Insignificant/ Significant things that BYP or just wind you up a little

[Rockburner]

.... Where have all the ..French places gone?

Cafe Rouge and Cote Brasserie seem to have driven them all out of business.

True.

Just think of all the sniffy, condescending French waiters who have had to go back to France, no longer able to scoff at your choice of wine, tut at your inability to pronounce the dish nor even skillfully ignore you when trying to get their attention.


(Confession: I actually don't mind Cote Brasserie. I've even been known to eat in the one in Bluewater )

TBH I used to like Cafe Rouge, the food wasn't bad and was reasonably priced. The one or two times I've eaten in a Cote, the food was mediocre at best, and vastly over-priced (compared to Cafe Rouge).



I suppose you could argue that I was getting the genuine French restaurant experience...

[Taipan]

The seemingly endless Turkish restaurants opening up everywhere. In my nearest High Street, there were three of them opened up. One has closed but still, two is one too many. Go further afield to the sprawling metropolis that is Petts Wood and you have four, IIRC. Seems you can't go anywhere without having the choice of grill meat, grilled meat or grilled meat. With cracked wheat or rice, sir?

No don't get me wrong, I'm as keen on a kebab as the next man, but there's a limit. Where have all the Indian, Bangladeshi, Italian, tapas, dare I ask...French places gone?

And the Turkish barbers, dont forget the amount of those opening up too and mostly cash only if the Albanian money laundering accusations are true!

[Taipan]

Cafe Rouge and Cote Brasserie seem to have driven them all out of business.

True.

Just think of all the sniffy, condescending French waiters who have had to go back to France, no longer able to scoff at your choice of wine, tut at your inability to pronounce the dish nor even skillfully ignore you when trying to get their attention.


(Confession: I actually don't mind Cote Brasserie. I've even been known to eat in the one in Bluewater )

TBH I used to like Cafe Rouge, the food wasn't bad and was reasonably priced. The one or two times I've eaten in a Cote, the food was mediocre at best, and vastly over-priced (compared to Cafe Rouge).



I suppose you could argue that I was getting the genuine French restaurant experience...

You could always get a nice sea bass at Cafe Rouge.

[gremlin]

The seemingly endless Turkish restaurants opening up everywhere. In my nearest High Street, there were three of them opened up. One has closed but still, two is one too many. Go further afield to the sprawling metropolis that is Petts Wood and you have four, IIRC. Seems you can't go anywhere without having the choice of grill meat, grilled meat or grilled meat. With cracked wheat or rice, sir?

No don't get me wrong, I'm as keen on a kebab as the next man, but there's a limit. Where have all the Indian, Bangladeshi, Italian, tapas, dare I ask...French places gone?

And the Turkish barbers, dont forget the amount of those opening up too and mostly cash only if the Albanian money laundering accusations are true!

THB, most of the 'Turkish' restaurants all seem to have an Albanian twist to them....

[Taipan]

The seemingly endless Turkish restaurants opening up everywhere. In my nearest High Street, there were three of them opened up. One has closed but still, two is one too many. Go further afield to the sprawling metropolis that is Petts Wood and you have four, IIRC. Seems you can't go anywhere without having the choice of grill meat, grilled meat or grilled meat. With cracked wheat or rice, sir?

No don't get me wrong, I'm as keen on a kebab as the next man, but there's a limit. Where have all the Indian, Bangladeshi, Italian, tapas, dare I ask...French places gone?

And the Turkish barbers, dont forget the amount of those opening up too and mostly cash only if the Albanian money laundering accusations are true!

THB, most of the 'Turkish' restaurants all seem to have an Albanian twist to them....

Its worse than I thought!

https://www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk ... gh-streets

[Mr. Dazzle]

Car Insurance.

Every year I think "how can it be so much more expensive than last year?!", but every year, it is.

I guess I'm the real fool for expecting anything else

Just got a £190 refund on this.

How?

'cause they sent me a text to say "our checks of the databases say you didn't declare all your claims", or words to that effect, so of course I had to ring 'em to straighten it out.

Previous insurer had put teh same claim into the database™ twice. What's weird to me is, the new bunch had obviously priced my policy on what the database said I'd claimed in the past, not on what I'd put into the quote generator. But they still waited until after I'd already signed up before flagging that.

Anyway - database corrected, Mr. Dazzle now officially less risky, insurance reduced.

[KungFooBob]

No one asks for proof of no claims anymore, so I assume it's all in the shared database.

I reckon they don't give a fuck what you declare, but if you make a claim and it doesn't match the DB then they aint paying out.

[Yorick]

Wanker pro cyclists. Every winter they come here to train and act as though they own the roads. This photo is typical. There's an inside lane they could use on all the roads around town. But no, they're far too important.

There's big climbs out of town on narrow roads with no overtaking.
They still ride in groups blocking the road completely.
Often groups 20+

At end of rides, they still ride through the town flat out, ignoring zebras etc. Twats.

And they don't contribute to the economy. The locals don't want them here.

20250130_121016.jpg (1.51 MiB) Viewed 723 times

[MrLongbeard]

Paddy's accent is the best thing about it.

WTF is that all about ?

I kinda stopped after 2 episodes of this series as he was pissing me off with the stupid fucking voice and i've not bothered pressing the button again.

If that pissed you off, do yourself a favour and give Section 31 a swerve, an Irish Vulcan is just wrong

[weeksy]

Wanker pro cyclists. Every winter they come here to train and act as though they own the roads. This photo is typical. There's an inside lane they could use on all the roads around town. But no, they're far too important.

There's big climbs out of town on narrow roads with no overtaking.
They still ride in groups blocking the road completely.
Often groups 20+

At end of rides, they still ride through the town flat out, ignoring zebras etc. Twats.

And they don't contribute to the economy. The locals don't want them here.

20250130_121016.jpg

They're not pro cyclists.

[Noggin]

Wanker pro cyclists. Every winter they come here to train and act as though they own the roads. This photo is typical. There's an inside lane they could use on all the roads around town. But no, they're far too important.

There's big climbs out of town on narrow roads with no overtaking.
They still ride in groups blocking the road completely.
Often groups 20+

At end of rides, they still ride through the town flat out, ignoring zebras etc. Twats.

And they don't contribute to the economy. The locals don't want them here.

20250130_121016.jpg

They're not pro cyclists.

It's the amateur-wannabepros out here that bug me. Riding down from the Col de la Madelaine last summer and I sadly missed getting out ahead of about 20 cyclists in a group. I'd guess a club ride, but not pro for sure. There were various cyclists through the group that not only used all the road when unnecessary, especially at points that it would have been easy for me to get by, but also actually blocked me

I was a smidge pissed off by the time I did get past the cuddlywuddlies. Utter fuckwits with no regard for anyone else on the road

Sadly, as with the odd fuckwit biker, cyclists like that make people assume that all cyclists are fuckwit wankers (I know enough road cyclists here and the uk to know they aren't all like that. But the entitled fukkers give cycling a bad name )

[Yorick]

Wanker pro cyclists. Every winter they come here to train and act as though they own the roads. This photo is typical. There's an inside lane they could use on all the roads around town. But no, they're far too important.

There's big climbs out of town on narrow roads with no overtaking.
They still ride in groups blocking the road completely.
Often groups 20+

At end of rides, they still ride through the town flat out, ignoring zebras etc. Twats.

And they don't contribute to the economy. The locals don't want them here.

20250130_121016.jpg

They're not pro cyclists.

That group were to train. Not for holiday.

Most big groups all have matching attire.
They're the worst ones.

The Canaries are only place in Europe the big teams can train in warm weather in winter.

[gremlin]

Badminton net strung between palm trees at strategic points will sort 'em out.

[ChrisW]

20250130_121016.jpg

I don't envy them that headwind!

[Yorick]

20250130_121016.jpg

I don't envy them that headwind!

Aye, it's a bit breezy sometimes

On one of the big climbs on the Ironman a few years ago, they were riding into huge headwind and only doing 6 MPH

[demographic]

You should try spending any time in a German city

The UK is actually fairly widespread with forrin cuisine choices I reckon.

Went too sunny Berlin for a week a while ago, cant remember for sure as we went Moroccan once, German mebbe twice but it seemed pretty well setup for forrin foods otherwise.

[Sunny]

Ugh. First time in a LONG time.

PXL_20250201_143234466.MP_copy_924x498.jpg (133.43 KiB) Viewed 536 times

[Silly Car]

Ugh. First time in a LONG time.

PXL_20250201_143234466.MP_copy_924x498.jpg

Poor obs!

[Ian]

Hearing aids are pissing me off this week.

They are a source of much angst in our house too and they aren't even ours! M-i-L has a pair but finds them uncomfortable and says they don't work very well. I keep telling F-i-L to take her and the hearing aids back to specsavers who will change the ear grommet thing to a more comfortable size and set the up so she can hear properly with them. He says I've adjusted them but she doesnt like wearing them. He can't understand that him standing next to her with his booming voice repeatedly saying "hows that" whilst adjusting the volume isn't setting them up properly! To top it all he now only puts one in when she does wear them, in case she loses one as they are expensive!

Probably staying the blindingly obvious here but I got mine on the national health, I was tested properly, it was set up to match the 4k dip in my left and physically with the right size dome that goes in your ear. It's totally fine and it was free and ISTR only 70quid if I lose it.

I don't understand why people pay premium prices for Boots and Specsavers. It's not like the thing Morrisey used to wear, it's tiny.

[Noggin]

In what universe is it acceptable to leave a dirty nappy and accompanying wet wipes in the 'pocket' of the seat in front for the driver to find when you have gone??

My grumpy/bitchy passengers did this on Saturday. I went to check the vehicle early morning before I went to sleep because, despite asking people to take rubbish with them, there is always some rubbish that needs collecting and yes - various empty and half full drinks bottles, empty crisp packets/biscuit wrappers (and accompany crumbs all over the seats and floor). I saw something in the net pocket on the back of the seat but had no inkling of what it was until I'd grabbed it and the wet wipes

FFS, what parent that is travelling with a baby doesn't have a plastic bag to put a dirty nappy in? And what sort of human just leaves a dirty nappy without a plastic bag around it tucked away like that for someone else to find??


My instructors at the school and various colleagues have always said how dirty, disrespectful and generally disgusting British passengers are and I've always said, "they aren't that bad really"

Well, I was wrong. I'm finding that people that book the bigger buses are WAY worse than those in minibuses. And I have to agree with the instructors and colleagues - especially after the nappy incident. I may start enforcing the "not food and drink" rule just cos I am a bit fed up (already) of having to clear up after people - even when I say "if you do eat or drink, please take your rubbish with you"