale shadow of what would follow after the arrival on the scene of Mrs Fuzzy. They should be afraid, very afraid.

[mrcharly-YHT]

I had similar sounding problems with a car in a Fiat garage that was also a dealership.

I stood at service desk talking VERY LOUDLY about the crap service. Just a coincidence that prospective buyers of cars were in hearing range.

Senior service manager very quickly appeared and ordered senior mechanic to personally fix my car, pronto, no charges to be made.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The bus with the duff ramp was the Last Bus (midnight departure) and the ramp extended but withdrew when initially deployed at journey's origin.
I didn't extend at all at our destination, conveniently 100 metres from here.

I wonder if these ramps are the best way of getting wheelchair-persons on buses? I remember in LA they had ramps that were manually unfolded by the driver - probably took longer but nothing to break down, and the driver didn't seem to object to doing it (though I only saw it used once). That was back in the 90s, so technology has moved on - but perhaps not reliably enough. I can't think of a non-ramp solution, but maybe there is one.

[hellymedic]

The bus with the duff ramp was the Last Bus (midnight departure) and the ramp extended but withdrew when initially deployed at journey's origin.
I didn't extend at all at our destination, conveniently 100 metres from here.

I wonder if these ramps are the best way of getting wheelchair-persons on buses? I remember in LA they had ramps that were manually unfolded by the driver - probably took longer but nothing to break down, and the driver didn't seem to object to doing it (though I only saw it used once). That was back in the 90s, so technology has moved on - but perhaps not reliably enough. I can't think of a non-ramp solution, but maybe there is one.

There are 'kneeling' buses, which drop the nearside entrance down towards kerb level but these still tend to leave a gap/step. This is OK for a mother with a lightweight child in a buggy and acceptable if a wheelchair pusher has strong shoulders.

I would not fancy this if I were unattended.

[Mr Larrington]

No, The BBC, Baja California does not have an "H".  In it.

[Kim]

No, The BBC, Baja California does not have an "H".  In it.

Similarly, Bone Anchored Sound Processor doesn't have a 'J' in it.

[jsabine]

Bill settled over the phone. I'm expecting £557.82 minus £464.85 = £92.97. WRONG. Labour quote did not include VAT. Bastards

All retailers must price their goods to include VAT. This rule does not apply to business sales or the price of services, although if services are sold to consumers and the price is quoted exclusive of VAT, it must be made clear that VAT will be added.

Didn't look for a proper reference rather than Trading Standards advice: I know Dudley's special, but I don't suppose the rules are different there.

[nicknack]

The new Guardian website. Ugh.

Judging by the comments on their site I appear to be the only person in the world that thinks it's an improvement. The level of bile is quite astonishing. The level of stupidity is, however, unsurprising. I got accused of being in the pay of the Guardian (I wish) for daring to have a view opposed to the majority.

[Biggsy]

Another grumble about my new Sony TV.

It can act as a video recorder when you plug in a hard drive.  Which is nice.  BUT, the recordings only play on this TV, and it's losing its "registration" with the drive for no apparent reason whatsoever, meaning you have to re-register it and lose all recordings in the process.  Happened twice already, and I'm only on day two.  I should have stuck with Panasonic.

(I'll try copying the recordings to a PC before re-registering, then copying the recordings back, but this is not something I'll be arsed to do often even if it works).

[mcshroom]

Thanks to my coworker deciding to come in ill and spread it around during the week, I'm now suffering from some sort of flu (temperature, running nose, cough, irritated throat, headache feeling zonked out). I had planned a nice ride this afternoon after singing (or at least trying to sing) at a funeral, but I'm off to bed instead

[andrewc]

Thanks to my coworker deciding to come in ill and spread it around during the week, I'm now suffering from some sort of flu (temperature, running nose, cough, irritated throat, headache feeling zonked out). I had planned a nice ride this afternoon after singing (or at least trying to sing) at a funeral, but I'm off to bed instead

Sounds like what I've got, in which case you're probably in for a week of it 

I appear to be over the fatigue part of it, but still have the sore throat.

[Mr Larrington]

Look, conk, either get a clod or don't, but stop hovering in some kind of mu state where I have to keep up the low-intensity sniffing.