zxDaveM Posted December 8, 2017 Share Posted December 8, 2017 2 hours ago, AnneMarriott said: There's a small area of woodland opposite our house, mainly oak trees. The council sends the street sweeper along at about 7.30 am on a random day of their choosing. Needless to say all the residents' cars are still parked so the sweeper drives along the middle of the road sweeping up nothing at all. Even if one neighbour rushes out to move a car the sweeper can't get to the kerb to clear their little space. Now the leaves have accumulated into a blanket so thick that we can't see the kerb at all. I've tried to clear my front and back garden in order to stop the lawn being swamped but every time there's a puff of wind or someone moves their car all the leaves just blow about and resettle where I've cleared them. Maddening! Monty don would have you collecting up those leaves to make leaf mould to mulch the flower beds with! :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnneMarriott Posted December 8, 2017 Share Posted December 8, 2017 3 hours ago, zxDaveM said: Monty don would have you collecting up those leaves to make leaf mould to mulch the flower beds with! :-) Yes, and I do - but there are too many! And oak leaves take several years to rot down into usable leaf mould and I have the last five years' worth still stacked up in black bags by the compost bin! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melody Posted December 9, 2017 Share Posted December 9, 2017 I have no idea what these leaf-blower operators are thinking. If they don't haul the piles of leaves away after they've collected them, they might as well not bother to blow them in the first place because they'll be back again at the first breath of wind. What a waste of time and money. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted December 10, 2017 Share Posted December 10, 2017 Friends of mine were busy decorating the local parish church this afternoon. I suspect they hadn't been home for lunch, but they were hungry and decided to ring for a pizza from a certain well-known chain which shall remain nameless (although an "H" is involved ). They were told it was company policy not to deliver to places of worship in case it caused offence to their delivery people! Whatever next?! Refusing to deliver to the local Conservative/Labour/Lib Dem association? 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yaffa Posted December 11, 2017 Share Posted December 11, 2017 11 hours ago, alison said: Friends of mine were busy decorating the local parish church this afternoon. I suspect they hadn't been home for lunch, but they were hungry and decided to ring for a pizza from a certain well-known chain which shall remain nameless (although an "H" is involved ). They were told it was company policy not to deliver to places of worship in case it caused offence to their delivery people! Whatever next?! Refusing to deliver to the local Conservative/Labour/Lib Dem association? Very sad that this is company policy... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colman Posted December 11, 2017 Share Posted December 11, 2017 More likely they felt it's a high risk for bogus orders.There's a surprising number of those. Or people doing stupid stuff like sending ham to synagogues. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melody Posted December 14, 2017 Share Posted December 14, 2017 Same problem over here - people seem to be able to refuse to do parts of their job if they claim it offends their religious sensibilities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinMM Posted December 14, 2017 Share Posted December 14, 2017 Hmmm whatever happened to religious tolerance then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAB Posted December 15, 2017 Share Posted December 15, 2017 I want to put airline failures into room 101. Yesterday I discovered Niki Air has gone into receivership but heard nothing on the news only discovering the story on a remote part of the BBC website. Presumably news stations are unaware that people in Britain do actually use foreign airlines. This is catastrophic for me as I had booked a flight with them from the Canaries to Zurich to hear Bartoli sing in Count Ory. Not now. In fact at this late stage it will be hard enough getting back to UK let alone find a connecting flight to Zurich, most flights are sold out/eye wateringly expensive. The bitterest pill of all is that Lufthansa was planning a bail out but according to the FT was blocked by the EU, though I imagine to comment further on that fact would take me into political territory. There is a ray of hope for the airline as Niki Lauda is considering buying it back (he sold it to now defunct Berlin Air) but I doubt that will be in time to save my opera trip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melody Posted December 18, 2017 Share Posted December 18, 2017 What is it with all these airlines going bankrupt? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pas de Quatre Posted December 18, 2017 Share Posted December 18, 2017 (edited) I fear it is simply that airlines invested in planes and routes, then with the awful political situations or natural disasters, in many previous holiday destinations, holidaymakers are going elsewhere or staying put. Edited December 18, 2017 by Pas de Quatre spelling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAB Posted December 18, 2017 Share Posted December 18, 2017 I wonder if Berlin Air went bust because of the pilot that deliberately crashed the plane? Impossible to find a flight to Zurich on the 3rd , I'm afraid but have got a flight via Madrid (only business class left) for the next day. Zurich Opera House though have changed my ticket so I will see Bartoli after all. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yaffa Posted December 18, 2017 Share Posted December 18, 2017 2 hours ago, Melody said: What is it with all these airlines going bankrupt? An interesting take on this at: Why do European airlines keep going bust?http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/02/news/europe-airlines-monarch-competition/index.html ...Analysts say that more losers could emerge in the coming months as smaller, weaker players come under pressure. "It's primarily an issue of scale and competition," said Rob Byde, a transport analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald. "It's likely you're going to see more consolidation and more failures in the European market." 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taxi4ballet Posted December 18, 2017 Author Share Posted December 18, 2017 Sinusitis. Again. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiz Posted December 18, 2017 Share Posted December 18, 2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pas de Quatre Posted December 19, 2017 Share Posted December 19, 2017 Why do so many people just sign their first name on a Christmas card with no other indication of who it is from? My mother (aged 95) has very poor eyesight so I am helping her with her cards, writing and addressing them, hopefully to the right people! Update on "turbo-charged" springer x collie. He is as lively as expected, but absolutely adorable. Very, very intelligent so actually relatively easy to train, and he learnt to sit, wait, and recall very quickly. So as soon as vaccinations allowed we have been out on walks in the woods and on the beach where he can run around with other dogs, rough & tumble, and charm all the other dog walkers! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 I HATE COMPUTERS!!! My broadband has been rubbish for days, and today I got put on hold for ages while they tried to get to the bottom of it. As a result, my internet provider has incorrectly cancelled my monthly broadband subscription 2 days after inception, and I've spent the past hour trying to get them to reinstate it - they've been claiming I've used my entire monthly allowance in 2 days, which is rubbish. (Spoke to two lesser beings who finally put me in contact with the Big Boss who has apparently reinstated everything just like that, after I'd spent 30 minutes plus trying to argue politely but firmly with the lower ranks!) My antimalware is blocking any access to the internet - and my antivirus is conflicting with it, so they keep having to be reinstalled. Not only that, but said antimalware also seems to be blocking me from opening any Office documents, so I can't get my work done. I've been trying to get a new computer for the past month, and *that's* been a total mess of communication breakdowns. I've effectively lost a whole day's working today trying to sort all these things, or at least some of them, and I have 9 jobs due on Monday! Why do people have to make everything so complicated?! I'm so tempted to go back to pen and paper ... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted January 5, 2018 Share Posted January 5, 2018 And to add insult to injury, my email has been out for the whole of the morning ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quintus Posted February 8, 2018 Share Posted February 8, 2018 Let me put "holiday brain" into Room 101. A condition where the euphoria induced by being somewhere totally relaxed and beautiful leads to abandoning any rational risk evaluation, and hence to a middle aged ballet lover on a month's holiday in Thailand abruptly parting company from his rental scooter and sliding down the filthy concrete road on his bare skin.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted February 8, 2018 Share Posted February 8, 2018 3 hours ago, Quintus said: Let me put "holiday brain" into Room 101. A condition where the euphoria induced by being somewhere totally relaxed and beautiful leads to abandoning any rational risk evaluation, and hence to a middle aged ballet lover on a month's holiday in Thailand abruptly parting company from his rental scooter and sliding down the filthy concrete road on his bare skin.... Oh no... I hope your'e not too badly hurt. Best wishes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quintus Posted February 8, 2018 Share Posted February 8, 2018 3 hours ago, Jan McNulty said: Oh no... I hope your'e not too badly hurt. Best wishes. Thanks Jan - one half of me looks like the skinless man in Hellraiser and my ankle is badly sprained, but it could have been much worse. To my wife's credit, as soon as she saw that I was still breathing she got off the phone to the life insurers and came to help... 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinMM Posted February 8, 2018 Share Posted February 8, 2018 Wishing you a full recovery very soon! Still managing to make us laugh at any rate! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 Rail companies who, for no apparent reason, at the terminus allocate your train to the platform which is (significantly) farthest away despite nearer ones being clear, and to add insult to injury when you finally get there you find there are 4 "dead" carriages up by the buffers and your train (of which you of course need the front end) only starts after that. I should have had plenty of time to make that train - as it was, I barely managed to get seated before the train moved. GRRR!!! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAB Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 Only four out of use carriages Alison? I've had to trudge past more than a dozen on many occasions before now. As you say, with other platforms empty what is the logic of stacking them up like that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 I think your platforms must be longer than mine are, MAB (actually, they are - I remember having to limp all the way down to the front for a train once, but it pulled away before I could get there. I was so injured I couldn't get back up the platform, and just had to wait for another train going to the same destination to pull in to the same set of platforms) - 12 coaches is the maximum that particular platform can take. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petunia Posted February 27, 2018 Share Posted February 27, 2018 Too cold to cycle, at least for me. Underground trains and buses are crammed with people. PEOPLE. With woolly BOBBLE HATS and big chunky HEADPHONES on top of that. Eyes glued to their little screens, they step into the carriage and JUST STOP THERE. Wearing BACKPACKS, they have absolutely no spatial awareness whatsoever and they don’t budge. But sometimes they turn around and then their backpacks wreak havoc. And I never say anything. Sometimes I’m tutting a little (must be the heritage of my English Gran) but I have VERY AGGRESSIVE THOUGHTS. Please come Spring. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted February 27, 2018 Share Posted February 27, 2018 Comforting to know it's not just in the UK that happens I'm going to nominate whoever it was who omitted to salt Hungerford Bridge (sorry, can never remember its new name) today. (For those of you who don't know, it's the pedestrian footbridge which runs across the Thames between Embankment and the South Bank next to the railway bridge going into Charing Cross.) It's a major pedestrian artery between CHX and Waterloo, and is on the eastern side of the rail bridge, so completely exposed to the Siberian winds that have been bringing the snow in. It was rapidly getting to be like an ice rink, and indeed I did a major detour via the Underground to avoid it on the way back. Oh, and the approach on either side is via a long set of stairs, providing more slip opportunities . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiz Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 I don’t like Hungerford Bridge at the best of times. It sounds even more awful than normal. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quintus Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 People who continue to drive at speed in the snow and ice. Yesterday morning there were three cars and vans in ditches within a mile of our house - I found driving at 15mph was absolutely fine and gave time to react to skids; but people were still trying to do 30mph. I don't care if they end up in ditches, but if someone hits you because they are driving like an idiot in the snow, even if you are not injured you can write off your insurance NCB, as the insurers will all go 'knock for knock'. Masses of snow here today - we're hunkering down doors! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 Stay safe Quintus! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mary Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 Went down to make coffee and there was a little group of birds sitting by the back door waiting for me, feathers all fluffed up, looking steadily up at the kitchen window. I sighed and put a raincoat on over my dressing gown- went out to feed and water them- the watering can I had left full, was frozen like a rock to the path and unusable..I had to shovel snow to clear a path to put some food down and get a kettle to the bird bath.... Got shivering back into bed eventually then realised I had snow on my feet. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiz Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 So are we, Quintus. It’s pretty bad here in Lincoln. The city is gridlocked and my daughters are walking to walk in near white out conditions. I’m glad we have enough food to last until the weekend. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAB Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 30 minutes ago, Mary said: Went down to make coffee and there was a little group of birds sitting by the back door waiting for me, feathers all fluffed up, looking steadily up at the kitchen window. I sighed and put a raincoat on over my dressing gown- went out to feed and water them- the watering can I had left full, was frozen like a rock to the path and unusable..I had to shovel snow to clear a path to put some food down and get a kettle to the bird bath.... Got shivering back into bed eventually then realised I had snow on my feet. Mary, I think you're lovely, what a kind thing to do. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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