Things that piss you off that shouldn't

[chrisp65]

51 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

'Death threats'.

Does anyone else think they've been massively watered down? They used to mean something, now some keyboard warrior who has never even been in a fight tells Mike Dean that he'll kill him, and 

1) it's considered a plausible and credible death that that it's reported on national news

2) Taken any more seriously that being laughed off

It's all mental.

There was a case recently of someone that got convicted for repeatedly leaving bottles around Pembroke Castle, and he’d written ‘novichok’ on the bottles.

It was pathetic that he’d done it, but it was equally pathetic the way the authorities had reacted. They got the guys from Porton Down on site to investigate, they set up secret cameras and had a police unit on standby.

I know we have to be risk averse, but personally, if I saw a milk bottle with ‘Novichok instant death’ written on it, I wouldn’t call the Ministry of Defence.

 

[mjmooney]

Good job they weren't so literal when I was at school. During one spate of IRA bomb scares, we left a large black ball with a piece of string sticking out and the word 'BOMB' painted on it outside the staff room. Zero reaction beyond a few chuckles and rolling eyes. 

[bickster]

Hows this for a reward.? "If you finish this project next week (two weeks early), then you can go back on the one day a week furlough you were on before"

To be honest I quite enjoy the one day of furlough a week but I'm not telling them that.

MY response. "How are you going to pay me all the overtime you owe me if I'm back on the furlough scheme..."

I await the next installment

[Big Salad]

Unneccessary/long lasting road construction.

This part of the interstate near where I live has been 'under repairs' now for over a year and looks like hardly anything has been done.

Now yes would say COVID may have delayed it a bit but last few months whenever I go by there,seems to be ton of workers standing around doing absolutely nothing.

Just irritating.

[il_serpente]

1 hour ago, Big Salad said:

Unneccessary/long lasting road construction.

This part of the interstate near where I live has been 'under repairs' now for over a year and looks like hardly anything has been done.

Now yes would say COVID may have delayed it a bit but last few months whenever I go by there,seems to be ton of workers standing around doing absolutely nothing.

Just irritating.

Those are just the foremen.   They laid off the workers.

[Xela]

Its not a proper death threat unless you have police staking out your property out from a British Gas or MEB van, like when I was a kid! Dad had obviously upset the wrong person at work that week. 

[Xela]

Every day you read stories about the Police stopping people miles from home as they were 'bored of lockdown' or 'fancied a day out' in the middle of lockdown. This is usually followed by a comment about how the car was uninsured / no tax / No MOT / driver was disqualified etc. 

Do people just take the piss nowadays? Am I the fool for working and paying car insurance / tax and doing things the right way? 

[bickster]

3 hours ago, Big Salad said:

Unneccessary/long lasting road construction.

This part of the interstate near where I live has been 'under repairs' now for over a year and looks like hardly anything has been done.

Now yes would say COVID may have delayed it a bit but last few months whenever I go by there,seems to be ton of workers standing around doing absolutely nothing.

Just irritating.

People in the UK say.... is that all?

There is a ten mile strech of the M62 (The Motorway between Liverpool and Manchester) that has been in a lane reduced state / temporary speed limits due to upgrading to a "Smart Motorway" for at least 5 years. It finally opened again fully at the end of January. I also think that 10 mile stretch of road has had works of some sort on it for 80% of the time in the last decade

[blandy]

5 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

There was a case recently of someone that got convicted for repeatedly leaving bottles around Pembroke Castle, and he’d written ‘novichok’ on the bottles.

It was pathetic that he’d done it, but it was equally pathetic the way the authorities had reacted

When I was in the RAF, during a Taceval (war exercise, that goes on for days and is knackering - NBC kit, the lot) a load of the senior NCOs were kipping in a room in the line hut I worked in. One of the non-resting Sergeants chucked a bottle through the open window with "bomb, you lazy bastards" scrawled on it as a joke.

He got court martialed/was put up before the Station commander (can't remember which of those it was) and was in deep trouble.

That was in the 80s.

[villa4europe]

34 minutes ago, bickster said:

People in the UK say.... is that all?

There is a ten mile strech of the M62 (The Motorway between Liverpool and Manchester) that has been in a lane reduced state / temporary speed limits due to upgrading to a "Smart Motorway" for at least 5 years. It finally opened again fully at the end of January. I also think that 10 mile stretch of road has had works of some sort on it for 80% of the time in the last decade

Groundworks + refurb is a recipe for disaster

Groundworks has a huge risk attached to it because you obviously can't see a lot of it before you start, it's packed full of contingencies to cover the unknown, you have what's called a soil investigation report before you start which does bores and trials and samples etc but you'll still find all kinds of things in the ground, from my experience in Warwickshire a Severn trent pipe could be 2m in any direction from where their services drawings say it will be 

Add to that the vast majority of delays are caused by the design team, there's some performance issues but it's not the engineer or architect being slow or shit that causes the guys standing round looking like they're not doing a lot 

My current project should have had the Groundworks package placed before Xmas, we don't currently have a single construction issue drawing for it, 3 month delay before they even start, a week in to the job they'll find an old concrete foundation that no one knew was there and that'll be another couple of weeks delay

Its a £1.6m Groundworks package with a £800k contingency for the unknown 

[HanoiVillan]

4 hours ago, Xela said:

Its not a proper death threat unless you have police staking out your property out from a British Gas or MEB van, like when I was a kid! Dad had obviously upset the wrong person at work that week. 

I don't know if you're joking . . . is there an interesting story here?

[Xela]

8 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I don't know if you're joking . . . is there an interesting story here?

Its a true story, but not very interesting though! My Dad was in the police and he upset the wrong villain, who threatened to kill him. It was considered serious enough to be a valid and substantive threat.

At a guess, 86 or 87 I think. 

 

[HanoiVillan]

8 minutes ago, Xela said:

Its a true story, but not very interesting though! My Dad was in the police and he upset the wrong villain, who threatened to kill him. It was considered serious enough to be a valid and substantive threat.

At a guess, 86 or 87 I think. 

 

That must have been very frightening, you can't have been very old!

[Xela]

4 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

That must have been very frightening, you can't have been very old!

7 or 8. I never really understood what was going on a the time. I knew something was going on due to more people being about and Dad talking to lots of people, but not the full details until years later!

I remember my Mom being a bit edgy though!  

[sidcow]

On 10/02/2021 at 18:54, Paddywhack said:

Driving home at lunchtime today, after picking up my son from nursery, I decided to take him to the park. We were walking on the slightly muddy path round by the pond when I stood aside to let a dog walker go past. She pointed at my feet and said “ooh are you okay? White trainers...”. I said “haha yeah it’s fine”.

Then, walking past a couple (probably in their 70s, both dressed in full hiking gear; big boots, backpacks and a both with a pair of hiking sticks), the woman said “Nice white trainers”.

Being polite, I replied “oh I know, I think I’ve made a mistake. I didn’t realise it’d be muddy”.

She said, “yes, snow and ice tends to melt you see. The paths then get muddy”. She carried on walking, using her sticks. Her husband looked at my feet, laughed, shook his head and then followed her.

1. It was spur of the moment, I didn’t know I was going to the park.

2. It really wasn’t that muddy, my white trainers are still very much white.

3. It was Leasowes Park in Halesowen. We weren’t in Snowdonia. I was dressed way more suitably than Edmund Hillary and his mardy faced wife.

They will dine out for years with their smug friends talking about the fool in the white trainers. 

Oh how they will laugh. 

 

 

 

[sidcow]

7 hours ago, Big Salad said:

Unneccessary/long lasting road construction.

This part of the interstate near where I live has been 'under repairs' now for over a year and looks like hardly anything has been done.

Now yes would say COVID may have delayed it a bit but last few months whenever I go by there,seems to be ton of workers standing around doing absolutely nothing.

Just irritating.

Thank ****

I thought this was a purely British thing. 

I am 100% convinced that roadworks are a huge con and could mostly be done in 1/10 of the time at 1/4 the cost. 

[a-k]

8 hours ago, sidcow said:

Thank ****

I thought this was a purely British thing. 

I am 100% convinced that roadworks are a huge con and could mostly be done in 1/10 of the time at 1/4 the cost. 

Different industry, same concept

 

[lapal_fan]

9 hours ago, sidcow said:

Thank ****

I thought this was a purely British thing. 

I am 100% convinced that roadworks are a huge con and could mostly be done in 1/10 of the time at 1/4 the cost. 

My biggest argument against these roadworks that go on for months, if not years is - why close so much of the motorway, when only a fraction of it is being worked on at any one time?

Some 50mph zone go on for 17 miles, you see activity in the first 2, then nothing!

Why not just slowly move the bite sized problem along the motorway as you've finished the last bit?  

I understand that surveys etc need to be done and sometimes they can require 100s of meters between points, but that's completely different to taking up 10+ miles of the M6!

[StefanAVFC]

I posted about this previously, but in Poland late last year, the government got their cronies at the constitutional board to essentially outlaw abortion in the country. Only in cases of proven rape and risk to mother. All defects, including those that leave the baby dead, or close to dead, must be carried to full term. There were mass, mass protests about this, but the government haven't been stopped.

Now, a charity led by a millionaire is running an almost militant propaganda campaign across the entirety of Poland with these billboards. There are EVERYWHERE. I was driving home last week and on a normal, fairly busy road, there were 6 in my eyeline. 'Jestem zalezny, ufam Tobie' means 'I am dependent, I trust in you'.

This is a joke but it's legit like this:

The truly sickening thing is that 1) The general public didn't want this change to the law; there is more positive opinion for liberalising the law (the split was like 15% new law 60% keep it as it was 25% liberalise) 2) These people got what they wanted, so why the hell are they pushing it all over the country; they aren't fighting for anything, they won 3) The BBC equivilent in Poland is run by the government, so any protests are spun as evil, anti-Poland, anti-Catholic meaning that any protest to this advertising is broadcast on national news to millions and spun as evil.

This is an emotive topic, for millions who feel their basic rights have been taken away and the winning side are rubbing it in. Truly tragic.

Edited February 16, 2021 by StefanAVFC

[HanoiVillan]

7 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

2) These people got what they wanted, so why the hell are they pushing it all over the country; they aren't fighting for anything, they won

Presumably the answer for this point 2 is contained in your point 1? Normally governments try to do the persuasion thing before they pass the legislation because it provokes less backlash that way, but there's nothing to stop them doing it the other way round.