OT: Awkward Squad

[bert]

In message , Brian Gaff writes

Walking past with a car key accidentally held horizontally and firmly in your hand ought to do the trick

[Adrian]

You expected me to actually click on the link, rather than just going by the URL...?

[GB]

Well done, but surely you could have got into a higher category of swearing if the salesmuppet had actually turned up? I think you missed an opportunity there.

[GB]

I have some friends in the Salvation Army. I woke up one Sunday morning to find about ten of them singing and playing instruments on our front lawn. Very nice it was, too, if somewhat unexpected. :)

[Adrian]

I'm not _that_ big a bastard.

Not on the first time round, anyway.

[Tim Lamb]

In message , tony sayer writes

Hmm.. did you read the conditions before ticking the box?

Upgrades may be charged unless you tell them not to within 10? days in which case they may disable the free version. Or did I misunderstand?

[Adrian]

I was thinking more in terms of them not cold calling either. Having said that, in 13 years at this address, I've only had one "wannabee" ring the bell, and he is standing as an independent for the council next week.

Adrian

[Clive George]

I imagine wheelchair users would be very pleased.

[Bill Wright]

Bill

[Bob Eager]

AS I said before, I can't leave them down for safety reasons.

More importantly, I don't want slow punctures...I want something a bit more dramatic!

[Lobster]

On 17 May 2014, "Brian Gaff" grunted:

There's a tit down our road who insists on doing that (for no good reason). He's also the same tit who doesn't cut the massive hedge in his front garden from one year to the next (go figure), which means that the most of the pavement which is not blocked by his BMW is clogged up by his hedge.

I always meant to leave a note under his windscreen wiper to the effect of "I often bring my wheelchair/pushchair down here and have real problems getting past, and I'm REALLY worried that one day I might accidentally scratch your paintwork all the way down the side, so I'd STRONGLY recommend you move it...".

Have never got round to it though :)

He also folds in his offside mirror when parked; I keep meaning to *unfold* it for him in the hope that even if a passing truck doesn't remove it, then he might at least get the message?

[tony sayer]

In article , Lobster scribeth thus

Why don't you?. There was a wally who'd double park down the road that accesses here. I left a couple of notes on both cars pointing out that one night a fire engine might want to get down the road to the other end.

Not been a problem ever since:)...

[tony sayer]

Well the one I'm referring to is, a cracking looking girl too:)...

Dunno if its me but I've been to three! events over the last few month's and for some reason I somehow get seated next to females who hold strong beliefs in Christ!. However they seem very happy in themselves suppose if you believe it all .. then that you may well be;!...

[tony sayer]

Bin there used that or rather the missus has and open orifice, but they both seem to have incompatibilities with MS wurd whereas the Kingsoft one interfaces fine!.

She unlike me has to interchange Docs with a lot of other people..

[tony sayer]

In article , Tim Lamb scribeth thus

Most probably not does anyone ever;?..

I've used the free version and we bought her the full one 40 quid or thereabouts IIRC..

No complaints since!...

[Adrian]

If you think that LibreOffice/OpenOffice has "incompatibilities" with MS Word, then you've never tried shifting even remotely semi-complex documents between versions of MS Word...

[charles]

In article ,

[Snip]

[Snip] my last car did that for me when I locked the doors.

[Johny B Good]

If he's such a persistent offender (it _is_ an offence to park on the pavement (walkway for our american cousins)) and it annoys you so much, why don't you simply report him rather than fantasize about your homespun measures?

There's nothing like a fine to ram home the lesson. Just over thirty years ago, I found a 'parking ticket' on my windscreen as I left home to go to work. I had parked right outside my own house in a short residential road with good street lighting and no yellow lines. It took very careful analysis to work out what they meant by "Showing inappropriate lights".

It turns out that some f*ck of a bored copper had decided in the wee small hours to apply the 'letter of the law' to every second such offender who had parked on our well lit residential street 'facing the wrong way'.

After that incident, I've always been careful to avoid pulling up on the 'wrong side of the road' just so "The Bastards Can't Get Me On A Technicality... AGAIN!".

I do this even during broad daylight when the rule doesn't apply, mostly because pulling up facing the wrong way is a stupid thing to do on a busy road since it means pulling out against oncoming traffic and crossing over to join the traffic flowing your way.

Stupid because you're giving yourself needless grief so easily avoided by a modicum of forethought plus, if the vehicle breaks down and gets stuck there into the evening, you're also leaving yourself open to being fined on a technicality yet again.

Parking facing the right way is easier to remember to do when you apply the rule regardless of whether it is required or not (you never have to consider moving the vehicle to comply with the law should your visit extend into the hours of darkness).

I use the same rule when using my direction indicators on patently empty roads where such use seems rather pedantic. It's simply to reduce the chance of forgetting to indicate by simplifying the routine involved (and you can never be certain of not overlooking the presence of another road user or pedestrian considering whether it's safe to cross at the junction you're about to turn into).

In essence, if there's a rule or code that depends on varying circumstances, it's best to strip it down to its simplest action that covers all the circumstances. Parking is the classic example of this - pity it took a fine to make me realise this. :-(

Your failure to report the offender could be viewed as a 'dereliction of your duty as a citizen'. In effect, along with his other neighbours, you're acting as his 'enabler' in his commitment of this offence.

Whilst you're reporting the parking offence, you might as well report the obstruction to the highway due to his overgrown hedge and get that sorted as well (in for a penny, in for a pound, you might as well go the whole hog).

[S Viemeister]

_My_ American cousins call it a sidewalk.

[Tricky Dicky]

Where I lived before if people let their hedges block the footpath, a complaint to the LA eventually brought out the council workers who would cut the hedge down toss the remains into the garden and bill the perpetrator.

Richard