The RANT thread (often contains fruity language)

[Mrs Pingu]

The Guardian website is just as bad for that.

[Kim]

The Guardian website is just as bad for that.

Every now and then I notice something suspicious on my network traffic graph.  Occasionally it's Windows Update, but usually it's a forgotten Guardian tab on barakta's browser.  It seems to delight in streaming video adverts to people who aren't watching.

[TheLurker]

I'm really pissed off with lots of websites these days. 

You wouldn't believe how many arguments I have with my colleagues about all the low contrast pastel colours they use on pages or the reliance they place on colour coding and yet they still persist.  Thankfully our stuff doesn't make it onto teh public interwebs.

[barakta]

Mercury Reader plugin for Chrome is my friend.

I can set basic font, text size and black on white, or white on black mode...

My basic policy is if website is evil I trigger mercury reader. If the site refuses to load whining about ad blockers or just barfs then fuckit, not important enough.  It does work on Graun articles but not i/Independent or whatever they called themselves.

[Wombat]

BT, you are a bunch of lying fumbling incompetent counts! Most of you probably already knew this, but as I've always been a Virgin customer,  I didn't.  Just what makes you think failing to install the phone and broadband on the contracted date, and now telling me you can't be arsed to do it till the 23rd,  well, just what makes you think that's OK?  I'm in the middle of nowhere with a dodgy variable mobile signal, I'm trying to do charities, I have to make arrangements to fly to Sierra Leone in a couple of weeks,  and I need to be in touch with my ancient mother, and you seriously think that's OK,  do you?

Well it hasn't got any better, and I still don't have a phone line, but thanks to some engineers who actually did have a brain and a conscience, I do have <0.5Mb "broadband".  This is so slow I can't log into the internet banking for either myself or my mother, which means I can't make new payments.  BT are still the biggest bunch of liars since the conservative party was invented, and still cannot grasp the concept that an appointment for an engineer means that an engineer is actually supposed to be here.  I only got an engineer visiting because I emailed the direct email of the CEO of Openreach, Mr Clive Selley, who upon realising that leaving my wife stranded in a house that the snowploughs had not managed to get through to yet, with no means of communication other than a very intermittent mobile signal, with me away in Sierra Leone, was not really acceptable, sent engineers to come as soon as they could get through, which they did, installed the stuff, phoned for activation, and the utter knobhead/jobsworth/monkey felching weasel featured peccary's penis on the other end of the phone refused, despite being instructed to do so by the CEO. 

All we want you to do, you utter scrap o' shite, is press a few keys on your keyboard to activate it!   You do know what a keyboard is, do you, shit-for-brains?  When I eventually got back from Sierra Leone, stopped crapping long enough to use my phone, I went back to the CEO, who was away, so the head of the CEO complaints dept responded, saying someone would contact me today to tell me how they were going to resolve it.  The brainless specimen in question (I'm sure they choose them with almost unintelligible voices deliberately, she sounded like Lorraine Kelly on helium) insisted that it was not possible to do it before 14th March, as this was the appointment set.  No if bloody well isn't, the appointment was 6th February!  She also couldn't understand when I flatly refused to believe that anyone would turn up on the day, saying "well, the appointment is definitely set", so I informed her that 6th Feb was definitely set, as was 23rd Feb, and 1st March, and 4th March, and they didn't bother with any of those...

I'm just at my wits end with them, they literally do not care how much they screw around their customers.  The installation is eventually complete, just turn the fucking thing on!!!!!

[Wombat]

Lagging condensate pipes might not be enough. As Feanor has posted elsewhere in this forum, supplementary heating would be better.

I know it's not your fault but WHY OH WHY OH WHY has there been WHOLESALE installation of systems that cannot cope with persistent temperatures below freezing? This occurs in many winters, even in the balmy climes of That London!

This is
1) Unfit for purpose
2) Negligent
3) Fraudulent

AFAIK, British Gas have never insulated condensate drains, and also AFAIK it is a legal requirement to do so.  I would not touch BG as installers, with a very long, insulated barge pole.  Ripoff merchants of the worst order, and damn awkward to deal with.  This is based on 14 years experience helping our customers who are in the cold thanks to them and other unscrupulous types.

[hellymedic]

My boiler was not installed by BG. I received the email 168 hours ago when a HUGE number of people, myself included, had experienced boiler failure.

It was too little, too late.

I felt they were sending out these emails because they were inundated.

That advice might have been helpful 72 hours earlier or BG should have encouraged better installations.

[citoyen]

I dropped my Ronhill running jacket on the bench at the end of the first lap at Saturday's parkrun. By the time I finished the second lap, it had transformed into a Karrimor jacket. I knew it wasn't mine as soon as I picked it up - all these fluoro yellow jackets are hard to tell apart but even so, it was obviously not mine. However, it was the only one there, so someone else must have picked up mine by accident. I would never buy a fluoro yellow jacket, for many reasons, but the fact that every fucker wears one is perhaps the main reason. However, this was a gift and I actually quite like it despite the colour.

I wouldn't mind so much, seeing as my net running jacket total remains unchanged, but a) my Ronhill jacket is made of a nice lightweight fabric, while the Karrimor feels distinctly cheap and nasty by comparison (quick internet search suggests it costs less than half the price of my Ronhill jacket), and b) it had a snotty tissue in the pocket. Yuck.

I know I should probably should be more careful with leaving my stuff unattended at parkrun, but I've been doing it for nearly six years and it's the first time something like this has happened. It's not the end of the world but I'm mildly irked.

[mrcharly-YHT]

!

Karrimor stuff - cheap tat sold by sports direct

Ron hill kit - damn fine stuff sold in specialist running shops (I have a modern version of the tracksters and they are terrific).

Someone might have picked it up by accident but they wouldn't have got far without realising, then they carried on deliberately. UTTER GITS!

[citoyen]

Someone might have picked it up by accident but they wouldn't have got far without realising, then they carried on deliberately. UTTER GITS!

I know that Karrimor is cheap tat, but even so I was surprised at how nasty the jacket felt when I tried it on. I am charitably assuming that the culprit made a genuine mistake and have posted a message on the parkrun facebook page to give them a chance to rectify it.

[rafletcher]

Thames bloody Water (and their half-arsed contractors) 

We live half way down a linear village and the access road dead ends. There is one alternative access, but that is down an unmade, unadopted, deeply rutted track. It's so bad I've used it only a handful of times in 20 years. (It's unadopted as residents wan to discourage through traffic -
 that works) And apparently unadopted roads cannot be used as official diversions.

So at the tail end of last year the water main at the top of the road was replaced, access being maintained at all times, albeit narrowly (literally). Since then there have been at least three revisits to repair their work.

About 2 weeks ago another leak occurred - not major, but as it was during the cold snap, noticeable as a result of the ice slick produced. It was visited a few days later (evidenced by the blue spray paint), and so we waited.

Then this morning we find the road completely closed, with no notice being given, and no signed diversion. Contractors were telling drivers to use the unadopted road, and claim that as it's an "emergency" repair no notice is needed. 

I suspect the issue is that as an emergency they don't have to apply for a diversion they wouldn't get approved, and they can conveniently for their contractors close the road without notice. It'll all be a "misunderstanding".

[ElyDave]

sounds like they are stretching the credibility of the use of the emergency provisions. much like a certain team and TUEs.

There are circumstances, big gas leaks etc where road closure does not require notification, New Roads and Streetworks Act (NRSWA), but I can't remember which section - generally for non-emergency work a notification and planning is required.  You could always ask them for their risk assessment which decided that it was OK to divert people (?pedestrians as well?) down an unmade track vs leaving access on the road.

The fact that they visited, blue paint, then are out now tends to blow a hole in the "emergency" argument.

[rafletcher]

Indeed. I reported it to Bucks CC and they sent a man out to explain to the contractor. Whoever that is (TW use several) will get fined for unauthorised closure. Just checked back and the leak was reported on 20th Feb. Some emergency!

[citoyen]

If you try to restore a bunch of accidentally* deleted files** from Google Drive's Trash but the folder they were originally in no longer exists, they will instead be deleted forever.

DAHIKT

 


*It's a bit more complicated than that but ICBA to explain.

**Only about 30-feckin-GB of data that took several weeks to upload on my shitty internet connection.

ETA: of course, it's quite possible that I actually clicked 'delete forever' instead of 'restore'. Excuse me while I take myself outside and have a quiet word with myself.

[ian]

Hello, we've cancelled your flight and rebooked it in four days time, bye. We'd like to tell you how to contact us about the impracticality of our stranding you in a place you don't actually want to be for 4 days, but actually, come to think of it, we'd wouldn't, it'd be such a burden. How about you go scramble around our web page for contact details, but to be honest, don't bother, when you find it you'll realise that we've unplugged the phones and gone to bed, it's 8pm after all.  I mean, really, who'd want to contact an airline after 8pm, it's not like planes fly in the evening. Seriously, it's not, we've cancelled them.

[Jurek]

BA?

[ian]

Indeed. My wife, not me, my train actually left and arrived on time. Anyway she spoke to someone reasonable and will hopefully arrive tomorrow (wrong day and wrong airport, but she’ll survive). Of course all my meetings are cancelled. My colleague has posed the question: just how many cocktails is it reasonable to expense in such a situation?

[Oaky]

Indeed. My wife, not me, my train actually left and arrived on time. Anyway she spoke to someone reasonable and will hopefully arrive tomorrow (wrong day and wrong airport, but she’ll survive). Of course all my meetings are cancelled. My colleague has posed the question: just how many cocktails is it reasonable to expense in such a situation?

Last time a colleague and I pondered a similar question to that (whilst delayed for 1.5 days owing to fog), we agreed that the answer was "all of the coctails".

[ElyDave]

Indeed. My wife, not me, my train actually left and arrived on time. Anyway she spoke to someone reasonable and will hopefully arrive tomorrow (wrong day and wrong airport, but she’ll survive). Of course all my meetings are cancelled. My colleague has posed the question: just how many cocktails is it reasonable to expense in such a situation?

Last time a colleague and I pondered a similar question to that (whilst delayed for 1.5 days owing to fog), we agreed that the answer was "all of the coctails".

I was going to ask "how many are there on the menu?"

At least that many.

[ian]

I think that was her suggestion. As a nod to decorum, we're not starting till 4pm.

[Beardy]

I think the correct answer is as many as you can remember 😁

[PaulF]

I’m not saying this but get 2 copies of the receipts and send one to the airline and one to work

[citoyen]

Last time a colleague and I pondered a similar question to that (whilst delayed for 1.5 days owing to fog), we agreed that the answer was "all of the coctails".

Great minds... that was exactly the answer that sprang to my mind on reading ian’s post (except I mentally spelled cocktail correctly because I’m like that).

[Jurek]

Indeed. My wife, not me, my train actually left and arrived on time. Anyway she spoke to someone reasonable and will hopefully arrive tomorrow (wrong day and wrong airport, but she’ll survive). Of course all my meetings are cancelled. My colleague has posed the question: just how many cocktails is it reasonable to expense in such a situation?

They have form for this sort of thing.
You should try sorting out this kinda shit when you are neither the cardholder who paid for the flight, or the passenger. (BA won't talk to anyone who isn't one or the other, or both)
I'm overdue a BAFTA award on account of the multiple roles I've had to play whilst on the phone to the nation's favourite airline.
So far, I've managed to get away with my unabated lies to them.
Not so much with Norwegian Air.
They pinned me to the wall.

As an aside, in 1985 I flew on an Olympic Airways flight from Athens to LHR using a ticket issued to a Greek woman (from whom I'd bought it).
Nobody cared then.
How things have changed.

[Jurek]

I’m not saying this but get 2 copies of the receipts and send one to the airline and one to work

I like your thinking...