Fozzie

This doesn't surprise me sadly, driving standards on the roads continue to fall. And not only is there a "F**k you!" mentality, it's often partnered with a "Leave me alone, stop noticing me!" type mentality. I live near a dual carriageway, it's only a 30mph limit. People doggedly hog the right lane, often sat at 28mph. In the last couple of years I began challenging this. I only do it on my bike and keep it polite "Excuse me, if you're not turning right or overtaking can you move over to the left? If I have to pass you on the inside it creates a less safe situation, especially for more exposed road users like bikes". Out of what feels like 100 times I've said this, I've had probably only 5 be polite back. Replies like "sorry, I was a million miles away", to which I say "no problem, we all do it time to time". Of the remaining responses, from most common to least... 1. Blanked or ignored - Taxi drivers tend to opt for this one 2. Told something along the lines of "everyone does it, chill out" - Again, private hire taxi drivers 3. Something along the lines of "mind your own business", or my personal favourite "stop noticing" which I replied "I will when you're not blocking my way". 4. Immediately hurling abuse, told to F**k off - I have on a couple occasions then been chased, swerved at, beeped at. Guessing they were looking for anyone to challenge them. These people are driving the roads. They are convinced they are fine doing what they are doing. With some of them, I don't think they would stop if they did kill someone. Then there is the swell of uber taxi drivers, couriers, small business owners using the roads in recent years, many of them not from the UK and therefore were educated elsewhere. I learned recently from a friend who works in a car hire place that international licenses are only valid for 1 year in most cases, but they constantly have people turning up with this license issue date being 3+ years old. she said they turn them away, but don't report them. Throw in finally that policing is down, and they seem more bothered with easy fines to people saying mean things online, you have a multi-faceted mess.

Happy birthday!

Bit late to the party, but was surfing this forum this morning. It sounds a lot like a bad ignition coil, they are quite cheap so I would swap it out along with the HT lead and see if that resolves it.

I've heard Voge are actually just Loncin. Loncin have been in the game a long time, they notably produce a lot of engines for generators, but more importantly to this discussion, BMW use them to make a lot of their engines. It wouldn't shock me if their range was eerily similar to the BMW bikes they also produce engines for. That would suggest their mechanical reliability is likely to be similar to those BMW models, the big question mark is going to be on the electrics. I'd be more cautious if the bike in question was littered with electrical gubbins, a digital screen is ok, so is ABS. But anything more than that adds a bit of risk, in my mind at least as they are unproven.

Good afternoon, I landed back from my honeymoon this morning. Just did 2 weeks in Florida, where apart from one day it was hot and sunny (30deg+). Had a lot of sunning myself, as well as the full Disney/Universal park experience. Returned to a mountain of work, I was barely 50 feet off the plane when the "Welcome back Chris... Let me know when you have 10 minutes for a call today". I'm working through 300+ e-mails, so I'm deliberately ignoring people until that's done. Never like answering queries without being up to speed and knowing the ins and outs.

Good morning! This week has been a bit of a drag, long hours when the weather is nice is never fun when you're stuck in the office. On the plus side the bike has a new MOT and I shall be going on my honeymoon soon. After Indonesia, Japan and a couple of European breaks, we're going back to the place we had our first big holiday, Florida. Doing the full Disney experience. I don't sit still, so while I'm looking forward to not being busy with work, I am looking forward to being busy doing rollercoasters, eating a lot of good food, drinking a fair few margaritas and chilling out in the water parks.

Good morning, Posted on my socials, but I'll also post here. I went and got married! In the photo is me and the new Mrs Fozzie. I like this photo as behind us by the sea is the hotel where we held the reception. It's also home to our favourite restaurant on the Isle of Wight. The hillside behind the hotel is the path to Tennyson monument, near the famous "Needles" rock formation. The cliffside there is where I proposed.

Good morning! My fingers are cut to ribbons. I spent the whole weekend running in pipework under my suspended floor. I got the radiators on the wall yesterday morning, I made final terminations around 9pm. And by 12 midnight, I'd rectified all the leaks, got the floorboards "hatches" secured and the carpet back down. Now to leave it for this Friday when I take the new hatches in the floorboards I've made up and make fine adjustments as I didn't get it exactly straight in some areas. It's not bad, nothing more than a 10 deg angle on it, but I want to at least improve it, and get in additional supports for where I've used the press fit devices. Got some spare 2 x 4, which in combination with joist hangers should make a good solution if mounted on the sub-floor. Really need to make it solid as the mrs wants a wooden floor going in, which isn't the most ideal for lifting up again once it's down. She's very form over function, whereas I'm the reverse

Someone is making a very strong effort at getting into my e-mail account. Showed the IT guy at work yesterday and the way the attempts are stacked and bounce all over the world suggest either some kind of automated system trying different passwords, or one person with a VPN and too much time on their hands. All that effort to see how many thousands of pounds I spend at Screwfix and Amazon... Nob 'ed

Going for nob of the day, for being a jammy sod are we? I'd quite like to go back to Bali, but probably try to get to the other islands. So long as they have bikes for hire, I'm game.

Good afternoon, Been a more positive announcement at work. Sounds like there's a chance I'm going to get my hands dirty again, leading some of the design for inhouse built items. I'm glad I kept the old designs now. A library of electrical looms, ignition controllers and control schematics. I'm fairly confident that if put to the task, I could quickly develop/build a new hydrogen or natural gas fired engine/generator set that was grid parallel compliant. Hopefully be a more "fun" time. Also means I need to be in the office more... Which I'm using to justify the purchase of a retro-cool bike like a Royal Enfield Hunter 350 or maybe a Scram 411. Ugly ducklings. But cool ones.

Good night! Just finished priming the downstairs walls for some base coat. Got to mount radiators on the wall and get under the sub-floor to run new pipe this weekend, so need the paint dry. Don't know how I didn't spot it, the entire downstairs of the house has 2 radiators. One for both the living room and dining room. One in the hallway. Takes hours to heat up!

I think both you and Rennie are right respectively. It is just a job in that there are others I could walk into and no one job is worth your health. But equally you're right in that we shouldn't be treated like crap just because we have bills to pay. I'm going to have to work to find some kind of balance. I've actually got a story where I nearly punched a manager nearly 10 years back. Bully type with a HR record to match. After 18 months of a weird cat and mouse game where I avoided him, he got me to crack on something and hold my ground. I remained calm through his rant and kept things professional, but the moment he laid hands on me to force me back from my desk, it instantly changed the situation. I thought I would be getting sacked, so chose to make my full feelings clear to the overall manager in a heated 2 hour exchange. I was moved to a different department, then promoted 3 months later (to a role the last manager had been dangling in front of me like a carrot). I've had very few dramas since then. I know I'm not very compatible with office politics, as I'm also bad with social politics. So I abstain from it as much as I can.

It is. You are right. And I shouldn't stress this much about it. It wasn't even aimed at me but rather the business segment as a whole, but it found a way under my skin. My mrs thinks I need a holiday very soon, I've developed night time asthma and wake up with restricted airways in the small hours, likely a result of stress. Dads very ill, work is rubbish, all I have time for out of work at the moment is DIY. I could cope with the silly fibs. It might be because she knows she's had a knee jerk reaction and is justifying it, or she knew they were in trouble for running late and they've tried to shift blame. But the tiptoeing of the leadership team around the "big boss" is what really tipped me over. Then the cheekiness of being asked by someone for help on how they needed to do their job, as they'd clearly forgotten. I asked for a meeting with this person and the person who escalated the issue, both declined without any suggestion of another time and that was the straw that broke the camels back. To top it all off, I now need to have my heart looked at as I could have a genetic bicuspid valve. If I do have it, I probably haven't done it any good boiling over like I have

Good afternoon, Finding out more and more that buying a house that was last decorated in the 70s... Bloody expensive Finances look like the surface of the moon right now. Craters, everywhere.