Nob of the Day.......

[Fiddlesticks]

I've noticed this too. Went into Liverpool on Saturday for the first time in a year or so. Aside from the City Centre looking like a campsite with beggars everywhere, nobody knows how to step to one side to let people off the train or bus before they get on. It's just basic common courtesy (and common sense).

 

The other one I noticed is people while driving in Manchester is people getting frustrated with you when you wait at a yellow box junction for the exit to become clear.

 

Not quite sure I'm ready for the modern world.

[Tiggie]

I see it every night when we open up the chip shop. People barging past the girl as she's trying to carry the sign outside. I have instructed staff to go slower coming back into the shop onto the counter to serve when this happens now 

 

You do occasionally get normal polite people who will hold the door open but it's becoming rarer 

[S-Westerly]

My word, either I live in one of the last bastions of civilization or some folks have had their grumpy pills today. Admittedly London is pretty dire.

[Fozzie]

Since I've spoken to others about it, seems to be quite a widespread thing. A friend who is originally from America said that the view the English have of Americans thinking they are the best/centre of the world is rivalled with Americans thinking English people are the most self-entitled. But it feels really recent this shift took place, or maybe I've just noticed.

 

And the issue splits people down the middle, some say I shouldn't get involved. Others say it's good I do, even suggesting that without challenge, rude people will eventually end up on the receiving end of something much worse. Just takes one nutter to be having a bad day, although that could bite me badly too. 

 

I've seen that happen recently, a few months back someone blocked an exit at a petrol station. And left a few of us behind waiting. My girlfriend scolded me for telling the woman to move her car next to the pump properly. Apparently "Put the pump back. Move the car. Start again" was "really mean". But as soon as the car next to me also couldn't leave, the very busy petrol station got very angry. People behind wound down windows to yell obscenities at the woman, honking their horns and so on. She got the hump with me when I smirked and said "I reckon they are meaner". But point is, sometimes a situation needs a firm hand rather than a tolerant one, to dissuade a less forgiving type of person from escalating things. And unfortunately we increasingly live in a world where people want to do whatever they want, with nothing but praise. 

[Pie man]

I pulled up to the first pump at our local petrol station, I got out of the car just as some entitled little shite shouted ' don't be a complete tw4t, why are you not moving to the next pump'.  I just ignored him and carried on. 

 

He waited patiently and it didn't take him long to apologies after he had a lesson on how to fill a car with LPG from the only LPG pump on the forecourt. 

[S-Westerly]

The weather forecasters predicting "a wall of snow" and blizzards when apparently parts of the east side of the country might get 1 cm. FFS.

[Pie man]

26 minutes ago, S-Westerly said:

The weather forecasters predicting "a wall of snow" and blizzards when apparently parts of the east side of the country might get 1 cm. FFS.

One reason I have a deep repugnance for mainstream media and pathetic twitter style journalism. It would appear, Clickbait scaremongering is a requirement of the job now. 

[RideWithStyles]

Possibly Airedale hospital and a puzzled A&E dept in Bradford, a clueless waiting game now .

[Steve_M]

“The rubber plant upstairs would fit nicely in the hall” she said. 
 

Now, said rubber plant is probably 4’ tall and in a hefty pot and I’d just watered it.

 

”OK”, I said.

 

I picked it up, heavy-ish, the weight wasn’t too much of an issue, though a bit awkward. I slowly backed down the stairs, one step at a time. Our stairs go down eight steps to a small landing, turn 180 degrees then continue down a further five steps.

 

On the first section I lost count of how many steps I’d taken and thought my next step was onto the small landing. I had quite a collision with the wall. 

 

Somehow I managed to cling on to the plant and not drop it. I now have a graze and huge bruise on my right elbow. 

Note to self. Learn to count up to eight.

 

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

A weird experience this afternoon.  We needed a few bits from the shops and as the weather was good I decided to cycle over the fields to the shops. It's a path used by a farm so it's very muddy most of the way. 

 

The last mile at the far end has a couple of houses so there's a single lane road that leads to the houses. At that stage a found a lady reversing back down the lane going away from me. She'd obviously trued to drive all the way through not realising the lane petered out at the farm. 

 

I followed at a safe distance as she didn't look to confident reversing and I didn't want to pressurise her. She got to the houses and backed into a driveway, going a long way back and then stopping. When she didn't move I just kept going as the road was clear 

 

Just as I got level with the driveway she shot out, missed me by inches as j had to swerve onto the verge to avoid a collision.

 

Half a mile further she had stopped to ask for directions.  So I pulled alongside the driver's window and asked her if she'd seen me back there.

 

She looked completely blank and had been oblivious to my presence. 

 

Bearing in mind I was in hi-viz and had been following her for quite a distance before she pulled into the driveway.

 

I don't fit my camera when I go across the fields but I will in future. 

[onesea]

I am going to have to nominate me.

 

Santa supplied daughter a new lid from Christmas.

So time to transfare to Packtalk from Lid to lid.

 

Her old lid out my present lid, and remove pack talk.  Only when I had my pack talk in hand did I realise just, that my pack talk and boom mike in hand from MY lid

 

I reinstalled back in my lid.

Took the Packtalk from my daughters old lid and install on her new Lid. We then went for a ride

Luckily it was Christmas lights ride so we wanted the dark.

 

Just missed the sunset.

 

 

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

This morning I delivered a boat I'd restored to the new owner. Rather than carry the mast in the usual position diagonally on top of the boat (where it can scratch the new paint on the transom) I put it on the roof rack. It was a long mast so I tied the front end to the grill of the car.

 

After dropping the boat off, stepping the mast, fitting the boom and cover, all in pouring rain, I jumped in the car and drove off. 

 

Forgetting of course the rope tied to the front of the car, which I then ran over causing the rope to be tangled up in the wheel whilst still tied to the front grill. 

 

Ah well, the car was a bit of wreck anyway so another bit of self-inflicted damage won't matter. 

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

Then guess who was working on his own boat and gave the paint a good shake....

 

Forgetting that the top was undone?

 

[Shepherd]

My turn again.

I've got myself a doer-upper Deauville for my Winter commute.  First day of road tax yesterday and work is just 4 miles away, so ideal for it's very first run.

 Except that it wouldn't roll. Starts fine, gear engaged fine, but I couldn't roll it off the drive.

Turned it off, and jumped in the car in my bike gear as I was now late.

 

Got home and found the end of a bungee hooked in to brake disk ...

[Fiddlesticks]

Could have been worse!

[S-Westerly]

Two SUV drivers playing silly buggers on the northbound M5. Weaving around and brake checking each other. Kept well back and left them to it.

[S-Westerly]

Me. Managed to lose a pannier somewhere between Goring and Wallingford in the Thames Valley. Never saw, felt or heard it go. Only realised it had gone when I saw a rather lopsided shadow. Went back slowly in both directions and never saw a sign of it or fragments either. Can only assume someone picked it up and kept it or lobbed it in a ditch. My fault entirely as I'd had it off to wash the bike and obviously didn't put it back properly.  I almost lost the pillion seat as when I stopped to check it was only hanging on by gravity. 

[Nick the wanderer]

That's a bummer..l like to hear a good old click when putting stuff like seats back on. I bet it bounced well, it could be anywhere

[S-Westerly]

I'll be the easily visible Guzzi as I'll be the one with only one pannier if I'm needing luggage. Not paying £800 for another set. I'll put feelers out to see if there's any damaged or other singles around but not likely I fear. Buggeration.

[Mawsley]

9 hours ago, S-Westerly said:

Me. Managed to lose a pannier somewhere between Goring and Wallingford in the Thames Valley. Never saw, felt or heard it go. Only realised it had gone when I saw a rather lopsided shadow. Went back slowly in both directions and never saw a sign of it or fragments either. Can only assume someone picked it up and kept it or lobbed it in a ditch. My fault entirely as I'd had it off to wash the bike and obviously didn't put it back properly.  I almost lost the pillion seat as when I stopped to check it was only hanging on by gravity. 

Oh mate that sucks balls. Hopefully nothing of value inside. 

[RideWithStyles]

Would this be a opportunity to see if a aftermarket one fits and if its anygood?

[S-Westerly]

 After market ones require additional fittings which I'm not keen to have. At least the pannier was empty at the time. 

A hint of good news is that a guy in the US has a spare having knackered his left hand one. Negotiations are now in progress.

Edited January 7 by S-Westerly

[Davidtav]

14 hours ago, S-Westerly said:

 After market ones require additional fittings which I'm not keen to have. At least the pannier was empty at the time. 

A hint of good news is that a guy in the US has a spare having knackered his left hand one. Negotiations are now in progress.

I would keep an eye on eBay for the next few days. One might appear!

[S-Westerly]

I think I've managed to aquire one albeit from the USA so a fair bit of postage. Still a lot cheaper than a replacement pair.

[Fiddlesticks]

On 10/11/2023 at 10:31, Fiddlesticks said:

Supermarkets.

 

Sainsburys: Thanks for shopping with us. As we hate paying real people please scan your own shopping. Also, we don't really trust you to do this without robbing us blind, so we're going to hold you hostage until you scan your receipt at this rather flimsy looking barrier. Hey! Wait! You're not supposed to just push it open....

 

Tesco: Thanks for shopping at one of our friendly self-service tills. Here's £1.50 change in shrapnel. Why would we take it to the bank when we can palm it off on you mugs?

 

 

TO ADD....

ADSA: No checkouts on at all. One retired apathetic lady careers advisor shuffling slowly between 27 people using infernal self-serve torture devices, all held up by the anti-theft devices on their bottles of cheap vodka, a software glitch, or a till that doesn't believe you've put your bags on the scale. Then she stops for a very long natter with Till Repair Man (a new breed of superhero). Red lights flashing everywhere. No sense of urgency whatsoever.

 

Every time something goes wrong the slick, well-honed, two-handed scan-and-pack process screeches to a halt for a good five minutes - which soon adds up. I have no wish to spend half of my three score and ten doing nothing. Particularly when I'm not doing it in ASDA.

 

In nearly every walk of life things have become more user friendly, smoother and more customer-centric. Technology has brought mankind great benefits. Except here, where what appears to be a modern-day Milgram experiment plays out in excruciating sluggishness, attempting to determine the limits to human tolerance for inane processes.

 

I would never condone it, but I think I understand why people steal from these faceless institutions. They consider it fair recompense for the unpaid work and the indignity of being subservient to the damned machines.

 

Rant over. Thank you for listening.