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

[David Martin]

Dig a deep hole for the foundations for the new bollard. Which you have yet to order. Remember to put a flimsy barrier between it and the road.

[Kim]

Drainage might be an issue with the hole thobut.  Bound to attract piranhas.

[CAMRAMan]

Mate: You don't cycle often, so you hired an electric bike for our ride, which is fair enough. However, you are sensitive to the sun and wore neither hat, helmet nor sunglasses on possibly the hottest day of the year. Surprise, surprise, you got mild sunstroke and we had to bail out half way round. Not the first time...

[Quisling]

When I Rule The World I shall:

1.   Introduce "how thermostats work" into stuff taught at school.

2.   And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to fuck about with the Aircon in the office.

Our building manager has given up with that, and has instead installed locked covers over the air-con controllers so no-one can change them.

Decoy thermostats.  It's the only way to be sure.

It's pretty common in the building services industry to (a) link air-con to a central Building Management System which controls it's time of operation and limits the maximum range of temperature operation and (b) use a local thermostat which is limited to a small range (including zero range!) to give Users some feeling of local control.

In truth, most energy managers would like air con thermostats to range from "COSTLY AND POINTLESS" around 19C up to "TRY OPENING THE WINDOWS FOR CROSS VENTILATION" at 22C and "OK, IF YOU MUST, BUT ONLY IF YOU'RE A SERVER ROOM" at 25C.  Exceptions might be made for exercise facilities in the interests of avoiding deth-by-heatstroke.

[fuzzy]

My experience of building management systems is that they are a programme that initially lulls the user into a false sense of security before transfiguring into a recurring consultants mega payday.

[Cudzoziemiec]

What about a leering Jimmy Savile? That would scare the absolute fuck out of me. Hmm.

I should maybe work on persuading the bear squadron to move out front. Admittedly they have grown fat and lazy on plentiful diet of local Daily Mail readers. That's the problem with an all-you-can-eat buffet. It's hard to motivate them. I couldn't eat another, they say. Plus DM readers are mostly rather chewy, all gristle and skin. The bears would probably like to eat real people. Nice plump ones, the sort that read the Guardian and eat healthily. And some raspberry jam. Bears love jam.

The yetis won't come down, the altitude out front is too low for practical yetiing.

I could raise Finestre, the Demon of Such Things, but she's a busy demon. You don't get the executive town house in Hell's most salubrious suburb, Dress Down Friday, without a full-on dedication to diabolicalism. Besides, all she natters on about is you'll never guess what Astaroth did today? Hell's office politics is much like our own, though admittedly with a lot more screaming.

Life is hard.

Mr Ian, you've got all the right ideas and there was a time when people were trying to persuade you to stop pretending to have a day job and write a book for us. But I see you've done it anyway, in episodes, at random intervals and in random places.

[Morrisette]

YOU DON'T NEED AIR CON IN THE UK IT ISN'T EVER WARM ENOUGH TO SWITCH IT ON.

The reason people are fiddling with the thermostat is because they are FREEZING COLD ON A NICE HOT DAY.

It's so, so, vanishingly rare to be too hot here - can't you just put up with it for one or two days? Why make it cold? It's cold on every other day of the year!!!

[T42]

I have always saved the skewers out of old wheels before dumping them, but for some reason I find myself with a dozen spare rear-wheel skewers and only two front-wheel ditto, which I have to move around when I swap a plain wheel for a dyno wheel.  When I try to get more on-line without paying international postage I find I have either to buy them in pairs, front & rear, or else fork out daft prices for super-dooper luxury items. Bollocks, I want function not fashion.

[ElyDave]

bad enough that I'm having to fly Ryanair for the second time in less than ten years, but I'm being forced to sign up to their system, as if I'm going to be a frequent flyer

[ian]

bad enough that I'm having to fly Ryanair for the second time in less than ten years, but I'm being forced to sign up to their system, as if I'm going to be a frequent flyer

Get used to it, all airlines seem to be in a race to the bottom (or rather worryingly sea level). One of the more exquisite tortures in Hell is the eternal economy class seat. It's that combination of sweat-inducing, butt-sliding shininess and the poky, metallic bones beneath, always needling and digging into muscle group and nerve plexuses that you didn't even know you had. They're actually operated by lower level demons (there's several large call centres, it's a growth industry), they have dials and buttons to poke there and jab here. The daily highspot of any apprentice demon is hitting the seat-in-front recline button during the meal (meals, remember them, it's what they had before they started selling sandwiches that they don't have, it would have been £8 sir). Now that's diabolical innovation. Whoever thought of that is surely on their way to an executive townhouse in Dress Down Friday. You know what estate agents are like in Hell? Exactly the same as here.

Anyway, I think Hell is providing consulting services to several airlines. I suppose it had to happen after they privatized Heaven℠ (now a JesusCorp™ Business).

Mr Ian, you've got all the right ideas and there was a time when people were trying to persuade you to stop pretending to have a day job and write a book for us. But I see you've done it anyway, in episodes, at random intervals and in random places.

That's my life. Demons, cryptozoology and bears. I'd probably swap the corporate mothership for more time with my favourite undead librarian, but then who wouldn't. If anyone here is a literary agent, I'd probably take a long holiday soon, there's some things that can't be unread. Dan Brown, watch out.

[ElyDave]

Self publishing? The Amazon is full of it

[ian]

And it's 99.9% shit. Oh, hold on a minute.

[T42]

Noisy bugger across the road must be new to Alsace. Doesn't know that on Sundays here you definitely do not mow your lawn with a 100 Db mower, and especially not in the middle of Holy Communion lunch.  Making that kind of racket is reserved for 15-year-olds on mopeds.

[Legs]

I wonder if anyone has ever gone away on holiday, had their car and/or house burglarisation alert go off in their absence, CONTINUOUSLY, and been murdered by their neighbours on their return???

Last week, we were camping in Anglesey, and the wailing began emanating from the far side of the stand of trees from where we'd pitched our tent at about midnight on Tuesday, and was still going when we packed up on Friday morning.  It wasn't really much of an annoyance for us because we were quite well sheltered from it, but...

[Mr Larrington]

Last week, Mr Larrington switches his portable telephone back on after getting off the hairyplane to USAnia.  Shortly thereafter it emits a tinny rendition of Jesus Couldn't Drum's "Wooden Chicken", indicating that I have a txt msg.  It is from giffgaff, bidding me welcome to USAnia.  "Hurrah", says Mr Larrington, "it would seem that, just like last year, my portable telephone is working in Abroad, where the FOREIGNS come from!"  A couple of days later, he notices that it no longer has a signal.  Buttons are pushed, options selected and deselected and the Internets consulted, but networks finds it none.  This may conceivably be because there are none to be found while out in the sticks, but to continue doing it in Billings MT, which has a population in excess of 100,000, is beyond the pale.

A Total Prick on an Internet Forum suggested selecting "a network other than O2", thereby proving that he had not read the question, but I did not call the Total Prick a Total Prick as he was the only person who even bothered to reply.  So in disgust I switched it off overnight.  IN the morning it could not find any networks.  So I switched it off all day.  In the evening, in Kalispell MT (pop. > 22,000), it could not find any networks.  So I switched it off all night and all day today.

This evening (Clarkston WA, pop. 40,000-odd when combined with Lewiston ID across the river) it has suddenly entered diplomatic relations with T-Mobile.  I can only assume it was tired, or jet-lagged, or something.

Bah!

[T42]

18h00 seems to be the designated hour for every prat in the neighbourhood to fire up his internal combustion noisemaker and take the top 2mm off his lawn. Don't they know that it is also l'heure de l'apéro, when they're duty bound to go and get quietly squiffed in a manner befitting?  The bugger next door even got out a cultivator and turned n square tablecloths of lawn into a veg. patch.

I blame the Teutonic streak in the Alsacien nature: too much work ethic and not enough cirrhosis.

[essexian]

CBH and I have an agreement regarding outside of our place.... I don't do gardening as I really don't like being outside in the sun unless I am riding my bike; watching sport or mowing the lawns/ using power tools such as chainsaws... I don't mind building stuff like walls/ sheds/ fences etc neither. Thus, if CBH wants to do some planting, I'll buy the plants and she can do the rest.

Or at least I thought that was the agreement. It seems however, that the new plants she brought to close off one corner of the garden from the street need large holes and sadly, her being a girl meant that she wasn't strong enough to do the digging... by the way, this was her statement and not one I am making before I am called a sexist; especially as the holes need to be dug near a tree and thus, there are roots everywhere.

Four large holes later, the plants are in place.

Why the grumble? I hurt. My back, arms, head, neck and legs all hurt from three hours worth of digging. I am more knackered than after a 100km hilly ride.

Gardening/ plants....nah, not interested unless you can eat it/ it kills and eats the local dog population. Talking about dogs...is there a point to them apart from to come into our garden for a poo?

[Ruthie]

According to my tracker I walked 15.45km today.

My dodgy foot fucking knacks.   

[Polar Bear]

Ecover:  wtf have you done to your laundry liquid, washing up liquid and handwash?  What a load of shit all of a sudden!

Bear no likey and has sent you a grumpy email as a result.

Will start looking for alternatives.  :-(

[Jaded]

Last week, Mr Larrington switches his portable telephone back on after getting off the hairyplane to USAnia.  Shortly thereafter it emits a tinny rendition of Jesus Couldn't Drum's "Wooden Chicken", indicating that I have a txt msg.  It is from giffgaff, bidding me welcome to USAnia.  "Hurrah", says Mr Larrington, "it would seem that, just like last year, my portable telephone is working in Abroad, where the FOREIGNS come from!"  A couple of days later, he notices that it no longer has a signal.  Buttons are pushed, options selected and deselected and the Internets consulted, but networks finds it none.  This may conceivably be because there are none to be found while out in the sticks, but to continue doing it in Billings MT, which has a population in excess of 100,000, is beyond the pale.

A Total Prick on an Internet Forum suggested selecting "a network other than O2", thereby proving that he had not read the question, but I did not call the Total Prick a Total Prick as he was the only person who even bothered to reply.  So in disgust I switched it off overnight.  IN the morning it could not find any networks.  So I switched it off all day.  In the evening, in Kalispell MT (pop. > 22,000), it could not find any networks.  So I switched it off all night and all day today.

This evening (Clarkston WA, pop. 40,000-odd when combined with Lewiston ID across the river) it has suddenly entered diplomatic relations with T-Mobile.  I can only assume it was tired, or jet-lagged, or something.

Bah!

When we were in the States a few weeks ago we got an urgent text msg to phone home. We were driving and we were going though places like Fenge Heights, Hoisinsauseburgh and Happy which had reasonable populations. No service whatsoever on O2 or T-Moblie so I suggested we used wifi calling from a drive by hotel. So we did and spoiled the poor receptionists night shift because of our sadness at the death.

[rafletcher]

Ecover:  wtf have you done to your laundry liquid, washing up liquid and handwash?  What a load of shit all of a sudden!

Bear no likey and has sent you a grumpy email as a result.

Will start looking for alternatives.  :-(

What is it they've done? I've not bought any (other than their bio tablets) for a while, we're using up stock so to speak.

[Tim Hall]

ISO 9001 audit day.

<bangs head>

[Guy]

I've had to change my email address for Another Place I frequent. Now my account is showing as "inactive".

If you are experiencing problems logging in please contact a site Administrator

The only way I can see to contact Admin is to log in and PM them. The only way I can log in to PM them is to contact them . If I ever get back into this bloody forum I'm going to change my name to Yossarian.

[Kim]

Someone should be reading emails to postmaster@someotherforum.org

[perpetual dan]

My phone / mobile provider says I've lost data connectivity because I've roamed beyond my home network.
Sussex to Hampshire. Really?

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