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

[yorkie]

What pisses me off is that some drugs come in multiples of 28 and some in multiples of 30, so that they never all run out at the same time.  After taking them for untold years one of mine is over a month out of step with the rest.

Assuming the prescriber gets the numbers right (which is a big ask given a GP whose skill set includes neither accurate mental arithmetic nor smooth operation of babbage-engines), this usually gets fixed by pharmacists taking scissors to the blister packs and giving you weird numbers of pills in generic boxes.  I assume the rest ends up in the bin.

Among other tablets, I am taking Betahistine, which gets prescribed at a rate of 60 tablets per issue. As Betahistine generally comes in strips of 10 or 20, I usually get a box containing the requisite number of complete strips of tablets. Someone who gets Betahistine from the same pharmacy as me obviously gets a weird quantity of tablets, as every so often I get a generic box stuffed full of small off-cuts of 2 or 4 tablets...




...every last one of which has at least one sharp edge which makes paper cuts seem benign!

[Mr Larrington]

In my left hand: a Stanley ratchet screwdriver.

In my right hand: a Stanley non-ratchet screwdriver.

Are we to assume that the ratchet screwdriver is impractical for the task at hand?

Yes.  It is too long.

Do the bits from the former fit the latter?

Why, no!  No, they do not!

Well then, is there a bit with a Pozidrive head for the latter?

Why, no!  No, there is not!  Only flat ones.

And the moral of this tale?

Always take your own tools when volunteering to bodge Lt. Col. Larrington (retd.)’s b0rked furniture back into a vague semblance of working order.  I did get the screws adequately tightened in the end, but there were prodigious Bad Swears involved.

This sounds like a trip to my Mum's house, and not taking my own tools.
Or screws, for that matter.
My late father had a habit of hoarding old, used screws.
Always slotted.
Never X-head.
Always shit tools, as well.
Gah!

Ah yes, the screws.  I thought I had taken adequate supplies of my own screws but they were all too long, so I had to go to Homebase in the pouring rain to buy more, rather than recycle his unmatched paint-covered slot-headed hoard of threaded cheese.  And the new ones turned out to be made of finest Chinesium, and two of them snapped while being screwed into wood and so did the drill bit I was using for pilot holes and I hate everybody.

He does have quite a nice socket set, or it will be once the rust that’s seeped through from the nasty tin box that houses it has been removed.

[Jurek]

In my left hand: a Stanley ratchet screwdriver.

In my right hand: a Stanley non-ratchet screwdriver.

Are we to assume that the ratchet screwdriver is impractical for the task at hand?

Yes.  It is too long.

Do the bits from the former fit the latter?

Why, no!  No, they do not!

Well then, is there a bit with a Pozidrive head for the latter?

Why, no!  No, there is not!  Only flat ones.

And the moral of this tale?

Always take your own tools when volunteering to bodge Lt. Col. Larrington (retd.)’s b0rked furniture back into a vague semblance of working order.  I did get the screws adequately tightened in the end, but there were prodigious Bad Swears involved.

This sounds like a trip to my Mum's house, and not taking my own tools.
Or screws, for that matter.
My late father had a habit of hoarding old, used screws.
Always slotted.
Never X-head.
Always shit tools, as well.
Gah!

Ah yes, the screws.  I thought I had taken adequate supplies of my own screws but they were all too long, so I had to go to Homebase in the pouring rain to buy more, rather than recycle his unmatched paint-covered slot-headed hoard of threaded cheese.  And the new ones turned out to be made of finest Chinesium, and two of them snapped while being screwed into wood and so did the drill bit I was using for pilot holes and I hate everybody.

He does have quite a nice socket set, or it will be once the rust that’s seeped through from the nasty tin box that houses it has been removed.

Not a good day then?

[Mr Larrington]

In my left hand: a Stanley ratchet screwdriver.

In my right hand: a Stanley non-ratchet screwdriver.

Are we to assume that the ratchet screwdriver is impractical for the task at hand?

Yes.  It is too long.

Do the bits from the former fit the latter?

Why, no!  No, they do not!

Well then, is there a bit with a Pozidrive head for the latter?

Why, no!  No, there is not!  Only flat ones.

And the moral of this tale?

Always take your own tools when volunteering to bodge Lt. Col. Larrington (retd.)’s b0rked furniture back into a vague semblance of working order.  I did get the screws adequately tightened in the end, but there were prodigious Bad Swears involved.

This sounds like a trip to my Mum's house, and not taking my own tools.
Or screws, for that matter.
My late father had a habit of hoarding old, used screws.
Always slotted.
Never X-head.
Always shit tools, as well.
Gah!

Ah yes, the screws.  I thought I had taken adequate supplies of my own screws but they were all too long, so I had to go to Homebase in the pouring rain to buy more, rather than recycle his unmatched paint-covered slot-headed hoard of threaded cheese.  And the new ones turned out to be made of finest Chinesium, and two of them snapped while being screwed into wood and so did the drill bit I was using for pilot holes and I hate everybody.

He does have quite a nice socket set, or it will be once the rust that’s seeped through from the nasty tin box that houses it has been removed.

Not a good day then?

He seemed satisfied with the result, as his eyesight isn’t up to seeing the fearsome ugliness of the repair, and the chair had not yet collapsed again as of 12:30 today, so it could have been worse.

[perpetual dan]

...

...every last one of which has at least one sharp edge which makes paper cuts seem benign!

I’ll hazard a guess that this is a blood thinner, or otherwise contraindicated for people with cuts?

[Kim]

Nahh, it's the stuff that sometimes works for Ménière's, when it isn't doing approximately nothing.

[yorkie]

...

...every last one of which has at least one sharp edge which makes paper cuts seem benign!

I’ll hazard a guess that this is a blood thinner, or otherwise contraindicated for people with cuts?

Nope! I have it prescribed for vertigo. Keeps me from not quite falling over all the time...


...just some of the time! 

[Mrs Pingu]

We had a tree surgeon look at the back garden. Turns out the trees at the far end are bastarding Leylandii , so rather than my original plan of just getting rid of 5 to make space for a shed and leaving a few for the birds to hide in I asked for a quote to kill them all utterly to deth.
That was £750 vs £1380. Pingu went

[Canardly]

They must be big uns.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Keep them. In ten or twenty years, everyone will love them.

[Canardly]

 Just about to remove a 40 year old hedge comprising approx 23 of these at around the 2m high mark. This at a cost of £30 each and that includes stump grinding.

[robgul]

We had a tree surgeon look at the back garden. Turns out the trees at the far end are bastarding Leylandii , so rather than my original plan of just getting rid of 5 to make space for a shed and leaving a few for the birds to hide in I asked for a quote to kill them all utterly to deth.
That was £750 vs £1380. Pingu went

If where you are is anything like here we get about 3 leaflets a weeks from "tree specialists" - we wanted a stand of 5 or 6 Leylandii trimmed to a sort of box shape (as they were like when we bought the house last year) - tree surgeon man wanted £800 - Irishman with a chainsaw, pair of blunt loppers and a 20 year-old lad wearing flip-flops to help . . . . £150 cash.  Job done in 90 minutes, all cleared away and excellent.  Result

[Mrs Pingu]

Yeah and the dodgers wearing flip flops run away very fast when something falls the wrong way and lands on your neighbours prized greenhouse/home office/woman cave etc.

[Mrs Pingu]

They must be big uns.

They are all knitted together inside.

2021-09-21_07-49-53 by The Pingus, on Flickr

[Kim]

2021-09-21_07-49-53 by The Pingus, on Flickr

Am I the only one seeing the makings of a topiary boot?

[perpetual dan]

...

Am I the only one seeing the makings of a topiary boot?

No. Though I reckon there’s scope for something with a heel.

[robgul]

They must be big uns.

They are all knitted together inside.

2021-09-21_07-49-53 by The Pingus, on Flickr

The row of Leylandii is not unlike ours - from the picture unless you really need the space I'd just get them trimmed to the "elevated box" sort of shape and keep them to keep a screen at the end of the garden.

[mrcharly-YHT]

We have a few at the back of our garden. Would quite like to remove and replace with something nicer, but currently they do a good job of breaking northerly winds. They might end up being beheaded though. (That will be me, with a handsaw, shinning up the trunk.)

[rafletcher]

That's only a small row, fit for DIY destruction IMO.  Sling a rope around about 2/3 of the way up, get a Pingu to lean into it, whilst a MrsPingu saws away at a lower level. (I managed 3 x 60 footers in a similar manner, although I had to tie off the rope to the base of a convenient hedge to keep it under tension as I was working single handed).  We stacked the logs for 18 months and then used them on the fire.

[T42]

We had a tree surgeon look at the back garden. Turns out the trees at the far end are bastarding Leylandii , so rather than my original plan of just getting rid of 5 to make space for a shed and leaving a few for the birds to hide in I asked for a quote to kill them all utterly to deth.
That was £750 vs £1380. Pingu went

If where you are is anything like here we get about 3 leaflets a weeks from "tree specialists" - we wanted a stand of 5 or 6 Leylandii trimmed to a sort of box shape (as they were like when we bought the house last year) - tree surgeon man wanted £800 - Irishman with a chainsaw, pair of blunt loppers and a 20 year-old lad wearing flip-flops to help . . . . £150 cash.  Job done in 90 minutes, all cleared away and excellent.  Result

Anything like that around here and it's "call Albert".  Similar cost.

[ian]

Problem is that when you pay £150, they completely neglect health and safety (it's just a lad, and his mum won't miss him), insurance (that's going to be expensive, let's leg it), and everything they remove will end up flytipped down a local lane, because all those things mean you can't get the work done for £150. Plus there's a lot more to proper tree surgery than owning a chainsaw. That said we pay a man who trades under the name of Angry Beaver.

[T42]

Ah, but our Albert knows a Thai chap who's a real tree surgeon, has all the safety gear, does a lovely job and moonlights cheaply.  Albert then loads the results into his 5 m³ trailer and tractors it off to a neighbour, who accumulates a vast heap every season then puts it through an agricultural mulcher to make bedding for his sheep in the winter.

[robgul]

Problem is that when you pay £150, they completely neglect health and safety (it's just a lad, and his mum won't miss him), insurance (that's going to be expensive, let's leg it), and everything they remove will end up flytipped down a local lane, because all those things mean you can't get the work done for £150. Plus there's a lot more to proper tree surgery than owning a chainsaw. That said we pay a man who trades under the name of Angry Beaver.

I saw the bloke we used - working for the very expensive tree surgeon man . . .  perhaps that's why our job was done on a Saturday afternoon?

[ian]

I'm not saying he wasn't legit, that's for you to decide, just that often these 'do the job cheap' merchants are undercutting the proper trades by cutting all those corners like tax, health and safety, insurance, and proper disposal of any waste. Not doing those things always makes a job cheaper. Not to say there are many guarantees with anyone, most of the fly-tipping around here seems to be house clearances and builder's waste.

[Beardy]

I'm not saying he wasn't legit, that's for you to decide, just that often these 'do the job cheap' merchants are undercutting the proper trades by cutting all those corners like tax, health and safety, insurance, and proper disposal of any waste. Not doing those things always makes a job cheaper. Not to say there are many guarantees with anyone, most of the fly-tipping around here seems to be house clearances and builder's waste.

Thats why we left the EU, to get away from all those unnecessary Brussels imposed rules!