Where I do my grouching in public (and invite your replies!)

grouch That is NOT a picture of Yours Truly, for a start I’m slightly less hairy than that and I don’t live in a bin. My car may look like one, but that’s not the point! This is just the bit of the site where I get things off my chest, and if there’s things you’d like to grouch about e-mail me, and you may just make it on here. I don’t have to agree with you, but if your grouch is a good ‘un or you want to grouch about one of my grouches? feel free! And amazingly enough, merely by typing "grouch corner" into google, you’ll arrive at this site only three lines down! Either google agrees with me or it likes grouches!

Fuel prices………….

And what can I say about this? Gordon Brown, the miserable Scots git, and his sidekick Alastair (oh look I’ve spilt Just for Men on me eyebrows) Darling are making an absolute fortune ripping us off with the highest fuel taxes in the civilised world, something to the tune of an extra 3 billion a year since the cost of oil went to 140 dollars a barrel. And wasn’t it big of the white haired gonk NOT to put the duty up in the name of saving the planet. Saving the planet my arse, saving his job by ripping the easiest targets off to pay for more bloody asylum seekers or the like. Funny how the prices go up the second oil does, but now it’s back down to 95 dollars a barrel we’re still paying the same price for the bloody stuff. And the poor old oil companies are only making about 6 billion a quarter, Poor sods.

Investment Bankers (rhymes with………..)

Another bunch of parasitical space wastes, who contribute absolutely sod all to the country,and whose only aim is to line their bloody pockets. I hope the lot of the barstards end up on the dole. (bad idea, because I’d have to support the gits.) Put the buggers on a boat and sink the thing in the middle of the Atlantic would be better. Since when, in the real world, does some wanker who’s cocked up leadership has sunk his company, get a bonus of 2 million quid because it’s ‘written into his contract’? Ship, atlantic, Sunk. You get the drift. Same with all the Stock Exchange pillocks with their short selling and similar crap. Burn the lot of em and use the heat to make electricity. Wouldn’t be a success though, shit don’t burn.

Bad Drivers in general.

One of my pet hates. I spend an awful lot of time trundling from one building site to another in my day job as a plant enginer and nothing is more guaranteed to make my day than the usual collections of idiots, numpties and other brain-dead people who seem to be geting more common on our roads. I’m not saying I’m a great driver but I do tend to try and bugger up other folks’ days as litle as possible while i’m trying to get from one place to another where some stupid mechanical lump has spat its dummy out! On my travels, I’ve come to recognise a few different categories of crap driver and I’ll just try to explain a few. Armed with this information you may be surprised when you next follow one of them and see I’m right!

Old Folks in particular.

Usually at least two to a car, nowhere to go and all day to get there, never exceed 30mph even on dual carraigeways and always sit on the white line daring you to pass them. At which point they do one of two things, either slamming on their brakes to warn you off (which usually has the opposite effect!) or putting their foot down to stop you getting past at all. And when your works van has roughly the power of a constipated snail that can be embarrassing. They park ANYWHERE, usually opposite somebody else or on blind corners,but never, EVER think about possibly putting one wheel on the kerb so that anything bigger than their micra (or Rover 25) can get through the resulting gap, and never seem to use their mirrors, probably because there was nobody behind them when they passed their test so why should there be now? And aren’t they always the ones who crawl up to a junction, look to see if anything’s coming and if the road’s clear then by the time they’ve actually got the car moving they’re right in front of you. Even though you were a mile away when they started their epic manoeuvre. And then you’ll get the shaken fist for having to slam on to avoid ‘em.

And if the driver’s wearing a flat cap or worse still, a TRILBY then god help your schedule. Better pull over, have a fag, a walk round for 10 minutes and then you can join the queue of traffic behind them 20 seconds after you set off because there’ll always be one. And to prove it, today I drove past an example on the road where some elderly gent had just backed out in front of a poor bugger in his Rover 25 and had been pranged up the rear. The fact that he’d just backed out onto a main road was irrelevant to him, he’d left his car blocking the road and was arguing with the guy he’d effectively backed into. If that’s the best he could do, best if he started catching the bloody bus!

Having said all that, I was following one old dear in a micra the other day and couldn’t keep up at all, she was going so bloody fast! In a 30mph limit though? Probably late for t’post office to collect t’pension….

Folk with Big Ears (ooooer).

All I can say is that in my experience if the driver in front has big ears then expect anything. I don’t know why, maybe the blood gets too cold going round ‘em to feed their brains but the more the ears stick out the worse the driver. I have yet to see any exceptions to this rule. Not all old folk are bad drivers but in my experience nobody with big ears should be let behind the wheel of a car under any circumstances. Ever! Unless of course you know different…………

A 90 year old with a trilby perched on a set of batwings is the ultimate no-no!

Small women in large 4X4s

Usually have all the road sense of a hedgehog. Don’t seeany need to respect other drivers because they’re bigger / newer / more expensive / shinier than them. Guaranteed to pull out in front of you even if you can see the whites of their eyes as your 8 wheeler with 17 tons on its back has to give way to their Porsche Cayenne/ Discovery / Range Rover etc. etc. Park in any inconvenient position possible as long as they don’t have to actually walk anywhere, and are usually too busy fixing their hair or make up or texting their friends while they drive to give a crap about other road users anyway.

Sales Reps.

Not all these guys are idiots, but if you see the Oakley shades, the stereo in the Mondeo’s blasting out some crappy hip-hop din and they’re driving 6mm off the back of the car in front, then you’ve found a good ‘un. Overtake or die seems to be the motto, and it’s often a shame for the rest of us that they don’t manage the last one a bit more often. Anything to gain another space in the queue to save an extra 15 seconds at the end so they can stick another gallon of gel on their hair before closing the deal of the century (they wish!)

Things that don’t do what it says on the tin…….

Radio Controlled Nitro Cars

16/08/07

Well, I thought I’d treat myself this week and went out and bought a radio controlled monster truck. Something I’ve wanted for years and never got round to owning. Anyway, bought it Tuesday, spent Tuesday and Wednesday nights running the engine in and driving it round in circles and only crashing it slightly while it bedded itself in and tonight (Thursday) took it for a rip on the local park. A very short rip as it turned out! 100 yards in a straight line, it’d changed gears and everything and was flying. Turned it round and loads of revs and no go! Turned out it’s stripped both gears in the gearbox.

Not bad for something that’s supposed to be hard as nails and more or less unbreakable. Still, it’s back to the shop with it in the morning for a chat with the nice man i bought it from. Who would be advised to have some replacement cogs to hand otherwise I am not going to be right happy! Especially since I haven’t even gone through half a can of fuel yet! Just call me "El Destructo" I guess!

17/08/07

Went back to the shop, bloke at the counter says "engine’s out of line mate, that’s what’s happened! Did you crash it or something?" Answer was yes I had, into a kerb backwards at about 50mph. Enough to rip the back suspension off one side, anyway. So I’d fixed that and hadn’t checked to see if the engine had moved (it had!) and ten seconds at hairy speeds was enough to render everything toothless. And he told me to check the bloody thing before I used it if I’d crashed it when I bought it. Didn’t buy steel sprockets as he said the nylon ones bust before something more expensive does, that’s their job. So a self inflicted grouch this time!

22/08/07

Took it out again last night, front CV joint fell apart, fixed that with a bit from an old van triax joint filed down. Then the back drive shafts clogged up with grass and bust the pinion in the back diff. Got the bits today and fixed that. Tightened umpteen loose screws again, cleaned all the crud off and gave it a spin round the garden. It works again Till the next bit falls off or breaks I suppose. I guess that’s part of the joys of owning one of these things, because everybody I know who has one spends as much time fixing it as they do driving it, but apparently that’s all part of the fun! Definitely not as unbreakable as they make out!

18/09/07

Definitely a mistake, buying this thing! Every time I take the bugger out it commits suicide in a new and interesting way! This time I was demonstrating it in the pub car park and slammed it backwards into a kerb at about 50. Couldn’t take a joke and when it set off back to me the fact the one of the driveshafts shot across the car park gave me a clue all wasn’t well. So did the fact that the back wheel was hanging off. New bottom arm needed there then…….

14/11/07

Fixed the last disaster, used it twice WITHOUT breaking it and then the starter clutch decided to call it a draw. Pull the string all ya like and bugger all happened. So I took the thing to bits, cleaned all the crud out of it, put it back and it worked again. Of course I ended up having to stuff the recoil spring back in after it sproinnged out all over the shed! Still, the bugger’s ready to go again.

26/12/07

And in a fit of boredom over Christmas I pulled it out, fired it up and ripped it round the back field. It WAS going like a good ‘un and I was on the 4th tank of fuel when the bloody receiver batteries went flat while it was hurtling rounnd at about 55 in a rather large circle. Still, I figured it would run out of fuel any time soon and I wasn’t going to try and stop the bugger. I reckon that would hurt! Sadly, before the fuel ran out it managed to smash into an iron goalpost in the middle of the field, ripping both lefthand wheels off , snapped both bottom arms and ripped the front tyre off the rim. Turned upside down THEN ran out of fuel. Bastard! So another trip to the model shop beckons. Bet the bugger in there loves me……

20/07/09

Guess what? it’s STILL in bits in the shed, and not looking like it’s ever going back together since the bastard I bought it from’s gone bust and the parts supply’s dried up altogether. Anybody with wheels, tyres, diff pinions, starter mechanisms supension arms and other bits for the sodding thing make me an offer in excess of three bob and you might be the proud owner…..

Durabrand combined DVD / VCRs

Bought one of these the other day to replace our tired VCR which made all the films I played on it look like "North To Alaska." Not a great move. Brought it home, plugged it in, waited ten minutes while it set itself up, spent another ten organising the channels using a menu system designed by an idiot, and then had the cheek to try and play a video on it. Not the success I was hoping for! Actually WORSE than the old video on playback, even on tapes that play perfectly on the ten bob TV/Video in the bedroom. Then tried to play a DVD on it, that was worse, it managed a brand new one but the slightest mark and nothing!

Took the bloody thing back to be greeted with "They’re crap, them. Want your money back or another one that might work?" Money back was the order of the day, so I bought a Sony DVD player for less money and got the change, and that even plays the DVD’s my old player gave up on. Shouldn’t insult that though, it still worked fine but the remote died through being dropped excessively and there weren’t a lot of buttons on the front of it. Play, stop and eject were as good as it got. I guess I’ll be able to find a better video on the car boot for less than a tenner so I can watch all my old tapes. Still, you live and learn, eh?

Chinese batteries

I know you can buy about 30 for a pound, but I’d rather 10 that actually lasted more than 30 seconds in a torch without expiring. I always fall for it on car boot sales, you know, the card with 24 or 30 batteries on it for a quid. And you always stuff ‘em in a drawer and by the time you want ‘em they’ve roted away and wrecked anything else that’s in there with them! The rechargeable ones are worse, with claims of 3000+ mAH which may be true for the first 30 seconds and then we’re back to ‘candle in a stocking’ power! Always in nice shiny packaging though which probably cost more than what’s in it. Bought a little toy plane / boat / car thing the other day, made in China of course, and it had two battery packs rated at 330mAH. The charger that came with it charged ‘em at 400mA. No wonder they got red hot after half an hour. Bloody things’d probably explode if you left ‘em on charge for 2 hours like it said in the instructions. And they were crap anyway, about 2 minutes to flat. Still, you gets what you pays for I suppose and while there’s idiots like me to buy ‘em they’ll keep making ‘em! And in the traditional "told you so" way things happen, of course I needed some AAAs for all the remote controls round the place (8 at last count….. I think they’re breeding!) so off I went with all the best intentions and came back with a card of 24 for £1. "SUPER EXTRA HEAVY DUTY" it said on the card, and obviously remotes are a bit too super for them, longest a pair lasted was thre days. Will I ever learn?

Universal Remote controls.

If you look in the previous paragraph, you can see that we are afflicted with an awful lot of remotes round our house. TV, Freeview box, DVD, video, 2 satellite receivers, hifi and another one for the TV upstairs. Not including the other stuff round the place that has remotes….. I’ve tried umpteen of these universal thingys and I’ve never fouund one that’ll work more than two items, and neither of them properly! The list of codes never applies to your stuff, and searching takes forever to find something that’ll turn the volume up (not down) and change channels but not turn the set off. Maybe if you keep going long enough you’ll find a better seting but by that time I’ve usually lost the will to live! And if your set has menu navigation I don’t think any of them ever works more than the basics, so you’re stuffed. "Bugrit, Millennium hand and shrimp!" as Foul Ole Ron would say. If anybody out there knows of one of these things that does what it says on the packet, for Pete’s sake let me know and save me from the curse of the breeding remotes!

Temporary traffic lights.

Shouldn’t really complain about this essential accessory to modern driving, but I’m gonna! Why is it when the halfwits who put these things in place organise them, they never actually think about the complete and utter balls-up they make! Where I work it now takes an extra 25 minutes to get either way on the main road outside the industrial estate thanks to the sterling efforts of morgan est and their crew. Not content with adding about an hour to every day waiting in their queues, not including the extra half hour to get home at night, they bugger off at weekends when nobody would be around, then add a few more chaps with stop / go signs further down the road bringing the whole bloody place to a standstill for the afternoon just to make it even more of a cock up. I actually work for a company that does this kind of thing, and we actually THINK about placing lights to cause the least hassle, and work weekends! A plague of boils on the MD of Morgan EST and the rest of his poxy management…….. And on the old buggers who take an hour to set off when the lights finally change so only three cars can get through the sodding lights at one go, and then get their Nissan Micras stuck in gaps I could get our bloody Scania through sideways!

Computers!

Why is it that a computer will work fine while you’re only killing time on the bloody thing, yet the minute it absolutely, positively HAS to work, some buggardly bit of it picks that exact second to call it a day? The ADSL modem on this computer proved it the other day, and got severely smashed against the wall and slung into the garden for its pains. I took the final revenge on it tonight by attacking it with the lawnmower, a challenge to which it proved very unequal. It’s now in the compost heap, recycling! (or at least the bits the mower picked up are!)

ORANGE BROADBAND!!!!!!

If it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve got one of their phones on contract and I get this for nowt I’d tell ‘em where to stuff it! It’s about as reliable as a bloody Austin Allegro, and half as fast. Supposed to be 8meg, and it has been known to get close when I first got it but not these days. If it rains and more than three people try to get on their system it takes you twenty minutes and forty atempts to log on, passing through such delights as "invalid user name or password" , "Server timed out" , "cannot connect to server" , "incorrect domain name" and others too numerous to list. The one thing it rarely says first time is "You are now connected at ..mbps" where …. is anything from 0.6 to 7.8 depending on the mood of their server. Started out with Freeserve, never a bother. Changed to Wanadoo, never a bother. Changed to Orange, pile of crap! And of course they have a 24 hour technical helpline, charged at 50p a minute and based in Bombay apparently, where it takes you the first five minutes to understand what the fuckwit on their end’s on about. When my phone contract’s time’s up so is theirs the useless barstewards! Send ‘em e-mails and get the same automated reply every time to the effect of "blah blah, check your settings, blah blah, check connections, blah blah, reinstall your modem, blah blah……." DONE ALL THAT TILL I’M PIG BLOODY SICK AND IT MAKES NO F*&*ING difference because it’s their USELESS service. SOD ‘EM!

I think they must have heard me, bloody thing’s been OK since the week after I wrote this!

Ex Post Office vans

Don’t get me started on these things! We bought several of these for work, all Fiesta Courier1.8Ds. All with warranted mileage of less than 50000 and all of them looked like they’d been sat on by bloody elephants. But they were cheap, and a bit of bashing and filler soon tidied ‘em up. Engine wore out on the first one at 55000 miles, followed a week after by the gearbox on another. All the gearboxes sound like a bag of nails on tickover due to careful driving by the posties. I’m sure the buggers had had lessons off the Stig. Still, not to worry, a gearbox later and off we went again, another engine at 72000 miles in a different one, gearbox in the first one that had an engine, water pumps in all 3 of ‘em, and on, and on, and on. The most useless bloody vans ever. Can’t blame Ford though, we’ve got Fiestas and Escorts with 150000 to 300000 miles on ‘em and they still run OK. Bloody Post Office drivers, that’s what it is. And talking of the Post Office………

Useless Bloody Postmen

This isn’t a general complaint before I start geting bloody hate mail, just an observation about this guy in particular. Our postie is a wonderful fella. Lives at the end of our street, so we never get any mail before 11.30 when he’s on his way home, and when we do get it half of the stuff is for a different address, different name, different town, anything! It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t know the useless git! Ended up with some poor sod’s tickets to a black tie dinner in Birmingham yesterday, and they were in a post office damaged mail envelope with our address on it, when the original was addressed to Birmingham! (100 miles away..) Would have posted it on but it was ten days too late anyway! Only time we get our post on time is when he’s on holiday or off sick. The only fuel bills I ever get are the "Oi! Pay Up!" ones, usually three days after they start the nasty phone calls and two weeks after they posted ‘em. Tried complaining but I’d get more sense talking to a bloody wall.

Politicians

Don’t get me started on this bunch of useless bloody parasites.

You attempt to claim anything at all off the government and you get to fill in a jolly million page form wanting to know the ins and outs of a cat’s arse, wait for several millennia for a decision, which is usually NO! That’s if they don’t decide you’re not capable of handling your own affairs and charge you a grand a year to give you £20 a week spends. But if you’re an MP it appears you can ask for mortgage payments on a house you don’t own based on "It’s about £16000 a year, honest guv!" and you’ll get them. Or furnish your house at Harrods without a murmur. God forbid you should have to have a TV less than 50" on an MP’s salary.