Snippets of my life.

[Evil Sid]

i never thought about warming the car up with regards to electric vehicles.

must be a fair drain on the battery to get it to a point where you don't need three pairs of thermals to drive it....🥶

in saying that mine takes a while to get warm mainly because it is a plastic car and so when the frost strikes everything freezes including the windows inside.

mind you me driving with the window wide open doesn't help either....

[Bill]

A full electric one would have to use the battery whereas mine only uses it for the rear window. A bit of reading up shows there’s a lot of logic control going on where the engine only runs at start up if it detects its cold enough to need the heating or the battery is low. Up until this cold weather started, I could drive away without the engine but now it kicks in more or less straight away. It’s very slow at warming up, so with me only doing relatively short journeys, it looks like the thermals will definitely be needed.

Just back from the garage now and I’m a bit miffed off that the price they quoted didn’t include the VAT, so it was more expensive. Plus, it’s far more complicated than I thought and can really only be used via a smart phone, and mine’s really not quite as smart as it should be.

 

Bill 😊

[Evil Sid]

it seems that security devices, whether for car or home, now rely on smart phones to access the footage or real time video.

The assumption being that all the world and his wife have up to date all singing all dancing 'phones' and carry them around 24 hours a day.

they were a bit naughty not telling you that VAT was not included in the price when giving you the quote, i thought that it was a legal requirement to do so.

all dealings i have had buying stuff they usually quotes both prices with and without VAT.

[Bill]

Yep, I'm one of those people who use a moile to make and receive calls and given hardly anyone ever calls me, I don't really see the need to carry it arround with me. I think a lot of the phone and app designers assume that the phones never more than a few inches away from us at any time. The other day I had to work out how to extend the ring time because I was missing so many calls while trying to find the phone. I think most phones ring for 15 seconds before going to voicemail so I've maxed mine out to 30 seconds to give myself half a chance. 

As for the cars security camera, I just wondering if it still records if I've not got the phone with me, hope so otherwise it'll be useless. 

 

Bill  

[Evil Sid]

easy enough to check bill see if it has a memory card or a slot for one.

most in car cameras do and will usually record so many minutes at a time in standby mode.

so any disturbance that sets it off creates a file that is time and date stamped and is usually around five minutes long.

when it comes to phones, if i miss a call i can either call them back or wait for them to call me again.

if it really important they will call back or leave a message, if they do neither then it is not important.

P.S. if you are also using it as a dashcam then it will record for longer and overwrite the oldest file on the memory card.

[Bill]

While there’s not much sun about and my body's still recovering from the recent workout, I thought I’d check the condition of my solar batteries by doing a full discharge test. It’s a long process so I thought I’d have a lenghty rant while I’m waiting.

Yesterday we decided we needed to stock up the freezer and given we were near to Iceland we went in there. It soon became apparent that the prices were really hard to work out as the majority were shown in big bold text as multi deal prices whereas the one-off price was microscopically small and unreadable.

If we were part of a larger family or had the luxury of having a chest freezer, these deals might be worthwhile but with a regular built under freezer you need to think about what you can fit in, unless you repeatedly eat the same thing.

In fairness to Iceland, offers like the buy 3 curries for a fiver allowed you to get three different types but if you were to buy three of everything just to get these prices then you’d need a much bigger freezer. It wouldn’t be too bad if only certain items were priced this way, but it seemed to me that the vast majority were, so individual item were costing more than the freezer section in Sainsbury’s.

I didn’t like this, so I put everything I had back on the shelves and decided to give Farm Foods a try. There was slightly less multi buy offers and overall, the prices were much the same as Iceland’s but more importantly I could now see the individual prices.

So, while it’s a small thumbs up for Farm Foods for not hiding the prices so much, the fact remains that they’re both massively over charging where single items are part of a multibuy offer. If they can sell three items for £5 then they’re selling at £1.66 but if you only need one item they’ll charge you £2.50 and that’s a total rip-off. Pensioners and people on low incomes who need to shop carefully loose out where this sort of thing goes on.

 

Bill 😊

[Evil Sid]

1 hour ago, Bill said:

Pensioners and people on low incomes who need to shop carefully loose out where this sort of thing goes on.

i know the feeling, try getting a small bag of sprouts or spuds.

 The amount in even the smallest bags would feed me for a month almost, if they have not gone off by that time, can't even get small tins of peas these days....

[Bill]

About the small tins of peas, I said exactly that yesterday.

Given that we have an increasingly ageing population, I can’t understand why nobody has come up with a shopping experience specifically tailored for the elderly who tend to prefer smaller portions. On the face of it this’d be easy because such a store wouldn’t have to be as huge as Tesco or stock such a wide range of products.

I don’t like Tesco btw because it’s so bloomin big. I’m knacked by the time I’ve gone round that place plus the toilets are so far away you need to book a taxi just to get there. 😂

 

Bill 😊

[Confused52]

1 hour ago, Evil Sid said:

i know the feeling, try getting a small bag of sprouts or spuds.

 The amount in even the smallest bags would feed me for a month almost, if they have not gone off by that time, can't even get small tins of peas these days....

They exist but only at expensive shops. Waitrose sell small bags of fresh veg such as 4oz of sprouts but in Warrington I only know that you can get them at M&S. You used to be able to go into town and get them but not any more.

[Bill]

It’s not too bad if you can buy loose stuff although sometimes there’s no option. Sainsbury’s had both the large and the smaller bags of sprouts on my last visit, but even what they called a small bag had about four times the amount we wanted.

My wife regularly bags and weighs just 2 carrots even though it’s quicker to just grab a big bag of them for 40p. I think some people might be a bit embarrassed about doing something like this, but we don’t like ending up throwing food away.

Back on what I was saying, If a survey was done, I bet it mainly the younger generation that goes for pre-bagged stuff rather than to bother weighing loose items.

 

Bill 😊

[Bill]

Ironically, now that the weather’s warmed up a bit, I just discovered that the car has a warmup facility where I can start the engine remotely for 10 minutes while leaving it all locked and secure. It doesn’t get it toasty but it’s better than sitting in it waiting for the ice to melt and windows to demist.

Later on today, I’m going to see if I can set up the security cameras and some of the fancy built in tech to work with my newly upgraded mobile phone. With the car being well frozen for most of last week, I’ve not fancied doing it until now.

Oh, and another thing. Yesterday I found my in-car tracker with a flat battery. I couldn’t get any response from it so assumed I must have accidentally left it in the Maserati when I sold it. I gave it an overnight charge and bingo; it all came back to life. I bought the tracker nearly five years ago for £36 and fitted a £10 Tesco pay as you go sim card, so it’s worked out really cheap compared to so of the companies that offer car tracking.

 

Bill 😊

[Evil Sid]

surprising what you can find when you are not looking for it...🤣

remember when all else fails read the manual......

did you check to se if the camera had a memory card slot by the way or is it just reliant on built in memory?

[Bill]

There’s a 32 gig card somewhere in the unit but I’ve had a belly full of tech for the day so playing with camera will have to wait another day or so.

I’ve been trying to get a pay as you go phone up and running for my brother for a few weeks now. Cutting a long story short, the phone had run out of credit even though he’d never actually used it. The only explanation I can come up with is that when the staff at Tesco set things up for him, they may have downloaded the Tesco app, and rather than do it using Tesco’s wifi, they opted to just flick the data on. My wife topped her Tesco mobile up in exactly the same way just two weeks ago and £10 has already disappeared even though she’s only made one short call. A quick check and her mobile data and like my brother it was also turned on.

Ah well, there’s no point in complaining as there’s no way of knowing when it was turned on and in future we’ll just have to remember to check it.

 

Bill 😊

[Evil Sid]

yes it is most annoying when that happens.

my  brother had a similar problem, his was updating when not in use but using the mobile data rather than connecting to the home wifi to do the updates.

i had an app on mine that would not work properly unless you turned wifi off and used mobile data , no longer installed.

 

[Bill]

If someone asked me what size dress my wife wears I wouldn’t have a clue. I’ve never had to know this so it’s just a number that means absolutely nothing to me.

So, at the new barbers shop the other day when asked what number cut I’d like, I was completely stumped. I’ve had a million haircuts in my life, and never once have I been asked what number I want. I mentioned this to my mate in the pub on Friday and he told me that he always has a number 3 at the sides and a 2 on the top. My brother told me a similar story and that he couldn’t believe I didn’t know how haircut numbers work.

Ah well, given I don’t really care much these days, I just had to say I don’t know and that I’ll leave it up to him to decide what’s best for me, but it’d be pretty good if he could make me look like a rock star. 😊 He certainly did that, but Sinead O’Conner wasn’t exactly who I had in mind. ☹ Neither was his finishing touches with the hair spray and blower as he created on top what looked just like the cartoon character Tin-Tin.

Irene did a quick OMG and then fell off her chair laughing. On the plus side, with hair this short I won’t need a barber for a goodly while but when I do, I’ll be looking for one with a stripey pole outside and a real barber who doesn’t use numbers.

 

Bill  

[Confused52]

The get out clause in such places is to specify that you would like a scissor cut and a description of what you want. The use of trimmers is just lazy.

[Evil Sid]

last time i went to a hair dressers was around 1989, beyond the fringe, it was an annual event at the time and involved a trim and tidy up of any split ends.

after that last time i just left my hair to its own devices, it decided that a certain length was it and stopped growing. 

some years later i noted that my forehead seemed to be on the increase so much so that it was now almost at the back of my head.

as i only kept my long hair because the late mrs sid liked me that way over Christmas i decided to give it a trim. so armed with the dog grooming kit i did the russian cut. (chopit allov). trimmed the beard to a reasonable length as well, kept getting it tangled under my arm when trying to sleep and making me think i was being strangled.

on the downside my neck doesn't half feel cold when i go outside but on the up side it means i don't spend as much time drying it after a shower.

[Bill]

Five weeks on and the hairs growing back and I don’t need the woolly hat anymore. 😊

I’ve finally got to see the specialists about my wrist and shoulder, and they reckon they can fix them both, but it’s going to be another few months before they can do it. A cortisone injection for the wrist and a washout and lube job on the shoulder and hopefully that should be the last of it. I had exactly the same shoulder problem 20 years ago so this time the fix should probably outlast me. I’ve got quite a few little jobs around the house that need doing but I’ve been putting them off until my arm gets sorted.

I’m off for some winter sunshine again tomorrow and this time it’s for three weeks. Going to the same place we went to this time last year which is something I don’t really like doing but it wasn’t my decision and in any case, I’m only along for the ride. At least I’ll be able to get a pint as I’ve not been getting out of the house at all much in the last month or so due to both my friends being ill and I don’t like drinking on my own. Fingers crossed I might be able to find a place out there that sells proper beer rather than larger but I’m not holding my breath on that one. ☹

I’ve given up playing with my solar setup as it’s probably about as good as I can make it so I’m leaving it alone now to just do its thing. In the meantime, I’ve been keeping myself busy trying to repurpose some old LCD devices from the nineties that were really expensive and too good to throw away. I’m hopeful that by adding a touch screen and sub processor I can create a utility device that might appeal to the hobbyist and make me a few bob at the same time. Mrs Green will be happy just to see them all out of the attic.

 

Bill 😊

[Confused52]

Enjoy the break Bill and good luck with find  some Ale.

 

 

[Bill]

Back from my winter break now and it doesn’t look like I’ve missed much on here. I don’t know why but anything to do with Warrington Worldwide out there just threw up a message saying it wasn’t available and that included all the stuff on Facebook.

So lots of time just sitting reading and soaking up the sun by the pool and a few good nights out with some music and very cheap drinks although no proper beer. The best place turned out to be a mile away on the far side of the town, which was a bit of a challenge for me with my dodgy legs, but I managed it. I’m not one for sitting just watching the entertainment though so I was constantly nipping out for a puff on my vape and ending up chatting with others for half the night. All in all, a good rest though and a good dose of sunshine vitamins so I’m happy.

Overall, the holiday was ok with warm sunshine almost every day and absolutely no rain. The only thing that went wrong was Irene tripped on a loose paving flag and fractured her nose, so we spent the best part of two days in hospital. She’s ok now but looked a right mess with a nose splint on and two cracking black eyes. After a few days stuck in the room we eventually got out again with her hanging onto me for dear life, and me looking like a psycho wife beater 😉 Fortunately no big hospital bills but over 200 Euros in taxi fares to and from the hospital which hopefully I might be able to claim for on the insurance.

 

Bill

[Evil Sid]

I bet when you explained what happened at the hospital there were a few 'yeah right tripped' type of looks from some of the people there....

I remember when the late mrs sid shattered her shoulder joint. the only question i got asked was "did she do that when she fell". trying to convince them that she was sitting down on a chair at the time it happened was like eating soup with a fork...🤦‍♂️

any how hope Irene soon looks less like a panda and the her nose does not turn out like Stefan Ratchfords...👃

[Bill]

A couple of days ago I was getting swamped with what was certainly a scam/fake story about how ITVs political commentator Robert Preston was banned by the BBC for revealing how he made millions by downloading some get rich quick app. Like most of these scams, the original story has a modicum of fact to it.

The scam story appeared both here on www and on Facebook where it was repeated over and over. As usual with scams, the comments were mostly disabled but where they weren’t, there was floods of scam warnings from the public.

I thought I was doing the right thing by clicking FB’s report button, but this morning I received a reply back from them saying that they wouldn’t show it to me again however they were not going to take it down as they believed it to be genuine.

Now the point is, if something like this this puts me off reporting scams in the future and others feel the same way, then the number of scams is just going to skyrocket.

Makes me wonder if this decision was made by some brain dead human or some AI that itself had been hacked and scammed.😫

 

Bill 😊

[Confused52]

This scam is well known enough to be on full fact:

Fake ‘BBC article’ falsely claims Robert Peston sued over promoting investment scheme - Full Fact

If Facebook won't remove it the most likely reason is probably that the party inserting the information are paying Facebook. That is essentially an abuse, but seems common.

Honestly I think only the Advertising Standards Authority can do anything since they can target the actual advertiser beyond Facebook.

[Bill]

Last night I broke with my normal twice weekly beer routine due to the wife hogging the TV remote and Observer driving me bonkers on here, but as it happens, it turned out to be an interesting night.

I met up with a group of old friends who live in the Woolston/Martinscroft area who I’d not seen for several months. Once the football talk died down the topic changed to local issues and in particular asylum seekers. Ok what follows is gossip/pub talk so don’t shoot the messenger.

The Martinscroft blokes were saying that lots of women have reported feeling a bit intimidated while out walking due to the high numbers of asylum seekers aimlessly walking or just hanging around the area. I get that, there’s so many of them it’s understandable but then again it’s not a crime.

They said however that the numbers in the Holliday Inn have dropped recently, so much so that now most of the rooms are empty, and given the government is paying for these rooms the question then becomes why don’t they use these empty rooms as shelter for the homeless or as temporary emergency housing? So where have these people gone to? Certainly not Rwanda. There was a suspicion that some had been moved into private accommodation as a cheaper alternative, a thought backed up by the seemingly odd state of affairs visible at the new apartments on the former Chevies site opposite the cemetery gates. The place seemed finished months ago, but nobody moved in. Now it seems to be occupied by people with no understanding of curtains or blinds. Bedsheets and old blankets are roughly strung up across the windows making the new building look like it’s been taken over by squatters.

Here's a good one! I too have also noticed a big absence of asylum seekers around the neighbouring Paddington House, and it turns out that the entire hotel is in quarantine/lockdown due to some kind of infectious skin disease. I hope they keep their windows shut because as the crow flies, I’m only a matter of a few yards away.

As pub chats go it was good, but a real pitty I couldn't say the same for the beer. ☹️

 

Bill 😊

[Bill]

I drove past that apartment block again yesterday and now it seems that almost every window in the place is strewn with old stuff to cover the windows. My wife rightly said that if normal people had moved into a new apartment, the first thing they would do is to buy nice new curtains. In the case of asylum seekers though, they’re not going to do that because the place isn’t theirs and they don’t know how long they’re going to be staying.

We’ve got loads of new apartment blocks springing up all over the town and you have to wonder if these also are simply going to become homes for asylum seekers rather than our own tows folk.

 

Bill 😊