Things you hate III

England playing at home in their away kit, while Germany play in white. I thought we won the f***ing war?

 

Slow sales of the away kit.

 

((((((((Robert))))))))

 

Domestic open fires. On the rise at the moment as every yuppie who reads the Sunday magazines thinks they need one to finish the room off. Because no one needs one in a centrally heated house, so this is about style.

Sure they look nice and the firelight is attractive. You can fantasise about passionately ravishing the wife on the rug in front of it were she still interested in that sort of thing. You might just roast a bag of chestnuts once a year (not a euphemism).

Trouble is this is forgetting why they became unpopular. Through the winter the air in our neighbourhood has a strong acrid smell, adding to the general smell of car fumes. It's not healthy. It's a regression.

This isn't therefore something we can have everyone doing. Even a few more people doing this is going to take air quality right back. Yeah I know there are claims of more efficient fuel, but generally domestic home fires are releasing unfiltered carcinogenic particles.

Moreover, what about health in the home? Not all the emmisions will go up the chimney. Healthy for kids?

 

Maybe 4x weltmeisters get to choose what they play in?

 

There's only one meister

 

I just love a real fire.

 

Our old house had a gas fire that filtered through some coals. We used to whack that on, stick our feet up on the foot stool and be asleep within minutes. Assuming it wasn't carbon monoxide then a real fire is very cosy and very relaxing. We're doing up our house at the moment and when the downstairs is done I'm putting in a wood burner. I was under the impression that properly dried out logs are non polluting compared to wet logs, (IE over 25% moisture content).

 

In a closed system you can certainly reduce the emissions. Open fires you can't, but the fire is very pretty.

 

BMW 4 series interior (on a loan car)

Complete garbage, cheap and nasty, badly screwed together, parcel shelf falls off every time you open the hatch

It's a clown car

 

Poxy reverse threaded fixings for Ikea sinks (especially as I'd already binned the manual), took me ages to figure them out!

And while I'm at it why only one wash machine/dishwasher outlet on their frigging plumbing? ... FFS I had to outsource a Y piece, hose and clips!

 

People that post videos on YouTube. Don't get me wrong, I love YouTube, it's a gold mine of interesting stuff (amongst all the dross of course) but good grief, is it ever necessary to beg we Like, Comment, Subscribe, Share and turn on notifications for every sodding video?

 

'Minimum delivery 5 litres' signs on petrol pumps.

What a fackin' liberty!

The reason there's a minimum delivery is not because of any technical limitation of the petrol pump or on payments.

The insulting truth is that the ONLY reason for this crappy regulation is because they don't want to be bothered with you unless you're spending. Only the well-heeled and gaseous with spongy wallets required here. They might as well put up a sign saying 'NO POOR PEOPLE'. Imagine if you went into a pub and there was a sign up saying 'minimum order 5 pints'. You'd tell 'em to get stuffed.

I quite enjoy flouting this silly rule because there's absolutely nothing they can do to enforce it. I put £2 worth in and then go in to pay. I'm waiting, I'm just waiting, for them to say something, so I can tell them that I don't want anymore and don't have any money to pay for any more. What can they do? Call the cops? I've paid for all that I've had.

Unfortunately, so far, they've ducked the challenge and not tried to enforce it.

 

They won't Clive. Twice a year I go to my local garage which has the same signs and fill up my petrol can for my allotment mower. Never had a problem.

 

I think two things are in play here. Back in 2000 and again about 5 or 6 years ago people started panic buying petrol this led to massive queues outside of petrol stations where people were just topping up just in case which was all rather silly really. Secondly for debit card payments there is a fixed fee the merchant have to pay the banks for each transaction therefore for card sales they are better off if people put more in per transaction, for cash sales it won't matter.

The only reason I see for putting such a small amount in is either to top up before a very long journey or just before returning a loan or courtesy car.

 

Ha!

What about only having £2 available and the reserve light being on and having to get home?

 

Get more money?

 

There's also weights and measures at play I bet. There's likely an inaccuracy at start and end of delivery of fuel. Anything less than £5 or so and this could be a significant percentage of the amount bought.

Personally (unless there's financial hardship) I don't understand people that just put in £10 in their own cars. You end up spending more in petrol with more frequent filling station visits. If I fill up I fill to the brim which at 20 odd mpg is quite often unfortunately.

 

But surely you get more miles per gallon (or kilometres per litre for the youngsters reading this) when you have less fuel in the tank ?

 

To be fair, as a petrol station manager for Sainsbury's my wife used to be plagued by local estate kids buying a couple of quid's worth of petrol every five minutes for their latest stolen moped/trike which they'd skid around the park on and when it broke or the police arrived they'd invariably just drop it where it is and run off. There's no way would they leave a tank full of fuel, they wouldn't even shell out for two stroke oil.

 

Yeah but pushing it to the local garage doesn't count ... Infact you actually increase the chance of dragging dirt from the bottom of your tank into your petrol filters which can eventually clog up.

The dirt comes mostly comes from petrol bought before it has had time to settle in the garage's tank so try not to buy straight after delivery. Similarly if you buy from a near empty tank you risk dragging water into your fuel system (it's heavier than petrol and accumulates at the bottom of the tank).

 

Queuing at petrol stations. The greedy blighters charge enough, the least they can do is have enough pumps.

 

How would I know if the tank was empty?

Jerry cans are 5l, petrol is more than £1 a litre.

 

Every Jerry can ever made is 5l? Mine came from an army surplus store and to fill it 3 weeks ago cost less than a fiver.

 

Marry a PFS manager

 

Scandalous! .... Let's just hope that all our wars are close by.

 

Really? I seem to remember 4 or 5 gallon Jerry cans.

 

Blimey, I seem to be doing nothing but defending my posts this week. This is the very transaction, from empty to full with unleaded.



Maybe it's not called a jerry can, it must be a mini version from looking at pics online?

 

If I recall correctly a Jerry can is a German Army ww2 invention (hence the name). Holding 20L and made out of metal. These days it's used as a generic term for any sort of portable external fuel container or varying sizes. In much the same was as the term Hoover and Klaxon are used generically.

People need to replace their petrol mowers with manual cylinder push mowers. You save the environment and on gym membership and will get a better cut.

 

I maybe absolutely wrong on this but surely £5.73 is more than a fiver?

Where's my abacus?

 

It is, but it isn't 5 litres which is what Clive was talking about. Keep up man.

 

link

What part of "cost less than a fiver" are you having trouble with?

 

Clients whom I've never spoken to before, who book their flights out to Costa Rica in peak season and then come to me and ask me to put a trip together for them.

****!

Why would you book your own flights in peak season? All you're doing is restricting yourselves date-wise, which makes my job that effing harder. Plus, I book flights for you, as well as accommodation, transfers etx. That what we do.

So don't do and give yourselves a tiny window in which to travel (in what is already an incredibly busy time of year) and then ask me to put something together for you.

 

Clients who leave everything to the last minute and then decide they want to go to Costa Rica in December/January. ****s sake.

 

Clients that phone up the day before financial year end wanting to make ISA contributions in time for the tax year.