WAMT....what annoyed me today!

Jelster said:
I was taught that Latin had a large influence on what is now known as English, and you only have to look at some nouns & verbs to see that they are similar in many Latin based languages. "True English" is what they speak in Cornwall, which is similar to Welsh (lot's of L's in everything)....
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My highlight. I had to laugh at this. It brought back memories. I once worked with a chap from Castleford, West Yorkshire and he insisted that it was Yorkshire people who spoke 'proper' english.. 'original' english.

The reason he said this was that, as a working group of six in Germany ,we asked him why he was using words like 'thee..thysen..mee-sen.. hissen, herssen ..yersel. Thar was for you and thar-sen yourself.. For the word 'those' when pointing at a few items he'd say 'them thea' . I heard him say to a shopkeeper."Gee us some of them thea appuls" The German lady said,"Bitte?".meaning pardon..so he repeated it. "Them thea..them appuls, gee-us some of them". I had to tell the lady, in German, what he wanted. He insisted on calling the Hauptbahnhof (main railway station) the 'offbonof' and when a German told him that cycling across the bridge (over the river Main) was 'verboten and it's 'ausgeschildert (signposted) this chap replied ,looking at his watch."Eef past two" Quite often some of us would go to the local swimming pool and I recall one day when a couple of us got out he said he'd stay "while I'm knackered" I thought it was strange to carry on with an activity 'while you were knackered'. Surely,time to stop. So..it wasn't until we were at a tram stop a few days later and had just missed one and decided to walk to the next one as it was by a forest and asked if he was cominhg with us he said "Nah, I'll wait while tram comes" So.. 'while' meant 'until'. So, in the pool he was going to carrry on swimnming 'until' he was knackered not 'while he was knackered' Lol.

Infact ,a lot of words used in Yorkshire are Nordic-based and ironically (for him) rooted in Old Norse and Old English languages which were closely related and came from the same Germanic origin.
 
Nod said:
NEVER heard Cornish being spoken, other than in demonstrations on TV.
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Neither have I. AFAIK, Cornish is a Celtic language and shares roots with Welsh and Breton. It became more or less extinct, but lingered on to a very limited extent and has enjoyed something of a revival.
 
Nod said:
NEVER heard Cornish being spoken, other than in demonstrations on TV.
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Nor me, but as a native Cornishman who grew up in a small village in the 1950's speaking the Cornish dialect; I know from experience that even the dialect can be very difficult to understand.;)
 
JohnC6 said:
My highlight. I had to laugh at this. It brought back memories. I once worked with a chap from Castleford, West Yorkshire and he insisted that it was Yorkshire people who spoke 'proper' english.. 'original' english.

The reason he said this was that, as a working group of six in Germany ,we asked him why he was using words like 'thee..thysen..mee-sen.. hissen, herssen ..yersel. Thar was for you and thar-sen yourself.. For the word 'those' when pointing at a few items he'd say 'them thea' . I heard him say to a shopkeeper."Gee us some of them thea appuls" The German lady said,"Bitte?".meaning pardon..so he repeated it. "Them thea..them appuls, gee-us some of them". I had to tell the lady, in German, what he wanted. He insisted on calling the Hauptbahnhof (main railway station) the 'offbonof' and when a German told him that cycling across the bridge (over the river Main) was 'verboten and it's 'ausgeschildert (signposted) this chap replied ,looking at his watch."Eef past two" Quite often some of us would go to the local swimming pool and I recall one day when a couple of us got out he said he'd stay "while I'm knackered" I thought it was strange to carry on with an activity 'while you were knackered'. Surely,time to stop. So..it wasn't until we were at a tram stop a few days later and had just missed one and decided to walk to the next one as it was by a forest and asked if he was cominhg with us he said "Nah, I'll wait while tram comes" So.. 'while' meant 'until'. So, in the pool he was going to carrry on swimnming 'until' he was knackered not 'while he was knackered' Lol.

Infact ,a lot of words used in Yorkshire are Nordic-based and ironically (for him) rooted in Old Norse and Old English languages which were closely related and came from the same Germanic origin.
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You obviously are still fluent in Yorklish John ㋡. He was right to the extent that many of those forms were used in English. Having lived here for 30 or so years and mixing mostly with people with connections to the land I hardly notice them and I know I deliberately use some pronunciations myself to avoid confusing the natives — eg I would say dooks rather than ducks. As I’ve mentioned before, I find it fascinating that they still pronounce doubled letters separately as in bayest for beast and that beast is still used for cow (I never realised before that the ‘beast of burden‘ was a bullock).

I referred to National Service earlier and one of the few advantages was that one mixed with people from all over U.K. so that you got used to regional accents in the days when the BBC was entirely RP.
 
Nod said:
NEVER heard Cornish being spoken, other than in demonstrations on TV.
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When we lived in the extreme west of Devon, about 50 years ago, there were occassional "stage Cornish" to be found in the local pubs, nattering away.

My wife, whose father was Cornish, had a smattering and was known to giggle uncontrollably when these characters said something (apparently) nonsensical. :naughty:
 
The fools panic buying petrol to save a couple of quid
Same ones who then sit in the Costa drive through queue wasting petrol and spending four quid on a coffee

Miss out the coffee, saves queuing at two places and be no worse off
 
Yep, went to Tesco early friday morning when it's nice a quiet, filled up in an empty petrol station, then the news came about panic buy in and the queues started to form everywhere.
If the media hadn't said most people wouldn't have a clue, I certainly didn't until later that day and would have been grounded through having an empty fuel tank !!
 
DHL

Impossible to speak to a human in their organisation and their online 'things' are shi1te.
 
Banks, been with the same bank for 20+ years they recently merged with another bank and their new and improved system is anything but. Everything used to be on their online banking but they recently decided for "business reasons" to move their credit card out of the online banking and on to it's own app. The process of paying your credit card has now gone from a simple process to a complicated one that doesn't work, for some reason online banking and the app don't talk to each other so after filling in all the details on the app to pay you credit card you then have to go to your online banking to authorise the payment, when you login in shows nothing to authorise. you then contact the online banking helpline, lots of button pressing and around 30 minutes on hold to be told it's an app problem and to contact them so a transfer to the app helpline followed by you've guessed it lots of button pressing and around 30 minutes on hold to be told no it's an online banking problem, it's the same bank for f******e. So app scraped, informed them I want paper statements for the first time in I don't know how long and I have set up a payee on my online bank to pay my credit card bill. So much for their new and improved system or as I suspect new revenue stream.
 
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What Annoyed me today...

People who think it's okay to wander into "in memoriam" threads and comment to the effect that they had to google the person who the thread was about.

Now - i've got quite a "robust" sense of humour - veering strongly towards the dark... I'm really, really not easily offended - hell, i'd be on a loser if I was, helping out on here...

but - Any "in memoriam" thread is going to be largely for "fans" of the deceased, so why go in there and p*** on their chips.

There's no shame in not knowing these people - FFS we've such a wide membership, you CAN'T know everyone or put a face/story to a name all the time.

Not knowing isn't an issue - but deliberately going into a in-memoriam thread and saying that's not on.

So, show a bit of feckin' respect - if not necessarily for the person who you don't know - then at least for the fellow members who ARE aware and are moved to comment.




And Breathe....
 
The current fuel prices are becoming a bit of a joke. I live in an area where there is no public transport, the post bus ceased operating about 10 years ago, so motorised transport is a necessity.

The number below are from RAC

What makes up the cost of a litre of diesel?​


Table with 3 columns and 9 rows. Currently displaying rows 1 to 9.
Pence per litre% of total cost
Wholesale diesel (90%)80.9849%
Biofuel content (up to 10%) - B717.1110%
Delivery & oil company2.101%
Retailer margin−19.95−12%
Fuel duty57.9535%
VAT @ 20%27.0516%
Average retail price165.24
Total tax81.20
Tax as % of average retail price49%

To reduce costs in this current climate may I suggest HMRC and the multi-millionaire Chancellor of the Exchequer do the following:

Replace the Biofuel content with diesel, the wholesale shift to a green energy policy is currently out of the window, .... saving 9p/l. Stop charging VAT on the fuel duty portion of the fuel cost ... taxing a tax saving around 12p/l and finally price cap the retailer margin to a fixed price per litre of say 10p/l and not a price as a percentage of the fuel costs ... saving around 10p/l.

Adopting the above would reduce current diesel costs by approx. 32p/l ... a bit less of a bitter pill to swallow.
 
A shell station near me has E10 at £176.9 and diesel at £199.9, a few miles another Shell station is at £155.7 and 159.7, guess which one is busy, I think the first (in Leven Fife) may have problems selling fuel to locals in the future whilst a Morrisons hundreds of yards away is heaving due to their sensible pricing structure.
 
mj4456 said:
A shell station near me has E10 at £176.9 and diesel at £199.9, a few miles another Shell station is at £155.7 and 159.7, guess which one is busy, I think the first (in Leven Fife) may have problems selling fuel to locals in the future whilst a Morrisons hundreds of yards away is heaving due to their sensible pricing structure.
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My bold..


Shouldn't that be pence, Martin ? :D

That would cost us £7965 to fill our car from empty. :)
 
JohnC6 said:
My bold..


Shouldn't that be pence, Martin ? :D

That would cost us £7965 to fill our car from empty. :)
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Oops, yes should be pence although in general it’s the lower figures that seem to be the normal, hoping things stabilise a bit nearer Easter, going down to Wales for a car club weekend, at circa 20mpg my Honda is not the most economical of the two cars in our garage, and it drinks super unleaded too.
 
mj4456 said:
Oops, yes should be pence although in general it’s the lower figures that seem to be the normal, hoping things stabilise a bit nearer Easter, going down to Wales for a car club weekend, at circa 20mpg my Honda is not the most economical of the two cars in our garage, and it drinks super unleaded too.
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Easter. April 17 so 5 weeks away. Today Brent crude is selling at $110 a barrel. It recently hit $139. In 2021 it was $61 a barrel It's the second day of drops
which should, hopefully, at least slow, if not stop the spiralling pump prices in the next week or so as retailers buy new stock at the lower prices. Problem is that they will be reluctant to lower their prices for fear of being caught out in such a volatile market.

20mpg ? Wow. That could be an expensive weekend, Martin. I hope things make a turn for the better before then but who knows.
 
JohnC6 said:
Problem is that they will be reluctant to lower their prices for fear of being caught out in such a volatile market.
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You mean for fear of damaged their profits.
We all know that if it does drop, it'll never be what it was ( around 143.9) before hand.
They are fast enough to put it up to the "new price" and yet when "You" ask why it hasn't dropped, apparently they are still using the
higher priced fuel. Yeah right :(
 
Cobra said:
You mean for fear of damaged their profits.
We all know that if it does drop, it'll never be what it was ( around 143.9) before hand.
They are fast enough to put it up to the "new price" and yet when "You" ask why it hasn't dropped, apparently they are still using the
higher priced fuel. Yeah right :(
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My Bold in your post:

Er...No. I didn't ask why it [the pump price] hasn't dropped. I've checked my post word for word and I definitely didn't say that and I really can't see how you interpreted it that way let alone read it that way.

What I did say was, that with the reduction in Brent 'it would hopefully slow, if not drop, the spiralling prices [at the pumps] then gave a reason why I thought it wouldn't. ie they'd be caught out in such a volatile market with a price spike. I don't see anywhere in that sentence where I ask why it hasn't dropped..on the contrary, I give a reason why I think it hasn't and might not, drop.

As you say, the last time petrol was 144p was 21st November 2021 and Brent,at that time, was $80 barrel..Taking the $139 level a few days ago that's a 75% increase. Petrol in the same period from 144p to 160p is just over 11%. Overall, the RAC put forecourt profits at 2%. In total, they estimate that at today’s prices, the cost of fuel accounts for 45% of the forecourt price, with the rest coming from taxes, including fuel duty and VAT and transport costs .By the way..8% accounts for the increased costs of the new E10 grade. The real villain in all this is the government. At the moment wholesale prices and fuel duty amount to 126.92p per litre, VAT adds a further 25.28p to the cost. How can it be right to charge tax on tax ? ie VAT on fuel duty and fuel duty is currently 57.95p per litre for petrol and diesel.

Re your other point. Ever since I put the first gallon of petrol into my first car I've been aware that a rise in crude oil prices is swiftly followed by price increases at the pumps but when it come to a drop in crude prices we don't see a corresponding immediate drop at the pumps and this is explained by the fact that oil purchases (the start of the production line to petrol/diesel) is carried out on the futures markets. As you know the banks do the same iun relatiuoin to the base rate. Quick to increase their rates with a BoE rate rise but slow vice versa. Infact,with a drop banks sometimes don't follow if it's something like a point 25%.drop.

So...there you have it and just a gentle reminder..:D I didn't ask why the price of petrol hasn't dropped. :)
 
JohnC6 said:
Er...No. I didn't ask why it [the pump price] hasn't dropped.
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hence why you was in quotes..
Perhaps I should have said "if you" ask.
But I thought it was plain enough ...

And yet when "You" ask why it hasn't dropped, apparently they are still using the
higher priced fuel. Yeah right :(

JohnC6 said:
So...there you have it and just a gentle reminder..:D I didn't ask why the price of petrol hasn't dropped. :)
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And I CBA'd to read everything else above that as I'm guessing that it was irrelevant to my post :p
 
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JohnC6 said:
20mpg ? Wow. That could be an expensive weekend, Martin. I hope things make a turn for the better before then but who knows.
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At "fun" pace it can easily half, 7-9k revs it just absorbs fuel, but hey ho it's about smiles per mile. Or so I keep telling myself.
 
mj4456 said:
but hey ho it's about smiles per mile. Or so I keep telling myself.
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I don't don't go far these days, although I can eke out a little more than you,
but as you say, its about all about the SPM (y)
 
mj4456 said:
At "fun" pace it can easily half, 7-9k revs it just absorbs fuel, but hey ho it's about smiles per mile. Or so I keep telling myself.
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I've tried driving my JCW in "Green Mode". It takes all the fun out of it, and, being an auto, it keeps itself in higher gears, so I find myself actually entering bends faster than I normally would. Plus, when I push the loud pedal, it's like somebody's stuffed cotton wool in my ears. However, my normal tank range did go from about 275-280 miles, to well over 350.

So, Sport mode it is then :ROFLMAO:
 
My wife brought home a Times newspaper today and handed it to me saying that I probably wouldn't like the front page. She was right.

Inside the paper were several Ukraine-related stories..'Chemical attacks feared as city hit by phosphourus bombs' 'Putin and Biden learn lessons from Syria's gassing of civilians' 'FSB whistleblower says protesters in captured city face 'geat terror'

On the left side of the front page was a headline 'Ukrainian troops are running out of weapons' Alongside it was a large photograph of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in scuba gear very close to a large..obviously benign..shark off Belize. I'm not suggesting there shouldn't have been a place for them but inside not on the front page. In the circumstances it was inappropriate. Infact, there was s an article inside, too. I could have posted in WCMUT, too. There was a small demo against them in a village in Belize and the venue had to be changed. Then,on camera, meeting the PM of Jamaica he told them that his country is “moving on” and intends to become a republic. Prince William looked uncomfortable. There was a demonstration against them there too and open letter addressed to the Cambridges , signed by 100 campaigners, was delivered to the British high commission yesterday and it stated that the Queen had “done nothing to redress or atone for the suffering of our ancestors that took place during her reign and during the entire period of British trafficking of Africans, enslavement and colonisation.

It's nothing less than a charm offensive following the replacement of the Queen as head of state in Barbados last December.

Who pays ? Sovereign Grant..so the taxpayer . Jamaica, British Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (taxpayer) .

Recent visits to other Commonwealth countries where the Queen is head of state have seen host countries pay significant costs, including for royal travel and accommodation. When William and Kate went to Australia and New Zealand in 2014 with Prince George, that visit cost the Australian taxpayer not far off half a million Australian dollars not including security. And when the family visited Canada in 2016, the Canadian taxpayers also picked up a huge bill.

Boris & co could do with hiring the PR team for the Cambridges.
 
JohnC6 said:
and it stated that the Queen had “done nothing to redress or atone for the suffering of our ancestors that took place during her reign and during the entire period of British trafficking of Africans, enslavement and colonisation.
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I didn't realise that we had slave's 70 years ago. I think just about everybody agrees that slavery and the trafficking of humans is abohrant. Why do we, the people of today, have to keep apologising for the actions of 3 generations ago when we all know it was wrong, but in those times, commonplace. It's like asking a modern day German to apologise for the holocaust. We know it was wrong, we have, in the past made statements to this effect.

You can't keep saying sorry for something you didn't do.....
 
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I ordered something and it came via Royal Mail today. It was late but it came. On it was a large sticker saying "PLEASE DO NOT BEND."

Did they?

What do you think?

Of course they did :mad:
 
Jelster said:
I didn't realise that we had slave's 70 years ago. I think just about everybody agrees that slavery and the trafficking of humans is abohrant. Why do we, the people of today, have to keep apologising for the actions of 3 generations ago when we all know it was wrong, but in those times, commonplace. It's like asking a modern day German to apologise for the holocaust. We know it was wrong, we have, in the past made statements to this effect.

You can't keep saying sorry for something you didn't do.....
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We did and still do and by we I don't mean the British but the human race. Slavery is rife through out the world but rather than highlighting it and trying to put an end to it they would rather focus on thing that happened hundreds of years ago, slavery was abolished in British colonies in the 1830's so depending on the definition anything from 6-9 generations ago.
What happened in the past is exactly that in the past there is nothing you can do to change it all you can do is learn from those mistakes and try to ensure that they don't happen again.

Along but interesting read.

www.theguardian.com

One in 200 people is a slave. Why?

It affects more than 40 million people worldwide – more than at any other time in history
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
tarric said:
We did and still do and by we I don't mean the British but the human race. Slavery is rife through out the world but rather than highlighting it and trying to put an end to it they would rather focus on thing that happened hundreds of years ago, slavery was abolished in British colonies in the 1830's so depending on the definition anything from 6-9 generations ago.
What happened in the past is exactly that in the past there is nothing you can do to change it all you can do is learn from those mistakes and try to ensure that they don't happen again.

Along but interesting read.

www.theguardian.com

One in 200 people is a slave. Why?

It affects more than 40 million people worldwide – more than at any other time in history
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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Sort of my point. When I say "we", I meant the average British public. No doubt there are slaves, even here, but we all know how unacceptable it is.
 
I had to visit the hospital today so I went online and checked the parking charges. These were cash only and pay in advance so I ensured that I had enough £1 coins to pay for 4 hours.
On arriving at the car park lots of people were crowded around the machine as it was not accepting cash and you had to use the App or phone a number to pay by card. I phoned the number to be told by an automatic voice that I had to have an account. In view of that I downloaded the app and entered all my details after which I got a message that my parking would end at 13:36.
In the waiting room I mentioned this to someone and he asked if I had got a confirmation email, I said that I hadn't and he said that the payment had probably failed but that I should be able to pay within 48 hours.
On returning to the car park after less than 1 hour I again tried to pay but this time my card was declined, I then tried 2 other cards which were also declined.
On arriving home I tried to contact the operators of the parking but there is no number to call so I created an account and tried to find the location number of the car park but it did not exist! Luckily I had taken a photo of the notices for the charges and the location number was on that.
I then paid for 1 hours parking which commenced at 11:05, nearly 1 hour after I had left the car park.
I finally found a Contact Us link hidden away on the website and could submit a query. I have no idea what their response will be.
Technology is so wonderful - When it works.
 
Suvv said:
I had to visit the hospital today so I went online and checked the parking charges. These were cash only and pay in advance so I ensured that I had enough £1 coins to pay for 4 hours.
On arriving at the car park lots of people were crowded around the machine as it was not accepting cash and you had to use the App or phone a number to pay by card. I phoned the number to be told by an automatic voice that I had to have an account. In view of that I downloaded the app and entered all my details after which I got a message that my parking would end at 13:36.
In the waiting room I mentioned this to someone and he asked if I had got a confirmation email, I said that I hadn't and he said that the payment had probably failed but that I should be able to pay within 48 hours.
On returning to the car park after less than 1 hour I again tried to pay but this time my card was declined, I then tried 2 other cards which were also declined.
On arriving home I tried to contact the operators of the parking but there is no number to call so I created an account and tried to find the location number of the car park but it did not exist! Luckily I had taken a photo of the notices for the charges and the location number was on that.
I then paid for 1 hours parking which commenced at 11:05, nearly 1 hour after I had left the car park.
I finally found a Contact Us link hidden away on the website and could submit a query. I have no idea what their response will be.
Technology is so wonderful - When it works.
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I really hate it when websites don't have straight forward contact information. I would like to see it made law that all sites hosted in the UK, and those hosted overseas but to UK companies, must have basic easy access of the company's contact information.

Parking companies are some of the worst...
 
Fuji Dave said:
Having to make so many appointments for getting hospital tests to see if I have cancer, as my weight has dropped a lot now under 9 stone.
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Fingers crossed that it all works out for the best Dave :)
 
There were flakes in the air down here in sunny Devon this afternoon. Blazing sunshine and the ground was warm enough for the flakes to sublime rather than melt.
 
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