Rant of the Day v2.

[Capetonian]

Things have never been the same since we had this gorgeous young Polish cleaning lady who used to alternate between mini-skirts, tight jeans, and (I think they're called) yoga pants. Always with a tight white top. I forgave her most of her crimes around the house. And no I don't have any photos for you old perves!

The current one has this obsession with reorganising everything into little plastic bakkies, so that every time I need to find something, I have to take out the whole bakkie to search for it. She has no idea what goes where so all my cooking and table things are in utterly illogical disorder - sorry - it's woman's logic which as we all know doesn't deserve the term logic. If she had the physical attributes or even the personality of beautiful Magda I could forgive her, perhaps!

[Rwy in Sight]

Things have never been the same since we had this gorgeous young Polish cleaning lady who used to alternate between mini-skirts, tight jeans, and (I think they're called) yoga pants. Always with a tight white top. I forgave her most of her crimes around the house. And no I don't have any photos for you old perves!

A very serious omittance Cape on the Polish lasse. I feel for having to cope with misplaced stuff.

[Pontius Navigator]

I am glad Cape mentioned yoga pants as I confess that the current UK fashion of dispending with skirts or pants is quite distracting.

[ian16th]

Tubeless tyres. Are they a success?

I had a soft tyre today; crawled into a filling station and topped up the air, did my business and went to my tyre shop.

Car jacked up, wheel off, lots of air put in and soapy water shows bubbles at a spot on the rim.

Tyre removed, rim cleaned and tyre refitted, balanced, put back on car.

Thank you sir, R50!

This is quite a regular occurrence due to potholed roads.

Why can't I fit a tube? Do they still make them?

[Rwy in Sight]

Tubeless tyres. Are they a success?

I had a soft tyre today; crawled into a filling station and topped up the air, did my business and went to my tyre shop.

Car jacked up, wheel off, lots of air put in and soapy water shows bubbles at a spot on the rim.

Tyre removed, rim cleaned and tyre refitted, balanced, put back on car.

Thank you sir, R50!

This is quite a regular occurrence due to potholed roads.

Why can't I fit a tube? Do they still make them?

They used to but our knowledge is definitely out of date.

[jimtherev]

Way back when the world was young I used to do a lot of rallying. Non-radial tyres still common, tubed of course. With radial came tubeless, and, because of the terrible tracks we used, disturbed tyres on the rims.. and changing a wheel up a mud track at 2 in the morning, with competitors passing by one a minute was interesting.
So to the tyre dealer: 'Can you put tubes in these, my man?'
'No guv'. The tyres are made to flex and they fret against the tube. You'd get more punctures that way, rather than less.'
Course, that was then. Everything's changed by now.

[Pontius Navigator]

Bikes have tubed tyres. Most bikes have spokes so maybe tubeless would not work. Cars used to have spokes . . .

Do motor bikes have tubed tyres?

Certainly for vintage cars they have tubed tyres.

[ExSp33db1rd]

Do motor bikes have tubed tyres?

Mine does.

New Rant .... NZ Electricity Companies (domestic supply providers) have long given a reasonable discount for prompt payment of each month's bill, so the savvy, and solvent, arrange with the bank to accept Direct Debit payment on demand from the Company, and so automatically get the discount without having to think about it.

Some stupid Politician has now proposed a Bill outlawing that arrangement, so if carried I will have to cancel my Direct Debit and withold payment until the last possible moment before incurring a penalty for late payment.

Barsteward.

[Woody]

T5 security , every time I fly out of there, they manage to invent a problem!

MrsWoody has an implant, similar to a pacemaker, so she can’t go through the security arch, she has a card from The National Neurological Hospital that explains this LGW, CPT and even JNB never an issue, T5 ended up calling for the Security Duty Manager

Yesterday on my way to Tokyo, takes my liquids bag out and put it in a tray for x-ray and the charmless female says that bag is too big, replied well it was fine last week, what’s changed? “ Too big for T5”. What a crock of *****

[Rwy in Sight]

Do motor bikes have tubed tyres?

Mine does.

New Rant .... NZ Electricity Companies (domestic supply providers) have long given a reasonable discount for prompt payment of each month's bill, so the savvy, and solvent, arrange with the bank to accept Direct Debit payment on demand from the Company, and so automatically get the discount without having to think about it.

Some stupid Politician has now proposed a Bill outlawing that arrangement, so if carried I will have to cancel my Direct Debit and withold payment until the last possible moment before incurring a penalty for late payment.

Barsteward.

It may not solve the problem but my bank offers me to arrange the payment/transfer of funds any day I like. So it is possible to receive a bill today with a due date let's say the 18th of the month. I go on the e-banking and arrange for the funds to be transferred that day (plus I have the option to "protect" this payment by blocking this amount on my account or leave it to the chance and see if there is any money left by that day. Alternatively the credit card comes handy.

Woody, I was passing security at Larnaca Airport few years ago when a local policewoman decided to confiscate the bag with the liquids because I have not taken them out of my bag for separate screeing. Total cost of the trip 500 Euros cost of the liquids maybe 10 I argued not for the value but for the principal. I offered to put the bag separately in the X-ray machine she offered to confiscate only two of the three little bottles. For some reason that I don't like to consider we did argue in English rather than our mother tongue which after several minutes I thought it was so ridiculous I asked her to switch languages. Finally a much older officer interfere and my bag was liberated.

[Pontius Navigator]

With payments on a fixed date different banks have different procedures.

I have a standing order for American Express for payment on the day due. Where that date is a Saturday or Sunday the payment is delayed until the Monday. They don't charge me interest but I automatically get a failed payment letter.

With Marks and Spencer it is a direct debit. Their due date on a Saturday or Sunday is taken the following Monday. However their statements are not generated until 4 days later; if you pay in that period there is no penalty.

[Ex-Ascot]

Three bloody hours to book two return tickets JNB-ATH with Swiss Air. Crap website. Didn't like our names. Then RBS refused the payment. Ages on the phone to them. Security questions. How the f do I know what my overdraft limit is. Never used it. How the f do I know what I last used my debit card for, I just use the f...ing thing, how the f do I know what day of the month my pension comes in, it just bloody does. No idea what our private health insurance costs it depresses me. Then I need therapy. She then very kindly allowed me to use our money to pay for the airline tickets. So jolly decent of her. 'Is there anything else I can help you with sir'. Very tempted to give a Capt Slasher type reply.

[Capetonian]

Funnily enough I called Swiss yesterday to upgrade my northbound segment to business class, which I thought would result in disagreement since I'd calculated the fare difference myself (at one time I used to train ticket desk agents how to do things like that) and to my surprise the quote they gave me was almost exactly the same as I'd calculated. Fine, paid by card over the phone and no problem.

Then I went onto the Swiss website to book a southbound flight and had the same problem as Ex-A, CC declined, apparently because I had just made a large purchase and the card was on hold until I confirmed the purchase, which I had already done. rang the bank, got a lot of silly questions, I have no idea what my credit/overdraft limit is and they wouldn't accept the answer 'more than enough for what I need'. I have several different pensions going into that account and when I asked 'which one' she said 'I can't tell you' so I said 'the XYZ one goes in on or around the 3rd of them month' and she said : "You have to be more specific" FFS.

Then I tried to book a flight for my wife on the Lufthansa Miles and More crappy website. Each time I tried to log in it told me my password had expired and I had to change it .... which I did .. and got a message saying 'your password has been successfully changed, you may now log in.'

I go to log in and it says 'your password has expired ............'. Unless the validity of the password is less than 60 seconds this is utter *****.

Eventually with the help of the M&M Helpdesk in CPT I was able to log in using my M&M card number and 5 digit pin, but 3 months ago I had an email from them saying that this wouldn't work in future and I would need to use my 'Lufthansa ID' which is not the same as my 'Lufthansa user name' which is my email address.

As a certain Basil said, no wonder they lost the war.

[Ex-Ascot]

Now f...ing Swiss can't cope with our name. 1st f...ing class and they can't cope with your name. Just thrown my toys out of the cot. My name is not Mr Trimmer. Next it will be Mr Strimmer. First name 'Lawn'. Asked for the CEO to contact me. I will not take this *****. I am not even a 'Mr'. They will not even let you put 'Mrs' Mrs Ex-Ascot has to be 'Ms'. Wankers.

[Capetonian]

The LX reservation system won't accept hyphenated names, or accents, FFS they must know that.
The correct format to enter your name is (e.g.) 1SMITH JOHNSON/PETER WILLIAM MR
It can also be entered as 1SMITHJOHNSON/PETER WILLIAM MR but then it all runs together on the documentation.
If I remember correctly the number of characters for the surname field is 16 (might be 24) so you don't exceed that (for the benefit of others I know their real names!)
They can also put any title in free format instead of MR.

I wonder how they would cope with really long names such as Finnish, Thai, or Tamil. Or Brasilian :
Maria Silvia Madalena Gustavo Sampaio da Silva.

[Ex-Ascot]

As you know Cape our name is quadruple barreled but this pathetic attempt to shorten it is an insult. And, what about this Ms thing? Most odd. Anyway flights booked and thanks to your advice seems to be a much better schedule. Sorry we will not be able to say hello to your mates in DXB.

[ExSp33db1rd]

All the above is alright for you young fellas, just wait until you're my age ! The digital age in its many forms is becoming more of a nightmare for the 'older generation'. The grandchildren, who know about these things, are 12,000 miles away and no longer use e-mail, 'instant messaging', text, and the like are their mediums of choice now, so we have lost contact,and nobody seems to use the modern smartphones for actually TALKING to anyone !

Text - my thumbs just refuse to move at the right speed, and I object to having to write messages with no puntuation or capital letters, a bit like the telegraphic messages we used to send from overseas stations, but there was a reason for that, the charges were enormous and reliant on every letter being charged, so abbreviated messages were the order of the day, but that's not so important with todays systems, innit?

[Slasher]

Tru Ex. I don’t dis abbr crap of sdg txt 2 u or any1 else!

[ExSp33db1rd]

Tks.

[Rwy in Sight]

Text - my thumbs just refuse to move at the right speed, and I object to having to write messages with no puntuation or capital letters, a bit like the telegraphic messages we used to send from overseas stations, but there was a reason for that, the charges were enormous and reliant on every letter being charged, so abbreviated messages were the order of the day, but that's not so important with todays systems, innit?

Isn't a bit similar now? There are no charges but we have more message to send in less time.

Kurds decided to have a manifestation at the beginning of evening rush hour. Not a lot of friends were won yesterday.