WAMT....what annoyed me today!

LCPete said:
Yep, I remember coming back from Switzerland a few years ago, they had 2 feet or something of snow and everything carried on as normal, trains running exactly to the minute etc
When we came back home and had a small amount of snow everything had ground to a halt :oops: :$
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It's crazy. I've got a pal in Finland who says it's -19°C where he is, which is apparently unusual due to being quite close to the coast, and they are still cycling around! haha
 
When your country spends the best part of 6 months per year under snow, it's relatively easy to justify the cost of the specialist equipment to deal with it. In a country that sees a couple of weeks with the white stuff, it's a bit harder!
 
The most extreme weather I've seen was in Kazakhstan. They didn't seem to bother clearing it up and the ice on the pavements was inches thick. The only place I saw any effort was the airport and they dealt with it efficiently and quickly, they had all the gear.
 
Apparently there have been up to 100km of snow related traffic jams in Paris alone today.
 
Near MINT listings on eBay from Japan -- what a joke...! :headbang:

I'm considering buying a Nikon F4 (not F4s)

these are ''Near MINT'' listings from Japan.......not even worth considering..!!!

[Near MINT] Nikon F4 £134.16
There is a leak in the LCD screen of the viewfinder

【Near MINT】 Camera Body £147.14
-Finder: ( Fungus ) - Slight

[NEAR MINT ] Nikon F4 £160.99
Optics
There is thin fungus.
There is a slight liquid leak on the LCD


[ Exc+5 ] Nikon F4 £114.84
Postage: £26.83
There is LCD leakage, and the display is somewhat difficult to read.

guess I'll be sticking with my Nikon F3
tn_CANPIS front.JPG
 
Yardbent said:
Near MINT listings on eBay from Japan -- what a joke...! :headbang:

I'm considering buying a Nikon F4 (not F4s)

these are ''Near MINT'' listings from Japan.......not even worth considering..!!!

[Near MINT] Nikon F4 £134.16
There is a leak in the LCD screen of the viewfinder

【Near MINT】 Camera Body £147.14
-Finder: ( Fungus ) - Slight

[NEAR MINT ] Nikon F4 £160.99
Optics
There is thin fungus.
There is a slight liquid leak on the LCD


[ Exc+5 ] Nikon F4 £114.84
Postage: £26.83
There is LCD leakage, and the display is somewhat difficult to read.

guess I'll be sticking with my Nikon F3
View attachment 471737
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Know what you mean , I had a look at ebay at Canon 180 macro lens all available were from Japan, one had similar description near mint but had fungus
Wasn’t seriously looking but decided wasn’t worth the hassle
 
gman said:
That's the one! I forgot to check for the double squares on the packaging to show that it's double insulated and can't find anything online. I'll need to fish it out of the cardboard bin because my voltage detector is reading voltage from the metal shade, although they can be super sensitive because it's also reading voltage on a glass table lamp.

One point of confusion is that I have a brand new and very sensitive consumer unit which tripped when powering on a wall switch where a screw had previously been screwed through the wire further down (old consumer unit wasn't sensitive enough to detect it and the screw was live!!). But the new consumer unit isn't tripping when switching on this ceiling light, so I'm wondering if it's a false reading from the detector.

If I find the box and there's no double square or comment that it's double insulated then I'll need to confirm with a multimeter. Will need to extend an earth from somewhere though. Will call out an electrician just to be safe, although it would be cheaper to change the light - but the wife likes it.


EDIT: there's nothing on the packaging to indicate that it's double insulated, so I'll be removing it and already ordered a new Class 2. I'll need to remember not to make that mistake again.
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It should be pretty easy to check anyway. If there’s an earth wire and terminal next to the live and neutral at the connection block, then it needs earthing. If there’s just a live and neutral, it won’t.
 
boogie man said:
It should be pretty easy to check anyway. If there’s an earth wire and terminal next to the live and neutral at the connection block, then it needs earthing. If there’s just a live and neutral, it won’t.
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Yeah it was a little bit of x6 chocolate block with earth in the middle. That was the first thing I spotted and got me worried lol

I'm still not sure why my consumer unit isn't tripping when it's turned on.
 
woof woof said:
No good deed goes unpunished :D

Funny how I dealt with customers, multi million £ contracts, service levels, stats, engineers fighting engineers, customers fighting engineers, company directors, dishonesty, lies, theft, auditors, H&S inspectors and everything imaginable and in there somewhere there were some good times too but nothing prepared me for church admin. Too much baby. One step beyond. I should have seen the signs earlier. At the first meeting I went to I honestly shook my head in disbelief.
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My father, now deceased, was the Sexton of his Church in Cornwall for many years. He used to say that there were more Christians outside the Church than in it.
 
gman said:
Yeah it was a little bit of x6 chocolate block with earth in the middle. That was the first thing I spotted and got me worried lol

I'm still not sure why my consumer unit isn't tripping when it's turned on.
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If there's no leakage to the earth, the consumer unit/RCD probably won't trip. The earth connection is there to protect you against a problem where the metal parts of the fixture become live.

Hope the replacement you've chosen meets management's expectations!
 
Nod said:
If there's no leakage to the earth, the consumer unit/RCD probably won't trip. The earth connection is there to protect you against a problem where the metal parts of the fixture become live.

Hope the replacement you've chosen meets management's expectations!
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Ah, I wonder if the wall was somewhat acting as an earth with that "live" screw I mentioned earlier and thus tripping the unit?
 
ffs new double insulated light also showing voltage from shade. I'm guessing it's been phantom voltage all along, but at least if there is a future fault with this new one it shouldn't "live" the shade! lol
 
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Last week, a clutch switch that I had ordered on ebay arrived and did not work, straight out of the box. OEM "quality" it said. No it wasn't, it was Chinese cra*! So I ordered another one from a German supplier which said that theirs were OEM "quality, made in Czechoslovakia. Arrived today........... more chinese cra*!......... at three times the cost of the ebay one! That's going back too. All to make my cruise control and downhill braking assist work (which I don't use!) I'm tempted to just by-pass the switch but I'm not that sort! The switches could cause failures that could kill someone! Similar switches are used on brake lights etc! The OEM have casings that are probably about 2mm thick but these are made of brittle plastic that are not fit for purpose. The OEM ones were out of stock but I have one on back order now! :rolleyes: :headbang:
 
Pixbarmy said:
Last week, a clutch switch that I had ordered on ebay arrived and did not work, straight out of the box. OEM "quality" it said. No it wasn't, it was Chinese cra*! So I ordered another one from a German supplier which said that theirs were OEM "quality, made in Czechoslovakia. Arrived today........... more chinese cra*!......... at three times the cost of the ebay one! That's going back too. All to make my cruise control and downhill braking assist work (which I don't use!) I'm tempted to just by-pass the switch but I'm not that sort! The switches could cause failures that could kill someone! Similar switches are used on brake lights etc! The OEM have casings that are probably about 2mm thick but these are made of brittle plastic that are not fit for purpose. The OEM ones were out of stock but I have one on back order now! :rolleyes: :headbang:
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Yeah that sucks. I've noticed that a lot of pattern parts that used to be pretty good are terrible now. There's a few that are still ok, Sachs and Monroe are still good, as is the Mele HD stuff, although I think the regular Mele is now Chinese and poor quality. I find a fair amount of OEM parts actually have pattern part stamps on them anyway such as my oil filter that has four rings plus MANN stamped on it! lol

When it comes to electrical components, especially any that talk with the ECU etc, I tend to stick with OEM as the pattern ones can often not communicate well. CAT, Scania, DAF etc. can be particularly bad for this.
 
Many years ago, I had a Series IIa Landy with a foot dip switch. After many years of abuse, it packed in. I knew exactly what it was so went to the Prince of Darkness (Joe Lucas!) stockist who wanted what seemed to me to be an awful lot of money for a simple, common-to-many-vehicles part, so I popped into the Land Rover main dealer who charged me jut over 1/3 the price I'd been quoted. Came in a Lucas box with a Land Rover part number sticker!
 
Nod said:
Many years ago, I had a Series IIa Landy with a foot dip switch.
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At the beginning of the 1970s I passed my driving test in a Series IIa LWB at Launceston and I put my pass down to the location of the test centre, which in those days was at the top of the hill.

The examiner got in, gave me the brief intro and told me to proceed, then to turn left. I did so, to find myself more or less hanging over him, as we turned onto the steep hill. There was quite a long silence then, until we got to the bottom of the hill, followed by a very perfunctory left hand reverse and an equally short High Street run with a busy zebra and some traffic lights. We returned to the driving centre, I did a reverse park and my rather pale passenger pushed my pass sheet into my hands and departed.

How lucky was I to find myself with an examiner who'd not previously worked a Landrover! ;)
 
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Having yet another rubbish day. The new car which we bought in late November (Merc A180 16 reg), has had faults with the rear lights, which should have been fixed 2 days after we bought it. I have to get that into the garage, but my car has developed a suspension fault, the ride height at the front has fallen, leaving me to think that the coil springs have broken, which would be very unusual, because they were replaced six months ago. So, booked it in to the garage for 12:00 only to find that their MOT ramp isn't working, so I will have to take it back on Monday. This morning, our bathroom light failed and it isn't the bulb.:mad::mad:
 
andya700 said:
Having yet another rubbish day. The new car which we bought in late November (Merc A180 16 reg), has had faults with the rear lights, which should have been fixed 2 days after we bought it. I have to get that into the garage, but my car has developed a suspension fault, the ride height at the front has fallen, leaving me to think that the coil springs have broken, which would be very unusual, because they were replaced six months ago. So, booked it in to the garage for 12:00 only to find that their MOT ramp isn't working, so I will have to take it back on Monday. This morning, our bathroom light failed and it isn't the bulb.:mad::mad:
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It would be unusual for both coil springs to break at the same time and so soon, even for cheap ones. Do you know what brand they put on 6 months ago? I'm wondering if they made a fitment mistake and therefore replicated the error on the other side as well.

What's up with the bathroom light?
 
gman said:
It would be unusual for both coil springs to break at the same time and so soon, even for cheap ones. Do you know what brand they put on 6 months ago? I'm wondering if they made a fitment mistake and therefore replicated the error on the other side as well.

What's up with the bathroom light?
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I have the invoice and it doesn't say which brand, but they weren't cheap. I will know more on Monday when I go back to the garage, hope their lift is working by then. The light is a pull cord and clicks when you pull it, but didn't light. I tried a couple of new bulbs and no joy.
 
WAMT. Insurance companies again.

My wife told me that her friend, who lives near Bridlington, paid £50 for a train ticket from there or Scarborough, to Birmingham. It was a planned trip and she'd bought the ticket a couple of weeks prior to the trip. Of course, her part of the world was snowed in and she wasn't able to get to wherever the main station was. She lives in a small village a little way inland. She had travel insurance and made a claim which was refused on the grounds that it was "a named storm"...ie Goretti. Now,it seems, she's not going to pursue it but has accepted a £10 discount on a new ticket. It beggars belief .I suppose insurance companies play on the fact that most people won't pursue a small claim.

Before I knew the claim was dropped I told my wife to tell her friend that the storm wasn't named until about January 6th..ie well after the rail ticket was bought, and by the French weather service. When she bought her ticket that storm was was just a Low pressure area out in the Atlantic and it wasn't until it neared France and the UK that it came into contact with a vigorous Jet Stream which dropped its pressure rapidly,so much so that I recall hearing a BBC forecaster mention a "weather bomb," meaning a pressure drop of 24mb in 24 hours. The proper name of the process is called 'explosive cylogenesis' which he did mention but people understand the term 'weather bomb' far better. Very dangerous storms, as was the case.

Insurance companies must save a lot of money by putting up barriers, often erroneous ones, hoping people can't be bothered to pursue a claim. Seems they're right. I was very disappointed with my wife's friend for dropping her claim.
 
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"Your call is important to us" (twice today!). One call took 35 minutes to get through the queue to "chat" with an "agent", who said "May I ask you why you wish to leave us at the renewal date?". My answer "No!" (just answer your phones sooner and do what I ask!). The second call will have to wait for another day!
 
Not so much annoyed as saddened. We have 2 trees in the garden - a cherry and a Thuja. Both were small (under 10') when we moved in but are now over the insurance company's stipulated 30' so they're coming down today before the birds start breeding again. The pigeons have been in and out of the Thuja in the past week, bearing twigs so I hope they have time to relocate.
Shame for the tree fellers (actually, there are only 2 of them...) that the weather's not better but at least it's not persisting down at the moment.
And it could be worse - I was supposed to be losing balls this morning but have to be around on tea/coffee duty so am in the warm and dry!!!
 
Once the weather clears up I want to get back out on my bike, but the amount of times I've had to swerve my car out of the way from an oncoming car on my side of the road on a blind corner whilst they are overtaking a cyclist is getting worse, puts me right off. I'm not sure if this is just a Glasgow thing, but factor in the potential for the overtaking car to also then avoid a pothole and swerve into the cyclist, it's a lethal combination.
 
gman said:
Once the weather clears up I want to get back out on my bike, but the amount of times I've had to swerve my car out of the way from an oncoming car on my side of the road on a blind corner whilst they are overtaking a cyclist is getting worse, puts me right off. I'm not sure if this is just a Glasgow thing, but factor in the potential for the overtaking car to also then avoid a pothole and swerve into the cyclist, it's a lethal combination.
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Norkie said:
I discovered the secret to invisibility a long time ago @gman , ride a bicycle :eek:
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Same here, seriously thinking of not doing any road cycling this year/again :(
Ride in the prime position which helps and try not to hold motorists up but just too many close calls- not every time out but too many for comfort/safety
 
Nod said:
Not so much annoyed as saddened. We have 2 trees in the garden - a cherry and a Thuja. Both were small (under 10') when we moved in but are now over the insurance company's stipulated 30' so they're coming down today before the birds start breeding again. The pigeons have been in and out of the Thuja in the past week, bearing twigs so I hope they have time to relocate.
Shame for the tree fellers (actually, there are only 2 of them...) that the weather's not better but at least it's not persisting down at the moment.
And it could be worse - I was supposed to be losing balls this morning but have to be around on tea/coffee duty so am in the warm and dry!!!
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All down and gone now, apart from a couple of dozen logs that a neighbour will be burning next year (the cherry). No significant nests, just the beginnings of a pigeon one.
 
nog said:
Same here, seriously thinking of not doing any road cycling this year/again :(
Ride in the prime position which helps and try not to hold motorists up but just too many close calls- not every time out but too many for comfort/safety
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I gave up cycling when I moved away from Swindon.

It is one of the few places I'm aware of that understands the need to keep pedestrians apart from cycles and cycles away from powered vehicles. Doesn't implement it fully but it has made the effort.
 
gman said:
Once the weather clears up I want to get back out on my bike, but the amount of times I've had to swerve my car out of the way from an oncoming car on my side of the road on a blind corner whilst they are overtaking a cyclist is getting worse, puts me right off. I'm not sure if this is just a Glasgow thing, but factor in the potential for the overtaking car to also then avoid a pothole and swerve into the cyclist, it's a lethal combination.
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Saw that happen just this afternoon in front of us a dangerous idiot overtook a cycle on a blind bend went right to other side of road
 
Norkie said:
I discovered the secret to invisibility a long time ago @gman , ride a bicycle :eek:
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It's crazy, when cycling last year I even bought some ultra bright strobe effect lights for front and back. I've checked over my bike thoroughly, but I can't find any Epstein Files stuck to it, so I've no idea why they can't see me.
 
How's the aim on those lights? There seems to be a trend of aiming them straight into drivers' eyes.
 
Nod said:
How's the aim on those lights? There seems to be a trend of aiming them straight into drivers' eyes.
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Initially I aimed them low to avoid dazzling and annoying the cars because, well, obviously I'd lose lol. But that didn't work, so I started to aim them higher and higher each time until most of them started to slow down and take more notice, but I suspect they are inching into the realms of dazzling although not directly, but if it's keeping me safer... it probably helps that it is slower side streets and not the main roads.

The most common close calls come from cars entering the road I'm just about to exit and they cut the corner into me, despite my strobe lighting up all the parked cars, sign posts, road surface etc.

This is the strobe light

Nestling® Bike Light Set, IP65 Waterproof USB Rechargeable Bicycle Light & Intelligent LED Display Headlight & Taillight LED Road Cycling Bike light : Amazon.co.uk: Sports & Outdoors

Nestling® Bike Light Set, IP65 Waterproof USB Rechargeable Bicycle Light & Intelligent LED Display Headlight & Taillight LED Road Cycling Bike light : Amazon.co.uk: Sports & Outdoors
www.amazon.co.uk
 
Work Pension Provider's silence over the past four weeks. Four more weeks to go before I contact the ombudsman :)
They used to be quite helpful a few years ago if you had any questions. My latest email to them went along the lines of 'I would like to access 25% of of my pension please' Boom! silence from their end lol
 
gman said:
Initially I aimed them low to avoid dazzling and annoying the cars because, well, obviously I'd lose lol. But that didn't work, so I started to aim them higher and higher each time until most of them started to slow down and take more notice, but I suspect they are inching into the realms of dazzling although not directly, but if it's keeping me safer... it probably helps that it is slower side streets and not the main roads.

The most common close calls come from cars entering the road I'm just about to exit and they cut the corner into me, despite my strobe lighting up all the parked cars, sign posts, road surface etc.

This is the strobe light

Nestling® Bike Light Set, IP65 Waterproof USB Rechargeable Bicycle Light & Intelligent LED Display Headlight & Taillight LED Road Cycling Bike light : Amazon.co.uk: Sports & Outdoors

Nestling® Bike Light Set, IP65 Waterproof USB Rechargeable Bicycle Light & Intelligent LED Display Headlight & Taillight LED Road Cycling Bike light : Amazon.co.uk: Sports & Outdoors
www.amazon.co.uk
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FWIW, people cut corners whatever might be coming! We live in a cul-de-sac and there's a shortcut that's used by cyclists (don't get me started on cyclists on FOOTpaths...) and they're among the worst of the corner cutters, trying to keep up their momentum despite the gravel and potholes. Some of them (but by no means all - or even a majority) have lights at night.
 
Bletch said:
Work Pension Provider's silence over the past four weeks. Four more weeks to go before I contact the ombudsman :)
They used to be quite helpful a few years ago if you had any questions. My latest email to them went along the lines of 'I would like to access 25% of of my pension please' Boom! silence from their end lol
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Well, I'm still waiting for the completion of an adjustment to my Final Salary pension.... 2 years ago was notified a pay rise being retrospectively applied to my salary at the time I finished... It took 12 months for one pension to be corrected, and with my second pension I finally got the increase applied to my monthly payment after 18 months but as it stands I'm still waiting for the tax-fee lump sum adjustment payment and they said should be sorted by end of December 2025, but I'm still waiting!!!

:headbang::headbang::headbang:
 
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Is my bank lying to me? I went into town today and made 3 successful under £10 purchases on contactless then saw a bargain for £63.50 and attempted to pay again contactless. payment failed so credit card inserted with correct pin (twice) - computer says payment declined then pin blocked. Then used a different card which worked immediately. By now its nearly 5 O'clock so no chance of sorting in person at a branch. phoned the bank once home and I'm told that the problem was the point of sale terminal not them but I have to visit an ATM to unlock it.

If this is correct, why did the alternative card work without issue? Annoyed as this will now mean a 30 mile round trip to sort
 
Not sure why your bank did that but I don't understand why they do lots of things.
Online I booked and paid for 2 gites in France, no problem - they know I am going to France now
Online I booked and paid for 2 hotels in France, overnight stops, no problem - they definitely know I am going to France
Online I booked a return trip on Le Shuttle. All of a sudden I need to verify and then confirm and then say I am sure and positive that I definitely want to go to France and come back
Why not query the first payments, I have never used this card for foreign trips before so surely that should have triggered something.
 
Suvv said:
Why not query the first payments, I have never used this card for foreign trips before so surely that should have triggered something.
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It could be an indication that your bank has created (quite possibly sensible) rules for detecting fraud and that some of them are working transparently with your current customer profile but others are not.

The Shuttle tickets might have triggered a security alert, the reason being that the return portion of the ticket could be used to bring in someone who should not be allowed in. Such scams have been reported in the past. Obviously I'm guessing about what could be causing such a situation and the cause could be something else entirely.
 
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