[Segata]

Mind you some of those cars were managing that with less power than your average fart which did make it quite impressive and 70mph in an old Mini can get a little hairy, it's bad enough in a Mates Kack where the crumple zones are still essentially your face and buttocks so the addition of air bags was probably pointless.

 

[tangerinedream]

When visiting Birmingham we now park on the Snow hill multistory,that unfortunately brings a tear to my eye when I think of the magnificent station architecture and steam engines it's replaced, however I digress, before we used to park at a large city centre hotel multistory just of the inner ring road near the police station and the old Birmingham mail newspaper building.

This multistory had a card option about fifteen years ago, returning to the ticket machine after Xmas shopping to pay about £12, it took the card in and then out in an instant, didn't have to press buttons for your pin number , remember being horrified that if I'd dropped my card somewhere,someone could have paid for far more parking than that.

 

[Trisha]

Expensive watery strawberries and tasteless cream, lots of grunting, tears and tantrums, blue-blazered bores and celebs no one's ever heard of. Yep, it's that time again. Le Mans ends and Wimbledon starts.

It's everything for which beds, blankets and pillows were invented.

 

[Gripping Pneus]

An apposite anecdote. When Jackie Stewart was asked how he justified earning so much he replied “Bjorn Borg earns the same as me but if he makes a mistake all he gets is a green stain on his arse”

 

[gasowder]

Another JYS quip I'd never heard before appeared in the "BRM: Racing for Britain" book review in last month's Motor Sport magazine.

Regarding the 1965 Rover BRM turbine car being so slow on the Mulsanne straight they were being passed by Triumph Spitfires

 

[Segata]

Well camera was having none of it, I twisted my good ankle and several command strips were duds but my Neon sign is finally up and will hopefully remind me that things can be good.
Now to embrace my inner child once more and design a Ray Gun for my Robot, got no choice in growing old but who said I had to grow up eh?

 

[arthur64]

Not for the first time, I'm grumpy about the continued, growing, enforcement of "cashless society".

I've been away for a couple of days. I stayed at a Travelodge. When I got there I was absolutely parched. They have a refrigerated vending machine which takes cash, but it was sold-out of drinks. OK, it happens. Next door was a Macdonalds. I wouldn't usually frequent such a place, but needs must - or not, as it turned-out. They don't have a human order/payment interface. You have to do it on a touchscreen and pay by card. I walked-out, vowing to never darken the door of any of their outlets again. If there had been a human order/payment interface I might have gone to get my card, but I ended-up going without.
While out-and-about, I decided to visit a canalside walk. There is a charge for car parking, which I don't mind. But what I do object to is that the ticket dispensing machine doesn't take cash, only contactless card payment. I had a choice - remove the car somewhere that would mean a long walk back to the canal, or rake through all my stuff in the car to find my bank card. I reluctantly chose the latter.

I probably wouldn't mind quite so much if there was obvious signage warning that cash isn't accepted on the premises/site. But I had a good look at both places and couldn't see any.

M6 Toll is card only

 

[Segata]

I'm suprised they haven't gone the way of Dartford with that one, online pay or account or pop into a shop in the area to pay it like with Congestion charge with the Midnight grace period, mind you most tolls are for greed now anyway as the roads, tunnels and bridges are more than paid for.

 

[Segata]

Stuck awake again so I thought I'd look online for something I've been in need of for a while, a Label maker, as my crude hand made ones fade and the stamped tape stuff should outlast me.

I don't know how it's slipped by me but I can't be the only one who thinks £15 is an insane price for something that mechanically stamps letters into tape, even the cheapo chinese knock offs aren't far behind which makes them somewhat redundant.
Home bargins are at about 11-12 quid but thats still mad to me given these have existed since the war years and are or atleast were commonplace in places like schools, libraries or offices, I'd have thought they'd be around the fiver atleast.

Bring on the knock out stuff Thursday.

 

[Kit Spackman]

I'm suprised they haven't gone the way of Dartford with that one, online pay or account or pop into a shop in the area to pay it like with Congestion charge with the Midnight grace period, mind you most tolls are for greed now anyway as the roads, tunnels and bridges are more than paid for.

I'm UN-grumpy about the way sanity prevailed in this neck of the woods when they took the tolls OFF the two Severn Bridges once the 'renters' had been and gone. About time too........

 

[Segata]

Woke up to Mother announcing the Creature had invited her to join it and it's Offspring in a trip to the Range (which translates to lets visit half the town and you pay for it) so I thought great I'll get some stuff done, went in the Kitchen and while dodging Mothers obstecale course of s**t that would make a hoarder weep I ended up ramming my Toe on my still twinging foot into the Fridge which is still weeping now hours later.
Attempted to make a toastie with the Farmhouse bread and couldn't get the B**tard off the Pan despite buttering the pan to a level it could pass as a swamp.
After the escapade was over I sat down to draw out more designs (its serious work making rayguns you know) only for loud thunder outside to terrify the Pooch into needing to sit on my Lap (he's a Geryhound/Saluki Lurcher, so a large sack of elbows) so had to put things aside.
It then occured to me I hadn't fixed my trousers for Thursday so I went hunting for the thread I'd bought dodging and darting more of Mothers obstacles for me to then stand on a needle threader with that same foot, launching the buttons she'd stashed with my thread everywhere and then the Dog joined in the fun by leaving several toys for me to tread on.

On the brightside Covid test 1 is negative so its just Wednesdays and I'm cleared if I don't end up in A&E in the mean time.

 

[Trisha]

Posting a small package abroad from my local village post office today proved, as on past occasions, to be on a par with attempting to persuade a 3-legged parrot reading chemistry at Oxford to switch to woodwork in Manchester.

"A tricky one, Jeeves, eh?"

"Yes, Sir. As Shakespeare regularly said: " What a load of b****ks."

 

[Segata]

That is why I let the Global shipping programme deal with it, they may be bloody awful but it's still less annoying than going through all the Spiel for international stuff.

 

[Kit Spackman]

Posting some home printed decals to a friend in Australia raised the tension level to 'critical' at the Post Office the other day. She asked me what was in the envelope and I replied 'Printed matter', one of their 'approved items', and I was asked 'What SORT of printed matter?'. Apparently 'model aircraft decals' was NOT one of their 'approved items' and would need a full declaration.

I demurred and took the stuff to another PO, some miles away, where it went through with no problems..............

 

[Segata]

Just say stickers, their brains can process that as the computer doesn't say no, usually though all it boils down to is an extra sticker so that if it's on the dangerous list it's trod on a little less hard by the sorting staff.
I generally always use the shop type ones, i.e not staffed by Royal Mail as they operate with more common sense and will not argue if it doesn't fit their template order (the occasion where one got in a semi screaming match with me then being near mute over the buyer of a Car Radio not wanting insurance was quite memorable) as long as it fits the brackets and isnt listed as prohibited.

 

[Segata]

So I've woken up groggy again, eventually I will have to get up and get things done as a Mr Dickinson of Iron Maiden once said (Trisha don't search it) The Sands of Time for me are running low although its not 5 o'clock they take me to the Gallows but 2 ish dependant on Theatre queue and if everythings kosher drugs and vitals wise.

After much inspiration I did do a final design for my Robots Laser Cannon (it's serious business I'll have you know getting these Toy Robots well armed to defend the walls and from the Mrs when she's on the warpath), I didn't go vintage Ray Gun as it didn't suit his overall style so its a ridged section devided into 4 over 2 Barrels (matching his arm and leg details) and the main body more akin to the 70's and 80's gun designs with a speed stripe that I'll fade match to the one on his Bonce to give it a little weathering and aging (as I don't want to refresh his appearence to leave him battle hardened as bar the Battery door his plastics are good and stickers are just slightly sun faded), I'll also try and figure out a way to make the lazer look glowing without adding light.

 

[Segata]

Well Chaps, see you on the otherside as I doubt I'll have access until I get home.

 

[Segata]

Annnnd I'm back, wait sucked but the [email protected] are finally gone, came to realitively well so they let me go although although I'm not allowed to touch anything, be alone or lock the door while I poo so it's going to be so fun when the Ancient one arrives as she has no boundries and can't hear my current voice volume.
Can't hide at the desk either as I'm banned from touching the fun stuff for a couple of days even if it would help distract from the pain.

 

[GDSLOT]

Glad you feel a bit better mate

 

[GDSLOT]

Im grumpy because I wanted to do some car painting and the airbrush got clogged and made a mess, then all the cleaning with thinner etc made my stomach feel a bit uncomfortable 😣 like if I was about to vomit 🤢, fortunately didn’t happen but lost all the afternoon for nothing 😒, damn airthing.