Justin Smith

I`ve just had to go back to a hospital appointment and despite being the first booked slot in the morning and being one of the first to turn up we were waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and..... well you get the idea....

I noted what was said earlier which implied we should be grateful for our treatment, and anyone with half a brain is exceptionally so, but there is also an implication there that we`re somehow getting this treatment for free and therefore we should put up with any waiting around. The fact is that all of us (other than the tax parasites, "hundred quid for cash mate") are paying for it.

So come on NHS, our time is not completely worthless, surely there has got to be a better way of booking in appointments......

Justin Smith — Feeling guilty and apologetic I can understand. Feeling guilty aand reporting yourself for the offence I can also understand — but I note you didn’t feel THAT guilty!

I thought I had a sense of humour but (not for the first time on SF) I find myself wondering whether "never wrong" is being satirical or not. How can one tell and am I the only one who finds it difficult to judge ?

My answer (reproduced above) to the thread on t*****s who throw their fag ends out of their car windows is probably appropriate here, but with "never wrong" deleted and "peterw" inserted instead !

Many thanks to those who suggested asking the Royal Mail to collect from my business, I`ll investigate this but I can`t help thinking that our volumes of post may mean this is unjustifiable (cost wise).

The thing is I shouldn`t have to be scrabbling around trying to reorganise my business (at greater cost and/or inconvenience) because the Royal Mail has drastically reduced it`s service levels. Moving the last collections forward one and a half hours is totally unacceptable. We could just about cope if it was half an hour or even one hour (forward to 6.30 or 6.00 PM), but one and a half hours is just taking the bleedin` P***.

If they can get away with this God knows what they`ll try next.....

Just for your information my car is brand new and does not have a ashtray or a cigarette lighter and most new cars are the same so it,s open the window and it is not through ignorance I know what I am doing

I thought I had a sense of humour but (not for the first time on SF) I find myself wondering whether "never wrong" is being satirical or not. How can one tell and am I the only one who finds it difficult to judge ?

Don`t get me wrong I HATE litter and all those who deposit it (especially scum of the earth flytippers) but those who throw fag ends out of cars have got to be the laziest of the ignorants. Gordon Bennet, they`ve even got somewhere to put their tab ends which they can reach without even leaving their seats ! But apparently they`re happy for someone else to pick up their litter so they don`t have to empty their own ashtray.......

How in Gods name can they justify such ignorance ?

I post about 40-50 packets a week and they need to arrive within a day or two.

I can only assume you have (what is now) the luxury of a late collection post box near you, or you are able to get out during the working day to post your mail. Unfortunately for us neither is the case........

For me royal mail is very reasonably priced and although the deliveries are pretty late (sometime 4pm) I don't mind so much.

They can keep doing what they're doing formy liking

But how many things do you post and, crucially, how many are "time sensitive" ?

but surely as a business you must have a cut off point to stop recieving orders.my company cant dispatch anything after 2.30(they can but that is the cut off point for orders for that day) all the other orders go next day.

it may be a good idea to advise your customers that any orders placed after 4pm will be mailed next day.

 

we've gone form 2 deliveries to 1, the only difference i get my mail sometime between 9am & 1pm. before i got between 9 & 3.(we havent had 2 mail deliveries in 21 years)

This is a small business and some of what staff there are work on site, thus if there is only one person in the shop the mail will not go till the following day because that member of staff has to stay in the shop until we close, ie at 5.30PM which is when the post is going.... It is perfectly possible that an order received at 9.00AM may now not go until the following day and I can`t tell you how angry that makes me. This is a city of 500,000 not a little village in the back of beyond. The plain unadulterated fact is the b******s have given me (and my customers) a worse service and made my life harder.....

but they still give a better value service than any of the alternates.

both in the uk & in europe.

surely if you want unsocial hours collections you ought to pay for it,so use a private company who will offer that service.

how difficult is it to say to people cut off time for mail is 4pm,the same way as companes who dispatch larger items have to do.

The point is the service is getting significantly worse whilst the price is going up.

I really don`t know how we`re going to get our post off same day now so all our customers will have to wait 24 hrs longer for their packages......

I really getting sick of the Royal Mail, not only are the deliveries getting later and later (I can remember when we used to get our mail before leaving for work !) but, more significantly for us, the collections are getting earlier and earlier.... We run a business, we need to post things "same day" and achieving the latter is getting harder and harder. The post box we used at Morrisons has been 7.00 PM for years and the buggars have now advanced that (and most of the others) to 5.30. It`s not that long ago that one could post a letter at Fitzallan Square at 9.00 PM (it may even have been 9.30 !) and it would go the same day !. Now one has to drive all the way to Attercliffe and get it posted by 7.30.....

How the hell do Adam Crozier and the rest of them get away with it ?

What kind of business skill does it take to make higher profits in a monopoly industry by giving a worse service......

Complain to Post Comm via http://www.psc.gov.uk/about-postcomm/contact-postcomm.html or phone on 0207 593 2100

Don`t let the b******s get away with it.....

I can`t believe I`m reading some of the stuff on this subject.

Let`s make the assumption that the driver went through the light on purpose (and we all see loads of the cretins doing it all the time....) so how can anyone try to defend such driving ? I`d go further, anyone who actually tries to argue that it is acceptable shouldn`t be on the road themselves.

 

I cannot say I`ve never gone through a red light, but if I have it`s more or less as it was changing, it was a misjudgement and (most importantly) I will have felt guilty and apologetic. I certainly wouldn`t try to defend it

I must confess to some bemusement about this thread and I can only assume that it`s down to a breakdown in communication. Just to clarify things, I would like to know if "Tony" disagrees with any of the above, and if so, why ?

 

Another reason to leave the country?

Well there are a few reasons I`d like to leave the country:

Crime

Anti Social Behaviour

Over The Top Political Correctness

Excessive Health & Safety etc

but being unable to speed in my car wouldn`t be one of them.............

I can`t believe I`m reading some of the stuff on this subject.

Let`s make the assumption that the driver went through the light on purpose (and we all see loads of the cretins doing it all the time....) so how can anyone try to defend such driving ? I`d go further, anyone who actually tries to argue that it is acceptable shouldn`t be on the road themselves.

I cannot say I`ve never gone through a red light, but if I have it`s more or less as it was changing, it was a misjudgement and (most importantly) I will have felt guilty and apologetic. I certainly wouldn`t try to defend it

As I promised myself I`m making no further comment on this subject, not directly anyway.

What I can`t help commenting on is the actual correspondence in this thread. I feel it`s a metaphor for the whole motoring thing. The motoring lobby (or more precisely certain sections of them) make such a lot of noise compared to the rest of the population. That is why it`ll not be the government (weak willed "don`t want to upset anyone" tossers) who will introduce black boxes in cars ((or speed limiters)) but the motorists themselves via their insurance companies offering them cheaper rates or, in some cases, any insurance at all. Eventually it`ll spread until the majority have it, then everyone. It may take 5 years, it may take 25, but it will happen, we`ll see whose right.......

I would think very carefully before I started my own business if I were you. It can be VERY stressful particularly if you ever start employing people and most businesses need to employ people to make real money.

If you are the sort of person who just can`t work for anyone else (as I am now having had my own business for 12 years) then it`s a bit different and obviously it`s then a more positive step, but remember the grass is always greener.....

In terms of which business I`d go into, plumbing and building are the obvious answers though you obviously need the skill/experience.

There are two rules of thumb :

1 Try to specialise and avoid "competing with the big boys", that`s a recipe for disaster.

2 Any trade where you have experienced a lack of interest in your custom is a good indication that there is a surplus of demand over supply, so get into that trade !

Good Luck (apart from if you start competing with me of course ! TV aerials etc http://www.aerialsandtv.com )

It could be he didn`t know where he was going, that roundabout can be confusing for those who don`t know it.

I do think it unfortunate that because one gets selfish bozos (there`s a word we haven`t seen for a while....) trying to jump Qs ((by using wrong lanes on purpose etc)) people who are actually unaware of the road layout get tarred with the same brush.

I can remember being stuck in the wrong lane in Liverpool recently (purely because I didn`t know) till I`d already "jumped" half the Q, fortunately someone let me in but I felt guilty......

This is true, but it's not MML's fault; blame George Hudson. He's the one who built the line twisting and turning every which way, when Stephenson went for direct lines from one major city to another.

 

On most of the line between Sheffield and London, it'd be unsafe to travel at above 90mph without the train getting derailed at bends; on most of the line from Doncaster to London, it can do 140mph and not even blink. If you travel half as fast again, you can cut journey time by a third, right?

 

It's the same reason the Sheffield-London line was never electrified - it wouldn't help. They can't even use it at the maximum speed of diesel trains, never mind the faster electric ones.

I could answer this but let us keep our powder dry for when this subject has it`s own thread !

Well they announced it would complete in Summer 07 over 5 years ago, so its hardly a surprise.

They are on schedule.

The point is why should it take 3 years (THREE YEARS ! ) when, with no machinery, they built a main line railway over a mountain in two and a half years in the 1840s !

ooh nice barb at MML there at the end. presume you mean it takes longer now than a few years ago...well if that means getting there at the stated time is that a bad thing? I thnk we're pretty lucky considering they are the most punctual train company for the past 2 years,new trains,top of customer satisfaction survey..fares from £6..but no matter what they do they'll never please all the people all the time...

 

bit like Corparation Street.....it's taking sooo long because the work has had to be done while maintaining a working road to allow people to attempt to get to where they going...hence it takes a long time.

 

Rome wasn't built in a day..and lets face it..as soon as it's open the moaners will be out in force dissin it, slating it and writing threads about it on here.!!

 

God bless Sheffieldiers

I know this isn`t really relevant to this subject but Midland Mainline is a bone of contention to me, sometime I`ll get round to starting a subject on them but for now....

What really annoys me about them is that the main reason they`re more punctual is that they`ve just added time to all the services ! In fact the service is no faster now than it was 20 years ago and it wasn`t that fast then...... I accept that the ECML from Doncaster is a faster route but the difference in speed between MML and GNER is HUGE. In fact it`s about 40mins faster on average. Sheffield must have one of the slowest services to London of any city of equivalent size.

As for the new trains I preferred the old ones ! I find them more comfortable and not having an engine under the coach (as the new ones do) makes them significantly quieter.

Do you by any chance work for them ?!?

Bearing in mind that the 69 miles of main line railway over Shap summit ("the roof of England") was built in only two and a half years ((Jun 1844 to Dec 1846)) just using muscle power and dynamite, why is it taking so long in 2006 to complete a mile or two of the new inner ring road around Corparation St ?

As far as I`m aware they`ve been at it since late 2004 and it`s still far from completed, "Slower By Design" possibly.. (like the Midland Mainline service to London but that`s a different story !)

When I first started driving 20 odd years ago I enjoyed it, so much so I even built my own Westfield, but that was when I was innocent and care free. Now I dislike driving with a passion, there are too many cars on the road and too many of them are driven by cretins. If there is one thing I`m determined never to be it`s a hypocrite, so if I think there are too many cars on the road it then follows I`m contributing to that excess, therefore every time I drive I feel a bit guilty too.

Actually, if we paid the entire Gross National Product into the NHS, it still wouldn't fix the system and it still wouldn't be enough money. That's why the NHS needs abolishing and a whole new system putting into place.

The reasons I disagree with that are not really valid on this subject. I simply made my position clear so others don`t think I`m "anti-NHS"

Actually, if we paid the entire Gross National Product into the NHS, it still wouldn't fix the system and it still wouldn't be enough money. That's why the NHS needs abolishing and a whole new system putting into place.

Can I be the first to say I don`t agree with that.

This is a question I would genuinely be interested in people answering because I`ve tried to resolve it myself so often (without success...), but why do so few drivers admit that they`re in the wrong even when it`s obvious they are ?

I give this example simply because it is an objective open and shut case plus I actually got the chance to "talk" to the driver.

Just the other week some cretin in a silver open top BMW went through a red light just as I was about to cross, and I`m not talking as the light changed, it was 3 or 4 seconds later. Unlike him with his driving I used all my powers of self discipline to avoid swearing at him and simply pointed out he`d just gone through the light. His response ? Feeling a little chastened perhaps ? Possibly a bit guilty and apologetic (as I would feel if I`d have been in his position) ? Absolutely not, he started raving on like I`d suggested his wife had shagged half of Sheffield.

Why do drivers not admit they`re at fault and (wait for it........) actually apologise ?

Is it because :

1 They`re such morons they don`t even realise they`re in error ?

2 They realise they`re in the wrong but they just don`t care ?

(Which of the numbers 1 and 2 is worse ?)

3 They object to anyone critisising their driving ? (though they are then failing to understand their responsibility to all the other road users)

Can you think of any other reason ?

so you dont have an obstructed view following an mpv,kango,post office red van or a bus?

following from your objection - the person having the crash is the selfish,speed merchant following the 4x4 who wants to get past without being able to see the road ahead. which i'm sure is a fail on the driving test.

If you`ve got the idea that I`m one of those brain deads who go speeding around with no thought for anyone else (or in fact speeding at all) you couldn`t be more wrong as a brief perusal of my contributions will reveal.

The difference between most 4x4 drivers and commercial vehicles is that the latter have no choice but to be in a truck, whereas 4x4 drivers generally do have a choice. I`m not including in this category people who live up dirt tracks etc because I have some sympathy for them in this respect.