The RANT thread (often contains fruity language)

[Mrs Pingu]

Macmillan coffee morning at work tomorrow, so in a fit of the vapours I thought I'd be sociable and go into the office.
Make lemon polenta cake. Put it in oven. Return 40m later and it's still pale and wobbly. Oven is barely 120C, not 160. Bollocks. Finish it off on fan but it's a bit dried out and presumably one of the top or bottom element is gone. The oven was new in April. 
That's going to bugger my bread making schedule.

[Pickled Onion]

I can't find the vacuum cleaner thread, so I'll have a rant instead...

Bought one of those VAX blade PWR (phoar!) vacuum stick things, mainly because I found my cleaner couldn't be arsed carrying the proper hoover up the stairs.

So far it's had two new head things. First time the wizzy thing failed and I had to pay as they reckoned it was misuse - yeah it sucked up a bootlace, fair(ish) cop, though most vacuums would survive that. Second time wiring issue, they were so quick to send a replacement it's probably a known design issue.

Now the suction motor has conked out, so I'll be back on to customer services. It's less than two years old. I guess I'm resigned to the fact that it won't last many months over the guarantee. My last vacuum lasted 20 years.

[Mrs Pingu]

Tested the oven without anything in it. Apart from reading 10 to 15C below the cheap and nasty knob temp it seems to be ok. Maybe it just doesn't cope at lower temperatures with a bloody great pizza steel in it.

[ElyDave]

Thermostat issues?

[cycleman]

Riding slowly through the high street in Slough a little boy about 8 holding aerosol can of wd40 turned and sprayed wd40 over the left wheel hub and brake disc. I doubt it was malicious but the  adult who was with him said I'm not his mother then pointedly ignored me. Now the little boy will think that's fun and do it again to other cyclists. No wonder minor crime is so bad. NOBODY GIVES A DAMME.
I did not use the left brake but I had to divert to Windsor and the cycle shop managed to clean the disc and pads. The left brake does squeal a bit so I may need to replace the pads .its still seems to be working OK so time will tell.

[citoyen]

Riding slowly through the high street in Slough a little boy about 8 holding aerosol can of wd40 turned and sprayed wd40 over the left wheel hub and brake disc. I doubt it was malicious but the  adult who was with him said I'm not his mother then pointedly ignored me.

I have questions...

[chrisbainbridge]

Riding slowly through the high street in Slough a little boy about 8 holding aerosol can of wd40 turned and sprayed wd40 over the left wheel hub and brake disc. I doubt it was malicious but the  adult who was with him said I'm not his mother then pointedly ignored me.

I have questions...

I agree, little boys of 8 do not wander through life with cans of WD40.  Somebody put him up to this.  I hope I would have stopped and called the police

[barakta]

That's really weird and worrying and could cause someone serious damage if it was sprayed into someone's face nevermind their cycle.

No sensible adult lets a child carry WD40 around in public even if they're not the parent.

Is it worth putting in a call/report to 101 as that might help if this child is being put up to do it to other people.

[cycleman]

Yes, I must admit that I can't understand why a unaccompanied child of that age was wandering around unsupervised. I didn't think of contacting the police. I will 101 in the morning and report it. Most unusual. I hope that no-one else has a problem with him

[mrcharly-YHT]

Straight to room 101 goes multi-page web forms that have no way of saving progress and timeout. 

[Slave To The Viking]

cheap and nasty knob

I mean...

[rafletcher]

Dear cow-orker, will you please STOP FUCKING MOANING ALL THE FUCKING TIME  .

If you dont like it here FUCK OFF SOMEWHERE ELSE.

That is all.

[Pickled Onion]

It sounds like you’re moaning 

On the subject of cow-orkers I now have two (2) desk neighbours who spend the whole day humming tunes. Should I get some noise cancelling headphones or take the cheaper option of standing on my desk and shouting FOR FUCKS SAKE JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP WITH THE HUMMING!

[Kim]

Noise-cancelling headphones will probably just make the humming clearer.  I suggest teaching them the words.

[MattH]

Absolutely! Sing along with their humming.

One of my colleagues some years had an annoying electronic dance tune as his ring tone. He changed it when he got fed up of us all jumping up and doing our best dad dance moves whenever it rang 

[Pingu]

It sounds like you’re moaning 

On the subject of cow-orkers I now have two (2) desk neighbours who spend the whole day humming tunes. Should I get some noise cancelling headphones or take the cheaper option of standing on my desk and shouting FOR FUCKS SAKE JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP WITH THE HUMMING!

Are they humming the same thing all the time? If so, you could get all His Bobness on their asses.

[Paul]

A habit has developed among the cretinous drivers hereabouts; they seem to think that - after sunset - the polite thing to do when I have ceded priority at a bottleneck/what have you is to fry my fucking retinas with a blast of blinding full beam.

Are they complete recti? Surely they know what that looks like?

Wankers.

[rogerzilla]

Thames Water.  Why is there a hosepipe ban* when your top news item is about flooding and a high water table?

*which apparently saves 2% of 2% of total usage.  Yes, 0.04%.

[PaulF]

Thames Water.  Why is there a hosepipe ban* when your top news item is about flooding and a high water table?

*which apparently saves 2% of 2% of total usage.  Yes, 0.04%.

Farmoor reservoir is still only about at 65% of its normal level, it’s visibly low when you walk past. I’m guessing that the excess water isn’t making into where it’s stored.

[Mr Larrington]

Most of the excess water is on the parade ground behind Fort Larrington.  Fortunately on the opposite side from the compost bin.

[rafletcher]

Thames Water.  Why is there a hosepipe ban* when your top news item is about flooding and a high water table?

*which apparently saves 2% of 2% of total usage.  Yes, 0.04%.

And why does having a Blue Badge exempt you from the ban? 

[perpetual dan]

Thames Water.  Why is there a hosepipe ban* when your top news item is about flooding and a high water table?

*which apparently saves 2% of 2% of total usage.  Yes, 0.04%.

And why does having a Blue Badge exempt you from the ban?

For those with a. Blue badge on their steam traction engine?

[Kim]

Thames Water.  Why is there a hosepipe ban* when your top news item is about flooding and a high water table?

*which apparently saves 2% of 2% of total usage.  Yes, 0.04%.

And why does having a Blue Badge exempt you from the ban?

Water companies have a list of people who can't reasonably be expected to lug water around (I didn't realise blue badges were relevant, but the majority of blue badge holders would be a subset of the people who should be on that list^[1]) so presumably they're exempted from the hosepipe ban on the basis that they can't just use a bucket or watering can.

It's a well-establised principle that it's lawful to provide disabled people with favourable treatment if to do otherwise would result in discrimination.


_{[1] Barakta, for example, isn't entitled to a blue badge as she can walk too far.  But the water company will deliver bottled water to our door in the event of an outage, because she can't reasonably carry that much weight without risk of arm/shoulder injury.}

[rafletcher]

Fucking “Giganet” or somesuch FTTP contractors. They’re laying ducts down our village road (no pavements, granite sett curbs and raised grass verges) A road that is at best 2 normal cars wide. And they’re barriering off fully half the width, so even where people have driveways that are being left clear, it’s nigh on impossible to turn a car in as zero additional width has been allowed. It’ll be worse for us as the cottage occupants have to park perpendicular to the road opposite the terrace and it takes the full width to be able to drive or reverse in. All for the sake of how many (if any) people signing up to the “£19/month now, £52/month later” deals? Fuckers.

[Mr Larrington]

FFS!  Mr Zuckerberg’s Walled Garden has summarily decided that I like fucking rounders baseball   Take your useless fucking machine learning behind the barn, you pasty-faced twat, and give it both barrels.  Then do the same to the programmers.  And their families