Things that piss you off that shouldn't

[Rds1983]

32 minutes ago, Xela said:

I *think* it was the official colour. 

I tried to find a picture of one online and this is what I found. Mine was an older one but pretty sure that is the same shade. 

That's dark purple. Honestly don't get all the different random shades of one colour having different names but that's for a different thread. Almost identical to one my Dad had but his was black I think. 

[Xela]

15 minutes ago, blandy said:

I had one like that. Same colour. It was as you & Mike say comfortable, and also reliable, fast and all the good things. it went like the absolute clappers - it was a 2 litre job and had been lowered a tad and maybe had some sort of engine tweak, I dunno. It was ace. I only got rid of it because I needed the garage space to do up an old Beetle.

It was all the power you needed. From memory the 2.0 8v was about 115bhp. The later 16v 'redtop' was 130bhp. That was sufficient. 

To segue back on topic, what pisses me off now is the numbers game that manufacturers are involved in. Why does a family sized saloon need 300/400/500 bhp? There is no way you can utilise even 20% of that in the vast majority of roads in the world. 

[blandy]

8 minutes ago, Xela said:

The later 16v 'redtop' was 130bhp

Yeah, mine was a 16V job, now you mention it. Plenty fast enough. Really nice car all round.

[bickster]

53 minutes ago, Xela said:

I'd say the former simply because most taxis I see tend to be Toyota. 

The diesel Toyota Avensis was very economical on fuel when it was originally released (before the release of the hybrid Prius)

The Prius now being one of the oldest mass market hybrids suitable for taxing has taken over it's mantle

With the Avensis though and this is just observational here, the drivers nearly always tended to be Asian and I think going back to what Mike said, different communities have different perceptions of brands, Asian Taxi drivers seemed to have a much higher opinion of the Avensis, than say White British or even Eastern European Taxi Drivers. I'd say the White British tend to go for Ford more than anything and that would be based on a perception of cheaper parts / servicing. Vauxhall with the Vectra had a decent market share, I think based on the fact it had an alternator chain which didn't need replacing as opposed to a belt which did but Vauxhall seemed to have lost favour in recent years. Eastern European drivers seem to have a tendancy towards the German Luxury Marques

The Global Tax Dodging App Based Taxi Company has been pushing the Prius as rental vehicles to all and sundry in the last few years so that is why the Prius seems to dominate the taxi market at the moment. We are getting more and more other Hybrid / Electric cars turning up on our fleet and I think these days the numbers of Prius' is decreasing as other makes and models become affordable in the second hand market. I also don't think the older perceptions still aplly as everyone is becoming concious of the need to change to non-fossil fuel models to avoid taxes and improve economy

 

[HanoiVillan]

3 hours ago, bickster said:

It's not as stupid as you think, it's the way scammers find their mark. Too dumb to notice this? Right, you are my new target!

Seriously. some of them do it on purpose, they are only interested in the imbeciles

Yes, exactly this. Put yourself in the position of the scammer. Who do you want to talk to? Do you want to talk to someone who's smart enough to figure out you're a scammer? No, absolutely not. You want to talk to Rick Thick-As-A-Brick who is going to hand over his bank account details at the end of the process. Even someone stupid enough to fall for it all the way through to the final step, but who then won't hand over the bank details, is a wasted effort.

It's actually quite hard to screen only for the purest dumbasses, @tonyh29 was witnessing one attempt to do so.

[Ingram85]

BBQ’s. What is the obsession? All it does is piss your neighbours off. Now don’t get me wrong, a couple of times a year yeah I’ll do one but we’ve had two relatively somewhat nice days so far in the last week and both days the neighbours have sparked up the bbq meaning everyone has to get their washing in and have their windows closed when the weather is nice. Why can’t people do what the Japanese do and piss off to the park and do it there. Or cook it indoors then eat outsid and enjoy the weather while letting everyone else around you enjoy it too. I find it selfish when it’s all the time. They are Villa fans so there’s a chance the son might be reading, if you are then you and your fat noisy ugly family are word removeds. Can’t wait to move. 

[mjmooney]

27 minutes ago, Ingram85 said:

BBQ’s. What is the obsession? All it does is piss your neighbours off. Now don’t get me wrong, a couple of times a year yeah I’ll do one but we’ve had two relatively somewhat nice days so far in the last week and both days the neighbours have sparked up the bbq meaning everyone has to get their washing in and have their windows closed when the weather is nice. Why can’t people do what the Japanese do and piss off to the park and do it there. Or cook it indoors then eat outsid and enjoy the weather while letting everyone else around you enjoy it too. I find it selfish when it’s all the time. They are Villa fans so there’s a chance the son might be reading, if you are then you and your fat noisy ugly family are word removeds. Can’t wait to move. 

Our neighbours have done a major garden makeover, involving a large permanent barbeque that looks like a Roman temple. They've already been doing them, even on freezing cold days, so they'll probably go crazy if we get a half decent summer. TBH it doesn't bother me. 

[Ingram85]

21 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Our neighbours have done a major garden makeover, involving a large permanent barbeque that looks like a Roman temple. They've already been doing them, even on freezing cold days, so they'll probably go crazy if we get a half decent summer. TBH it doesn't bother me. 

Their bbq is 2-3 metres away from our back and kitchen windows 

[mjmooney]

38 minutes ago, Ingram85 said:

Their bbq is 2-3 metres away from our back and kitchen windows 

Yeah, I can see that would be a nuisance. Our neighbours' bbq is at the far end of a reasonably big garden. 

[Rds1983]

11 hours ago, Ingram85 said:

Their bbq is 2-3 metres away from our back and kitchen windows 

We'll BBQ occasionally, but have ours set as far away from the neighbours as possible. We also used to (pre-covid) offer said neighbours a burger, hotdog or something whenever we saw they were outside at the same time as the Bbq was going. 

Doing it down the park is okay but so many people end up burning the grass which by the end of summer is more dead patches then actual grass. 

[HanoiVillan]

Most parks nowadays have shitty, gratuitous rules banning barbecues, along with many other forms of fun.

[blandy]

7 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Most parks nowadays have shitty, gratuitous rules banning barbecues, along with many other forms of fun.

One of the things I love about Aus is the parks and green spaces having barbecues built in for people to use. On Sundays the parks being full of families and groups all cooking, talking, mixing, enjoying.  It’s just brilliant.

Here, like you say it’s “keep off the grass” & “no ball games” in half the places.

[mjmooney]

8 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Most parks nowadays have shitty, gratuitous rules banning barbecues, along with many other forms of fun.

Probably a health and safety thing. 

Personally, I'd find them far more of an intrusion in parks than in neighbours' gardens, anyway. 

[HanoiVillan]

7 minutes ago, blandy said:

One of the things I love about Aus is the parks and green spaces having barbecues built in for people to use. On Sundays the parks being full of families and groups all cooking, talking, mixing, enjoying.  It’s just brilliant.

Here, like you say it’s “keep off the grass” & “no ball games” in half the places.

I think, in general, we have one of the worst 'public squares' in the world. If we possibly can, we generally retreat to our separate rabbit hutches. I've never been to Australia, but parks in Canada are like you describe - the best I've seen was in Montreal - and in every other country I've lived in people have done *more* outside in public spaces than we do, even in the summer.

4 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Probably a health and safety thing. 

Personally, I'd find them far more of an intrusion in parks than in neighbours' gardens, anyway. 

I think it's a culture thing more than a health-and-safety thing - see my comment above, and you hint at it in your own too - and also a local-government-funding-cuts-mean-the-council-are-looking-for-easy-cost-savings thing as well.

Edited April 3, 2021 by HanoiVillan

[Ingram85]

2 hours ago, Rds1983 said:

We'll BBQ occasionally, but have ours set as far away from the neighbours as possible. We also used to (pre-covid) offer said neighbours a burger, hotdog or something whenever we saw they were outside at the same time as the Bbq was going. 

Doing it down the park is okay but so many people end up burning the grass which by the end of summer is more dead patches then actual grass. 

Occasionally I don’t mind. Every time the sun is out just annoys me, why can’t I enjoy the nice weather and have my windows open or sit in the garden without smelling fat Alan’s charred shit food? I mean, I really do I hate them for a host of reasons so anything they do makes me want to nuke the sweaty wobblers from orbit so this is all amplified I accept.

[Xela]

14 minutes ago, Ingram85 said:

Occasionally I don’t mind. Every time the sun is out just annoys me, why can’t I enjoy the nice weather and have my windows open or sit in the garden without smelling fat Alan’s charred shit food? I mean, I really do I hate them for a host of reasons so anything they do makes me want to nuke the sweaty wobblers from orbit so this is all amplified I accept.

Thats one of the reasons why my parents moved house - selfish neighbours. As soon as the sun was out, the BBQ came out, their mates came round and they'd be playing loud music and drunken singing till the early hours. No concept of the fact they are disturbing not just my parents, but multiple other houses as well. People can be selfish. 

[Xela]

56 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Most parks nowadays have shitty, gratuitous rules banning barbecues, along with many other forms of fun.

The problem in this country is that people take disposable BBQs to parks, use them and then just leave them there without disposing of them. The Wrekin is full of them by the end of the weekend. 

[Rds1983]

22 minutes ago, Ingram85 said:

Occasionally I don’t mind. Every time the sun is out just annoys me, why can’t I enjoy the nice weather and have my windows open or sit in the garden without smelling fat Alan’s charred shit food? I mean, I really do I hate them for a host of reasons so anything they do makes me want to nuke the sweaty wobblers from orbit so this is all amplified I accept.

Yeah, ours is 4 or 5 times a summer at most, just us, no music or drunken mates. That would annoy me if it was constant. 

[Davkaus]

I swapped to a gas barbecue last summer so I can get out there as often as I like without the smoke bothering the neighbours. It's not quite the same, but it's good enough and less hassle. We get so little good weather in this country, I'd happily be out there for dinner every evening when the sun is out.

[villa4europe]

To be fair BBQ as a cooking method is great, had one yesterday and I've got one tomorrow 

But you can do it without bellowing smoke everywhere, just stick a couple of marinated pork chops or sausages on the grill shouldn't be intrusive to your neighbours