The RANT thread (often contains fruity language)

[Cudzoziemiec]

Reminds me, I was sitting in a business meeting the other week and everyone around me sparked up. I had to check I'd not stumbled into a time machine and popped out somewhere in the past.

What country?

[ian]

When I commute to the mothership, there's a steepish uphill haul to the train station which means I'm usually breathing deeply as I reach the platform entrance. Which is typically surrounded by smokers and their fug (because they have to stand as close to the platform as possible). I mostly try to hold my breath as I scoot through them, otherwise it's a lungful of fumes, which is pretty unpleasant.

Reminds me, I was sitting in a business meeting the other week and everyone around me sparked up. I had to check I'd not stumbled into a time machine and popped out somewhere in the past.

What country?

Serbia. Lovely people but I think they all smoke from the age of six months upwards. I once met a bunch of respiratory specialists at one of the hospitals there, and they smoked in our meeting. In the actual hospital. I'm very British and the average Serb is twice my size, so I tend not to kick up a fuss, but the last time we were there my little German ex-colleague chanelled her inner Teuton and made them stop, which was quite a feat. I dunno where she was during that period of inter-Balkan unfriendliness, but she would have probably put a stop to things without the need for a bombing campaign.

[Jaded]

Serbians need something to do when not drinking red wine or eating red meat.

[essexian]

Smokers. Every single stinking fetid selfish mother fucking selfish pus infested stinking selfish one of then.   DIE.  Do it now.

You're welcome.

My Mum of a smoking related illness.

As did my father.



I hate tobacco companies but not smokers themselves, they are addicted to the drug. 

[Kim]

I have asthma and a childhood of chronic middle ear infections.  I feel much the same about smokers (specifically my parents, but everyone who smoked at me without consent) as I do about the drunk driver who b0rked my knee and left me with a scar on my face.

Feed your addiction if you must, but not in a way that harms other people.

[Cudzoziemiec]

At least one Big Tobacco Co uses the term "nicotine consumers" to cover smokers, vapers, users of heated tobacco and oral tobacco. They know exactly what they're delivering.

[ian]

To be fair though, they've moved on a lot since the days they were amongst the major sponsors of slavery.

[Cudzoziemiec]

You don't have to go all the way to Serbia, Berlin would do:
https://youtu.be/woPzCzQ-hUs?t=105

"It's the freedom that I love down here."

[andytheflyer]

Suspect I'm joining the club here...

Bloody MS did a W10 upgrade overnight.  First thing I noticed was that the date and time was missing from my Taskbar.  Then when I opened File Explorer there were only icons, I had no way of knowing what each file was.  Panic.  What had I done?  Then none of the ribbons had any text - impossible to use. Even more panic.  Cold sweats.

Googled the problem - well known issue it seems. Tried to follow a couple of fixes, but got stumped in both cases as Norton was getting in the way, or my wife has the admin rights and can't remember the p/w.  Sh!t.  Now what?  Did a restart and lo and behold, the text came back.

Big sigh of relief.

But, Bloody MS - stop upgrading my laptop - but if you must, don't bugger it up!

And breathe....

[barakta]

NETWORK FUCKING FAIL!

Breaking TWO separate routes between BHM and CBG on the same fucking day. Turns a 2hr45 direct train into 3hr45+ bustitution or via fucking London on "reduced services to CBG" which means they'll be RAMMED cos they're bad at the best of times and I simply am not rated to stand on a train.

I think I'm going to have to cancel going to a friend's wedding cos I just can't make the travel spoons add up if I don't want to spend the rest of the week being EXHAUSTED.

It is bullshit like this that is why people won't give up their cars. If I could drive it would be EASY, I would have much more flexibility and it would be a lot cheaper too.

FUCK YOU NETWORK FAIL. FUCK YOU. SO FUCKING CROSS.

(Also rail websites are evil and shit and this information is next to impossible to find even when you look. I had to bitch at CC on Twitter to actually get the link to the sensible webpage which isn't what comes up when you click on engineering info).

[ElyDave]

Fucking Eurostar

need to change booking, go online to manage my booking - options are change seat, change meal. Check their help section "need to travel on a different daty? no problem, just go to Manage my Booking"

Manage my fucking arse! Back round an ever decreasing circle until I admit defeat and call them and have them try and charge me an extre £10 for the privilege.

Let's all say it together now - Revenue Generating Fuckwittery

[ElyDave]

so I can't change the booking online because I, in my pollyana-ish enthusiasm, went for the joined up thinking approach and booked Cambridge-Brussels return.

"Oh no sir, because this has a domestic leg you can't change it online, let me see what I can do?"

tapity, tapity

"oh no sir, we can't accomodate your new dates, the domestic booking can only be changed 82 days in advance, which is mid August, you want to travel at the end of September"
"so this changeable ticket isn't changeable then?"
"yes it is, but you'll have to change it to August and then later on change it to September"
"and you'll charge me twice for this?"
"yes"
"and you call this customer service?"
"we'll waive the £10 phone changes fee, becasue you can't actually change this online, but that's the rules I'm afraid"
"so you have no flexibility to waive the fees in these circumstances, so I pay once, which is reasonable"
"no sir"
"so you're not going to help me at all, and you call this customer service?

At this point I started to get a bit fucked off and went for the "please put you manager on" option.
Another 5 minutes of her putting me on hold, going away, TALKING to manager and coming back to repeat exactly the same.  me reminding her I actually asked to talk to the manager, not ask her to do so.

Manager appears, go through the whole thing again, point out again that the E-mail booking clearly states changes are no problem, and that the terms of booking do not explicitly mention an 82 day window for domestic legs vs infnite for Eurostar, or any reference to different booking windows at all, and that I've effectively been sold several lies, or implied expectations that are not real.

Final compromise after 45 minutes of phone call, rebooked Eurostar, cancelled domestic leg, £80 fee, and a need to rebook the Cambridge to London bit some time in the future at probably another £40

Joined up ticketing my arse, it's like Frankenstein's monster, but the stitching isn't as neat. No wonder we're the laughing stock of Europe.
But at least HS2 is coming to solve all our problems

[essexian]

This is a bit unpleasant so please turn away now/ don't click on the spoiler tab.

So, as I have grumbled about for the last 43 days, I have sciatica in my left leg which hurts like hell (other demonic places are available) and just to make it interesting, about three weeks ago my body decided that I was having too much fun still and added gout. Firstly in my right foot and then in my left one. Great!

Now for me gout is normally a three to 7 day thing where there is pain, trouble walking without a limp but not much else. I can normally get around/ ride my bike but no, not this time as, as I was struggling to walk anyway, the gout basically (what a horrid word) made me housebound.

Having tried every painkiller on the market and confirmed my feelings that me and codeine don't get on: it makes me tachycardic. I had a heart rate of 120bpm after taking solpadeine max, I visited the doctor for something for my gout and were given Colchicine to try. I have had their first choice previously during this attack and it did nothing.

If you get the option, I would suggest that you do not take Colchicine as one of the side effects is a loose bowel. That is somewhat of an understatement as.....spoiler alert

(click to show/hide)

For the first time since I became an adult, last night I soiled the bed as I couldn't get out in time

So, my rant. Why do they sell medications which are not effective and which have such drastic side effects?  Off work today as I don't want to be more than 6 foot from the loo at all times.

[Canardly]

Cost! A GP locum prescribed medication for me and had to phone me later in order to rescind the prescription as the practice said it was too expensive. Interesting to note that the Audit Commission are currently investigating the 3.5 million NHS patients being claimed for by practices but which do not exist, at a cost of approx 1/2 billion £ p.a. No doubt it will be cock up rather than conspiracy but dispensing cost is not the only efficiency marker.

[Jaded]

Have you tried Naproxen (that is about the only one that works for me) and also have you asked your GP about Uric acid reduction medicines, such as Allopurinol?

[T42]

If you get the option, I would suggest that you do not take Colchicine as one of the side effects is a loose bowel. That is somewhat of an understatement as.....spoiler alert

(click to show/hide)

For the first time since I became an adult, last night I soiled the bed as I couldn't get out in time

So, my rant. Why do they sell medications which are not effective and which have such drastic side effects?  Off work today as I don't want to be more than 6 foot from the loo at all times.

Nae sweat laddie, that happened to me 2/3 of the way round a 600 in 2007.  Had to take to the bushes at ~7am in the rain then retire to a hotel for ablutions.

In my case it wasn't medication but strong winds that cocked up my schedule so that any time I got to a place big enough to have an eatery it was shut. Had to subsist on munchies & energy bars.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I would imagine that's due to people moving around and thus being registered with a new practice without telling the old one they've moved, mostly.

Anyway, my rants: the first is perhaps only a grumble. Customers in bookshops, if you know the book you're looking for and the author's name, and it's fiction, you can surely look for it on the shelves yourself rather than asking the manager or staff to find it for you? The second is definitely a rant: for the third week running our recycling hasn't been collected. It's getting a bit overfull now...

[mrcharly-YHT]

I would imagine that's due to people moving around and thus being registered with a new practice without telling the old one they've moved, mostly.

Anyway, my rants: the first is perhaps only a grumble. Customers in bookshops, if you know the book you're looking for and the author's name, and it's fiction, you can surely look for it on the shelves yourself rather than asking the manager or staff to find it for you?

Bookshops have an annoying habit of shelving books by genres. Then they cock up the placement of a book. So you'll have Steven King in Sci-Fi instead of Horror, some romance book gets put in the Crime section because there is a picture of a pistol on the cover, etc.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Yes, I know what you mean. This particular (secondhand) bookshop doesn't have any fiction genres other than sci-fi, which this definitely wasn't (it was Poldark). Doesn't stop it miscategorising non-fiction though. In fairness, lots of books do overlap categories.

[Mr Larrington]

I would imagine that's due to people moving around and thus being registered with a new practice without telling the old one they've moved, mostly.

Anyway, my rants: the first is perhaps only a grumble. Customers in bookshops, if you know the book you're looking for and the author's name, and it's fiction, you can surely look for it on the shelves yourself rather than asking the manager or staff to find it for you?

Bookshops have an annoying habit of shelving books by genres. Then they cock up the placement of a book. So you'll have Steven King in Sci-Fi instead of Horror, some romance book gets put in the Crime section because there is a picture of a pistol on the cover, etc.

Mister Tony Blair's memoirs were usually filed under "Politics" instead of "True Crime".

[ElyDave]

I would imagine that's due to people moving around and thus being registered with a new practice without telling the old one they've moved, mostly.

Anyway, my rants: the first is perhaps only a grumble. Customers in bookshops, if you know the book you're looking for and the author's name, and it's fiction, you can surely look for it on the shelves yourself rather than asking the manager or staff to find it for you?

Bookshops have an annoying habit of shelving books by genres. Then they cock up the placement of a book. So you'll have Steven King in Sci-Fi instead of Horror, some romance book gets put in the Crime section because there is a picture of a pistol on the cover, etc.

Mister Tony Blair's memoirs were usually filed under "Politics" instead of "True Crime".

Surely they should have been under "fiction"?

[Legs]

So let me get this straight: you moved the concrete blocks just so that you could drive on the waterlogged verge?

[ian]

If it's anything like mine, they just drive over it. Apparently, the council are 'investigating' the latest incident. I'm not really sure there's much to investigate. Your green waste contractor have a lorry that won't fit around the corner. It's not exactly news. They'll gripe about cars parked or somesuch. It's 2019, if you expect there to be no parked cars on your route, then I admire your optimism.

We did give up on one bollard, it was more trouble than it's worth. The latest one is quite a way from the corner. We only keep it because it makes us several hundred quid a year.

[Legs]

No, I'd placed the blocks at the edge of the verge, so some cocksucking bellend has moved them before driving their car along my the verge.  They would almost certainly have got wet feet in the process.  You can easily get two vehicles side-by-side at the junction visible in the piccy, and, even if there was an immovable obstacle on the road, there's a getaround which is less than half a mile.

It pisses me off because it's going to leave an 8"-deep rut that'll look hideous and make the verge fucking awkward to mow.  A couple of years ago, a white van tipped over while doing the same thing when the verge was soft, and had to be winched out of our hedge.

[Mrs Pingu]

It's a message:
You need much bigger blocks that can't be rolled by people.