Absolutely Anything Else

fluffy2560 wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

I was assuming the case was hypothetical, to be honest, I don1t eally understand why a fluffiette would have a ten pound note in the first place.
.... It is not my fault you are not near a branch of a retail bank in England or Wales.

As I said it was a present from UK Grandma who doesn't have Euros or Forints but does have Pounds.   

Aforementioned Fluffyette put it in a tin with other treasures and secreted it away.   

Then when we went there, it came along but we couldn't use it.  Then we forgot about it and subsequently it came to light again. 

Hence my involvement with swapping it with the BoE.

Sure. But presumably you gave the fluffiette some forint for it already? Or are you that mean? I am guessing the fluffiette saved for his or her holiday then oh what do we do with this... but of course cannot say too much on a public forum. You didn't say that bit, that is why I had kinda assumed it was hypothetical.

I am not sure I would have gone to the bother of sending it to the BoE. I probably just would have put it in my own tin  which might look surprisingly like a rubbish bin, and acted as my own bureau de change. But that is just me. I am not sure I would go to that bother for a tenner.

On the other hand I can see that you are teaching the fluffiettes money management and that is no bad thing, fair play to you.

At least Grandma did not send a cheque or postal order

Previously at "House Purchase"....

Last time I lost my cool for 30 seconds was last year when a very senior person I was working with suggested we do something utterly unethical, contractually suspect and potentially damaging to everyone's reputations. I had to tell that person that if that occurred and if anyone tried to get me to endorse it,  I'd have no choice but to report it to the board of directors and legal department.   

Needless to say, we aren't the best of friends any more and if I had my way, that person have been fired.   Strangely enough, another colleague also heavily involved told me that he was quickly excluded from that work.  My take is that the excluded person would behave more ethically than the very senior person. Presumably the protagonist's unethical behaviour continues behind the scenes with the collusion of others.

I very rarely lose my cool, but when I do it tends to be extremely vigorous. The thing is on text is that things that would be said personally would be taken as just a vigorous argument can appear incredibly harsh in text. I tend to back it back because of that but just occasionally I do lose my temper. I actually intended to because I think fluffy and I would agree safety first and not only the OP over at the other place but other people will read that via the magic of google and they need to be pointed out the various dangers you will encounter if you just buy any old house, you don1t even need to raze it to the ground just turn the electricity on and let it do it for you.

So I lost my cool and I apologised. Now, let's think of something entirely irrelevant. Oh, the England football team.... what could be more irrelevant than they?

What is it with Hungarian officialdom and stamps,... they cannot stamp a piece of official paper once it has to be stamped at least three times, signed, stamped again, signed, then an overstamp and maybe then pressed or something

They have always a tray full of stamps and all you are trying to do is send a letter or something but no, it has to be stamped, franked, then overstamped, stamped on the back, then if there is any space left we can get our special stamp just to make it look pretty

One thing we hardly ever do in the UK is put a return address on our envelopes, we have such unfailing faith in the Royal Mail,. no normal person ever puts a return address on the envelope. Then we wonder what happened to that letter we posted. We are idiots, really.  I get to the Magyar Posta with something I need to post, you know normal stuff, a greetings card, or a batch of plastic explosive to Mr D Trump, Washington, the normal stuff, and I always forget to put the return address on it. And why would I want a greetings card returned to me anyway?

One of the peculiarities of the Hungarian post office (and I believe this is still true) is that everything gets sorted through the main post office behind Budapest Keleti railway station. I mean everything. If you post a letter in Nyireghaza to your neighbour in Nyireghaza it will travel all the way to Budapest, get sorted, on its way back to Nyireghaza. Has magyar posta never heard of a "network"? I can imagine in Communist days it was there so that they could keep an eye on what you are posting but it is entirely absurd nearly thirty years later not to have sorting offices dotted around the country.

It is also impossible to buy a postage stamp. Absolutely impossible. If you want to post something, you have to go to the post office. There are these red boxes that you can post things into but you can't buy a stamp to put on there to post it into. The only things I ever put in them are, apart from letterbombs of course, things with british prepaid post, which seem to get there. Absolutely impossible to buy a stamp. Even in the post office they will not sell you a stamp. You have to know how much it weighs, where it is going to, and so on. Just sell me a goddam postage stamp goddamit.

My local postie, Sebastian (anglicised) is a very nice chap. He likes my gate because it is British Post Office Red (it isn't quite) so he says oh it is English Post Office, you are English! Here it is green! (Yes sebastian, I hate to tell you that the briitish post office shirts are not red but navy blue... never mind)

I've half a mind just to repaint it green just to piss him off. Either that or get him a copy of "Postman Pat" which I think I have seen in Hungary somewhere and how that makes any sense at all, I mean not just dubbed, but what the postman is doing, I suppose it doesn't matter

Postman Pat has kinda the easiest round ever, he only ever delivers about seven letters, he is a right lazy postman. WHat with a cat in a frankly dangerous position on the dashboard, he is not only in contravention of the road traffic acts as he swings around Greendale but incredibly inefficient as well. I am surprised the Royal Mail don't sack him for dereliction of duty frankly.

fluffy2560 wrote:

...... I expect he thinks that most of that % will be spent on US produced arms further boosting his America First thing.  Possibly it's a trade mission rather than a defence mission. 
......
One upside (for some) of Trump might be an aid bonanza on rebuilding Syria.  Assad has nearly won and Trump being unpredictable could probably go and meet him in say, Cyprus.  China, Russia and maybe the EU would all want a slice of that.  Iran would of course be excluded as would Turkey.  Just musing.

* corrected my mistyping

BTW, I literally just heard Donnie speaking live at the NATO press conference and he made a very direct pitch for NATO allies to buy US arms with increased defence spending demanded by... yes,  Mr T.

So bizarrely (I think), I was unfortunately more right than wrong.

Wonder if my other thoughts on rebuilding the near East will come to come to anything.

The support of the US defense industry is a new one for Trump. Who's lining his pocket? Or is it part of just generally bring back jobs for the boys to the US which is a perfectly good stratagem. Who is lobbying him for spending more for defense? Raytheon, Boeing, NASA, who could it be? Someone is.

We have a perfectly good home-grown defence industry and then we still go and buy crap from the US. What about the Eurofighter, delivered about ten years late and three times over budget, as all defence/defense projects are. But he has not been much concerned about defense really, this is a new one.

I think on some political show it was said that May should maybe point out to him that Europe defends America, but that is probably too big an idea for him, that we are his front line. He probably wouldn't get that idea.

What about raytheon's patriot missiles in the first gulf war that were so crap that they came on a truck with two of them that you had to fire both at the same time to give yourself literally half a chance. What kind of crap is that. Rapier has a hit rate of about 90%, You are not going to get if you fire two missiles it is just mathematically impossible to get a hit rate above 50% then you have the problem of where the other one goes but who gives a shit about that

US weapons always have been about just a blunderbuss approach, nothing to do with accuracy, just praise the lord and pass the ammunition. European weapons are far more precision targeted because actually you don't want "friendly fire" and keep killing the wrong people.  In particular you do not want to kill your own army. But here we go again...

SimonTrew wrote:

The support of the US defense industry is a new one for Trump. Who's lining his pocket? Or is it part of just generally bring back jobs for the boys to the US which is a perfectly good stratagem. Who is lobbying him for spending more for defense? Raytheon, Boeing, NASA, who could it be? Someone is. ....

He's probably just grandstanding for re-election and pushing the America first policy which he wants the rest of us to follow.  Vote winner back at the ranch.  I really wonder if he believes there's no-one smarter than him. Shame UK is winding down its defence capability as it looks like the US could become unreliable.

He's been complaining about the UK and Germany recently but he never criticises Russia or Putin despite Putin murdering UK citizens with nerve toxins.  Never said a word about it as far as I noticed. He also skipped around loads of difficult questions like acknowledging the losses of NATO forces in Afghanistan.

BTW, OV was in Turkey for Erdogan's swearing in.  Apparently media reports OV is building a dynasty as his son has joined or created a religious cult. I thought, WTF? But I don't know the "truth" of it.

The UK has a very strong defence industry it's just we don't shout about it. The docks are full in plymouth and BAE Systems has a six year order book or backlog depending on wording, every naval dock in the UK is full with building naval ships. The British defence order book is pretty bloody full right now. Royal Ordnance are doing OK, we seem to be pretty healthy on the defence side.

ANd it must be kept in mind that from a European side Germany under the WWII treaty is not allowed to have an aggressive army (I am paraphrasing) nor any way of kinda building these things, an agreement they seem to have stuck to, which is why you have British Forces in Germany etc, that the Germans went and did something better like make televisions or dishwashers or cars instead of making weapons.

Pretty much the whole of Western European defence is British made or British controlled. One reason that you make your own missiles is you know how they work ie you know where their weaknesses are and the enemy does not. "Buying in" is just a stupid thing to do. Make your own,

Anyway if we buy US crap it will all be in US Customary measure so everybody has to learn inches, pounds per square inch and so on. They are  supposedn to build them in metric (any US Government contract should have been built in metric since, I think, about 1971) but they never do, they always build them in US Customary or what we would call Imperial measure

My husband related a story from the news to me this morning.
Very disturbing tale.
Seems that about 5 years back a doctor, actually he was a director of a HU hospital was charged in a serious crime.
He has been sentenced to 11 years but I personally think he should of gotten life or been put into a mental ward for life.
Abuse of power for sure.
He was given his 11 year sentence recently, was out on bail all these years because without naming names, one of his relations was a major player in politics here a few years back and still is very powerful.
His crime was this, just so disgusting,
he was dating a women here in Hungary and she decided to break up with him.
He wouldn't hear of it, followed her around, bugged her to get back together etc.
They had a huge fight and she thought she was finished and rid of him for good.
Well, he went undercover, wore a motorbike helmet and covered his face up , broke into her apt and put his hands around her neck, gave her 2 different sedatives, not clear if by injection or not but seems that would be the way to do it.
Stripped her naked, tied her up, put her in her bathtub and poured acid on her private parts.
He then stole her laptop, credit cards and other personal items.
He was caught using her credit card so sort of hard to deny he was involved.
He abused  his knowledge as a doctor and broke his oath to not do harm.
First he was only sentenced to 4 years but public uproar demanded more charges against him and a second trail, the max for such a horrible crime are only 2 to 12 years! He has lost his medical  privileges but what about this poor women, scared both mentally and physically for life?
Doesn't seem like justice served to me. It was attempted murder, kidnapping, breaking and entering and theft at the least.
Have to be very careful who you allow into your life, many people don't take rejection very well.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

My husband related a story from the news to me this morning.
Very disturbing tale.
Seems that about 5 years back a doctor, actually he was a director of a HU hospital was charged in a serious crime.
He has been sentenced to 11 years but I personally think he should of gotten life or been put into a mental ward for life.
Abuse of power for sure.
He was given his 11 year sentence recently, was out on bail all these years because without naming names, one of his relations was a major player in politics here a few years back and still is very powerful.
His crime was this, just so disgusting,
he was dating a women here in Hungary and she decided to break up with him.
He wouldn't hear of it, followed her around, bugged her to get back together etc.
They had a huge fight and she thought she was finished and rid of him for good.
Well, he went undercover, wore a motorbike helmet and covered his face up , broke into her apt and put his hands around her neck, gave her 2 different sedatives, not clear if by injection or not but seems that would be the way to do it.
Stripped her naked, tied her up, put her in her bathtub and poured acid on her private parts.
He then stole her laptop, credit cards and other personal items.
He was caught using her credit card so sort of hard to deny he was involved.
He abused  his knowledge as a doctor and broke his oath to not do harm.
First he was only sentenced to 4 years but public uproar demanded more charges against him and a second trail, the max for such a horrible crime are only 2 to 12 years! He has lost his medical  privileges but what about this poor women, scared both mentally and physically for life?
Doesn't seem like justice served to me. It was attempted murder, kidnapping, breaking and entering and theft at the least.
Have to be very careful who you allow into your life, many people don't take rejection very well.

Sh*t happens it seems.  Nasty story and overly lenient sentence. I reckon that's 25 to life plus whopping compensation. Clearly premeditated.  Thin line between love and hate. 

Did your hubby tell you about HU news story of the older folks (64 and 70'ish) fighting over car parking in Erd (or somewhere)?   

Fight ensued and the younger one pushed the older one, he fell and hit his head on the ground a died. All over some stupid car parking issue.  I believe the younger one was blocking the path with his car door.

Yup, sh*t happens all the time....

I was also reading about some idiot in the USA - a woman about 30 - who attacked a 92 year old Hispanic guy screaming he should go back to his country.  She beat him around the head with a book and by the look of the pictures, really hurt him.

And then there's the woman in the park who was assaulted by a nutter demanding to know if she was a US citizen because she was wearing a Puerto Rico T-shirt!  And the cop that was there, just walked away! 

Pretty weird world at the moment.

*edit: re the acid attack, Mrs Fluffy filled me in and it's just even nastier now the politics are clear.

Wife my understand doesn't me

Now for a completely racist remark but it is purely about the UK so that should be OK.

They have these campaigns to take down unnecessary signs on streets, all to the good, the amount of clutter you get with street signs that are out of date or completely contradictory and as a pedestrian you always have to mind your head as you bash into one of the things and look at the front and it says "temporary road works" and has been there two years or whatever.

Every now and then Your Favourite Local Council has some kind of "clean up the streets" campaign to remove the unnecessary street signs. And then they employ someone at vast expense to remove the unnecessary street signs.

There is simply no need to go to that expense. Put a gypsy on the job. All the street signs will be removed in no time. Just spray the ones you want removed, gone.

(ANd that is probably racist but I lived in Cambridgeshire where there are a lot of gypsies and knew the gypsy community very well. My sister-in-law's family are all roma, which means my er nephew and niece on that side are roma. Gypsy, roma, however people want to self-identify that is not a problem to me. Fact of the matter is they often deal in scrap metal. there, problem solved).

SimonTrew wrote:

Now for a completely racist remark but it is purely about the UK so that should be OK.

They have these campaigns to take down unnecessary signs on streets, all to the good, the amount of clutter you get with street signs that are out of date or completely contradictory and as a pedestrian you always have to mind your head as you bash into one of the things and look at the front and it says "temporary road works" and has been there two years or whatever.....

Oh, street signs....really dimwitted.

I don't know how many junctions I've reached here in HU and some moron has installed a sign so it obscures your view of oncoming traffic.  Or put one behind another one.  It's like they never considered that people in cars are lower down.  Presumably they tested it by using their (high) truck.

Another stupid thing is installing, art work, advertising,  bushes and trees on roundabouts.    Really dangerous as you cannot see traffic coming around at speed.

BTW, if you go to Greece or Malta all the street signs are shot up.  It's a national sport to shoot them up with shotguns.

actually that is one of the words that pisses me off "Travellers". They don't very often travel.

In the UK they do, because of the Vagrancy Act 18something and various others, which means that they are not allowed to stay in one place. (Technically speaking if you stop on the street to speak to someone you are causing an obstruction, you must keep moving to be within the law). So they keep getting "moved on" all the time because they have nowhere to go.

Local councils are obliged to provide sites for "travelllers" I do not know what the legal expression might be "itinerant population" or something no doubt, and they continually fail to meet that obligation, indeed they put up enormous hurdles, often literally, to prevent "travellers" from travelling.

Then to nobody's surprise the "travellers" take over private car parks or whatever, to have somewhere to settle and rest.

Local councils are supposed to provide sites for "travellers" with clean water available, that is an obligation on the local council. But none of them does. So it is not surprising that "travellers" travel, because they are constantly being kicked from pillar to post.

You do not see that in Hungary because "travellers" settle. Cigany, roma, gypsies, don't need to travel because they have places to be in. It is absolutely, purely, because of the Vagrancy Act and that local councils do not, never do, meet their obligations to provide places for "travellers" to travel to.

I remember when I was a kidk, there was a bit of unbuilt ground opposite my bus stop in Stevenage. This is Forster country, it was a pig farm there, the smell of the pigshit used to get you if the wind was blowing south. Anyway, this kinda field that had not been built on, some "travellers" occupied it. They got them off within a couple of days, then got a great big digger and dug six foot trenches all round the edge so that they could not get back on again

Leave the argument about not paying taxes to another day. These are PEOPLE.

fluffy2560 wrote:

[Another stupid thing is installing, art work, advertising,  bushes and trees on roundabouts.    Really dangerous as you cannot see traffic coming around at speed

That is the entire point. You should not be going around them at speed.

I know what you mean, that you can look right and left and judge your entry into the roundabout,. You do not have to look across the roundabout to be able to do that. It is not obscuring your view  at all.  How many exists and entrances are you judging? Then Simon the poor pedestrian walks across in front of you on his pedestrian crossing bit, while you are busy looking left and right, and you run him over, right in front of you.

The whole point of obscuring the view is to slow you down. I presume your car is not fitted with a brake pedal?

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

[Another stupid thing is installing, art work, advertising,  bushes and trees on roundabouts.    Really dangerous as you cannot see traffic coming around at speed

That is the entire point. You should not be going around them at speed.

I know what you mean, that you can look right and left and judge your entry into the roundabout,. You do not have to look across the roundabout to be able to do that. It is not obscuring your view  at all.  How many exists and entrances are you judging? Then Simon the poor pedestrian walks across in front of you on his pedestrian crossing bit, while you are busy looking left and right, and you run him over, right in front of you.

The whole point of obscuring the view is to slow you down. I presume your car is not fitted with a brake pedal?

All right then matey, have a look at this junction in Budaors. 

If you pull up in the left lane to turn left from the motorway, the two signs (no entry/keep right) are at your eye level.  Couple that with the two lanes coming from the left where there's a slight rise  where you cannot see clearly. Vehicles race towards you and the traffic light further up.  To see properly you have to get your nose out further than is comfortable.  In fact, there was a bunch of flowers and memorial there recently.

And in  the following case,the roundabout shown is now covered in Welcome To Torokbalint signs, bushes and flowers.    When people come around from the left (as one drives towards the roundabout), they've come off the entry opposite and they are usually moving at speed.  They are usually coming from the left to go to around to a Shell petrol station.   They can be going surprisingly fast.

And the typical thing here is to miss the day at driver training on how to use their indicators/turn signals.

Brakes are overrated. When I want to stop my car, I put my foot out the door Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble style.  It was working well but it was getting expensive on resoling my shoes. That was before I was able to get an anchor which the kids could throw out when we are not under full sail and heaving-to.  Aye-aye.

fluffy2560 wrote:

All right then matey, have a look at this junction in Budaors.

The problem with that actually is the STOP signs. If you have to put STOP signs on a roundabout then you have shown in graphic form your admission of failure.

The whole point of a roundabout/traffic circle, is to keep traffic flowing freely and merging in etc and they work very well when designed properly. But then I would say that, I grew up in Stevenage which was or is full of roundabouts, it didn't get its first set of traffic lights until about 1994 I think. I also lived in the town that has as its claim to fame the first roundabout in the world (built in 1904). I think Fluffy would probably dislike that there is a little plaque on it saying so because it may obscure his view, but it is on Spring View in Letchworth if you ever feel like being so aggressive you can go right over the top of it and mow everyione else down in your hurry to get wherever you are going that is more important than the rest of the human race.

And they did it properly in Stevenage, that the cycle lanes went through the middle of the roundabout completely segreageted from the traffic, underneath through a subway/underpass so I could cycle to my granddad's house four miles away without EVER having to cross a road. You can do that in a planned town, but they just don't bother now. Easier to paint a line down the street and call it a cycle lane, thanks, we have made 35km of new cycle lanes and it only cost us one bucket of paint.

Where is the provision for pedestrians or cyclists on that roundabout? Not all road users are on four wheels or have internal combustion engines.

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

All right then matey, have a look at this junction in Budaors.

The problem with that actually is the STOP signs. If you have to put STOP signs on a roundabout then you have shown in graphic form your admission of failure.
......

Where is the provision for pedestrians or cyclists on that roundabout? Not all road users are on four wheels or have internal combustion engines.

I think all that's been indicated is a lack of attention. Have another look. 

There are no stop signs on the roundabout in the second google maps picture.  It's a "give way" sign.  The issue is that you roll up to the roundabout, keep rolling and cannot see anyone coming and if you are too slow, suddenly there's a vehicle on top of you.  You cannot see it coming because of all the junk in the middle and edges of the roundabout obscuring your view.

In the first example, there is a stop sign.  It's a busy junction so everyone stops. But when you are at the line (and stopped), you cannot see the traffic as you edge forward because of the other signs for keep right and no entry.   They obscure your view.

As for cyclists and pedestrians, this is something that really is a problem here.  I'd like to cycle to Budaors from here but the road is just too dangerouswith no cycle path and a lot of traffic.  I have done it before but it makes me very nervous.  There's no way to go through the forest either.  Could be a nice ride but there's a shooting range too close to most routes.

Not sure what to say, in the 11th grade of school while just standing  right across the st. from our high school talking to a very piete friend of mine from the 5th grade, 3 Hispanic "chicks" who didn't even go to our school walked past us.
I didn't pay much attention to them as we had a "thing" going on, they just hated my group of friends for no reason that we could figure out.
They walked past me and "SLAM" I was hit over the head with a 4 inch thick history book.
Well, "Hot Dam" I was not about to walk away crying.Totally sucker punched.
The fight started. My tiny friend ran to the school for help while I took on the 3 idiots.
I focused all  my attention on the largest of the 3. One just kept on trying to jump on my back but I tossed her off like a fly.Remembered everything my mom taught us about fighting, had to get a bit dirty
because I was out numbered.Hair pulling and biting are ok when outnumbered.I mean they started it.
The teachers and half the school came out to see the fight before it was broken up.
I felt 100% satisfaction seeing her long fake eyelashes hanging down her face if you get the big one on their knees usually the followers scram.
Sometime life is not fair but to me a big male abusing a tiny lady is beyond normal.
Was a total Narcissist.
Disgusting.
The deal is my husband went to school with the relation who was high up in gov. and protected this sick F.Guess a few people on the jury were afraid of what might happen if they went against this freak.
Seems many people are willing and happy to sell out for money and an easy life.
I am very upset today by hearing about that poor lady, just so wrong.
Makes me think there must of been a very good reason way back in the day when people grilled any potential partners for their younger relations.
Just gross to think what that poor women went through and is still going through, 3rd degree burns in private places.
I hope she has a few strong men waiting for him when he is released. he deserves a huge A** beating.
Or worst...

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

....he deal is my husband went to school with the relation who was high up in gov. and protected this sick F.Guess a few people on the jury were afraid of what might happen if they went against this freak. ...Seems many people are willing and happy to sell out for money and an easy life. I am very upset today by hearing about that poor lady, just so wrong.
Makes me think there must of been a very good reason way back in the day when people grilled any potential partners for their younger relations.
Just gross to think what that poor women went through and is still going through, 3rd degree burns in private places.
I hope she has a few strong men waiting for him when he is released. he deserves a huge A** beating.
Or worst...

Mrs Fluffy had some inside track on it too and apparently the story is that the perp's brother is high up in a powerful political party and allegedly used influence to get a lower sentence for the perp. I believe the perp's and the political brother's parents were high up in the former Communist governments but their children are aligned with a different flavour of "fascists".

Yes, my husband was invited to a old class reunion a few years back where this "high up " old class mate attended. Husband said he was a stand up guy in school but seems the years have probably made him a sell out.
We were out of Hungary so he wasn't able to go to the class reunion.
One thing I just can't abide is anyone abusing their power.
Just so disgusting.
Interesting that is was his brother, wasn't sure, we thought maybe just a cousin. Makes sense his bro would pull as many strings as possible. Not sure what I would do if a close relation was insane and so hurtful.
I wold hope I wouldn't cover for them if they were so out of control. Some soul searching might be needed but then again we sometimes have to cut ties even with those close to us if they cross the line of what is normal.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

One thing I just can't abide is anyone abusing their power..

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absoutely,

The Nobel Prize in Economics in 1986 was awarded to James Buchanan, Jr for exactly that. He analysied the behaviour of politicians and decided that what they want is not money, but power. They are not really interested in money. When Trump said "I dunno how much the president gets paid" he was probably being absolutely truthful, because he was not interested in the money. He was interested in the power.

Now all you can do about that is make sure you vote. I don't care how you vote which way you vote I do not care if you spoil your paper, I have sometimes, but at every opportunity you have, you get down to that polling booth and vote, It does make a difference.

Otherwise we end up in a world of feudalism where it is your Count that votes.

fluffy2560
As for cyclists and pedestrians, this is something that really is a problem here.  I'd like to cycle to Budaors from here but [url=https://goo.gl/maps/x4wrM2BAX8q wrote:

the road is just too dangerous[/url]with no cycle path and a lot of traffic.  I have done it before but it makes me very nervous.  There's no way to go through the forest either.  Could be a nice ride but there's a shooting range too close to most routes.

It is not a good picture. There is no traffic on it and plenty of room to cycle. Admittedly you are goingt to have one car, the one taking the picture. But I would be quite happy to cycle along there given that example. Clear road, no traffic, what is there to worry about?  I can quite believe you but your example does not show it.

It is one of my gripes with cars mounting the pavement or parking on the pavement.

Now I am a reasonably fit and incredibly handsome mid forties chap who just walks everywhere, not going to win any competitions. Cars parked on the pavement. So I have to walk out into the road so that your bit of metal can have its nice space on MY paevment.

Pavements are for people.

And then if I walk in the road I get beeped at cos I am in the road. Where else am I supposed to walk your expensive piece of scrap metal is in my way on MY pavement/sidewalk. The streets around here are very narrow, people have garages and driveways, but rather than spend ten seconds, leave it overnight on MY pavement so I have to put myself in danger to any other idiot driving along (and they do. It is a 30kph limit. If the car that nearly clocked me and the missus was doing less than sixty on Saturday I'm a dutchman)

I just stand in the way. and make  them wait, I have had stand-up arguments about this, one driver actually got out of his car and hit me because I was in his way. I am in his way? YOu are in MY way, I should like to walk along the f- street, so get your shitty piece expensive, polluting scrap metal out of here so that I can walk down the street,.

I live in just a normal, suburbanm, boring area of Budapest, nothing fancy. I get totally fed up with car drivers who seem to have a death wish trying to knock me over. I cannot walk on the pavement, cos there are cars on the pavement.

Now, I am incredibly handome and slim and able as I mentioned before, but there are people in wheelchairs, in mobility scooters, the blind, who would rather be on the pavement than have to go out into the middle of the road because of your selfishness of parking ont he pavement/sidewalk

They should not be on there. When I got a skip kontainert we had to go to the council to get a sticker to say we were allowed to have it outside our front house, and this is not even blocking traffic, this is on my own well frontage and not touching the street at all. SOmetimesI feel like just ticketing the lot of them. It would be fake tickets of course but will still cause them some grief to get them off their windscreen.ő Nothing compared to the grief I have to have getting past their pieces of expensive, polluting, bits of scrap metal.

GET YOUR F- CARS OFf OFF MY PAVEMENT. Thank you.

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560
As for cyclists and pedestrians, this is something that really is a problem here.  I'd like to cycle to Budaors from here but [url=https://goo.gl/maps/x4wrM2BAX8q wrote:

the road is just too dangerous[/url]with no cycle path and a lot of traffic.  I have done it before but it makes me very nervous.  There's no way to go through the forest either.  Could be a nice ride but there's a shooting range too close to most routes.

It is not a good picture. There is no traffic on it and plenty of room to cycle. Admittedly you are goingt to have one car, the one taking the picture. But I would be quite happy to cycle along there given that example. Clear road, no traffic, what is there to worry about?  I can quite believe you but your example does not show it.

Ain't my fault, it's Google.

I am sure if you complain, they'd rustle up some cars to dress the picture for you.   

Believe me, it's extremely busy with trucks and buses and it's very narrow.  You cannot pass a cyclist when cars are oncoming.

It's one of the main roads out of Budapest to the motorway  West to Vienna.

If you are OK with it, then try cycling on it.   Interestingly enough, click here  and it's a bit further up, then go back (in Google Streetview) towards Budakeszi.  Click on the deer sign and it changes from winter to summer in a few metres.  Bit weird. Why didn't they just do it all at once?

fluffy2560 wrote:

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560
As for cyclists and pedestrians, this is something that really is a problem here.  I'd like to cycle to Budaors from here but [url=https://goo.gl/maps/x4wrM2BAX8q wrote:

the road is just too dangerous[/url]with no cycle path and a lot of traffic.  I have done it before but it makes me very nervous.  There's no way to go through the forest either.  Could be a nice ride but there's a shooting range too close to most routes.

It is not a good picture. There is no traffic on it and plenty of room to cycle. Admittedly you are goingt to have one car, the one taking the picture. But I would be quite happy to cycle along there given that example. Clear road, no traffic, what is there to worry about?  I can quite believe you but your example does not show it.

Ain't my fault, it's Google.

I am sure if you complain, they'd rustle up some cars to dress the picture for you.   

Believe me, it's extremely busy with trucks and buses and it's very narrow.  You cannot pass a cyclist when cars are oncoming.

It's one of the main roads out of Budapest to the motorway  West to Vienna.

If you are OK with it, then try cycling on it.

Oh, I can quite believe you. THe picture just gives a very false impression. Yes with trucks whizzing past etc etc and some idiot in a car desparate to overtake and coming straight at you, that is going to be very dangerous. But the particular picture or scene or whatever is just beautiful straight road, blue sky with some cumulo nimbi, not a car in sight etc. Not the best example, I had to imagine what it probably is like the rest of the time

There is probabably a queue of traffic behind the google camera van all frantically beeping their horns

I used to cycle to work about 6 miles in the morning and, er, 6 miles back in the evening because they hadn't moved my house any closer in the meantime. It is quite easy to cycle in Cambridgeshire because it is as flat as a billiard table, so I would cycle out from Cottenham to Waterbeach onto the A10, this is a 60mph trunk road and no cycle path, they can just f off, up to the A14/A10 roundabout by the science park, that was tricky to get through, coast down and into work. Took me about half an hour and I seem not to have been killed yet.

It is about assertiveness. If you stick your bike in the middle of the road, which you are perfectly entitled to do, then you are saying "f off whoever is behind me, you can wait". Move over when it is safe, obviously, but just block them off and make them wait.

I cycled from calais down the western coast of france then to paris then to belgium and bruges and back to calais. Saw Monet's museum at Giverny that is a pleasant place to go, saw lots of things. A nun at Eu fixed a puncture for me (I could have done it myself but somehow she insisted) it was quite good fun, carrying everything in panniers. Bruges to Brussels was the worst bit it is not very long, about 60km, and quite flat but it was pissing down all day I was sodding soaked when I got to Brussels.

I will hazard a guess, if hazard is the right word, that it is not so much yourself you care about but the Fluffiettes. And that is quite right, That is as it should be.

That is the second time in a week I have trodden in fresh dogshit on the pavement. There is only one dog around and I challenged the owner is this your dog's shit on my boots (they are patent leather boots). Of course he denied all knowledge but I bet it was. Gave him a good telling off and he didn1t answer back so it will be him and his dog.

if you have a dog, please scoop up its mess. It is not only a question of it getting on my nice boots, I can clean my boots. it carries all sorts of diseases and in particular can blind children. It really is not that hard to clear up after your dog. Had he walked another 100 metres there is a little park with dog bin thing to dispose it into. If he forgot to have a bag, he could have gone into the corner shop that is not on the corner, sbe would give him a bag, it is that kind of shop. He went in there anyway so get a bag and clear up your dog's mess. Of course he denied all knowledge.

I am used to Hungary and hearing dogs barking etc in the evenings. I know it is his dog because I know where all the others live and who keeps them. It is this lazy b. who cannot be obthered to pick up after his dog.  If I catch him at it, that merde will not be on my boots. It will be on his face,

There are dog bins in every public park and place, Budapest is extremely dog friendly. You can, if you are a responsible pet owner, use them. I should not have to step in your dog's crap

Thank you.

fluffy2560 wrote:

the deer sign and it changes from winter to summer in a few metres.  Bit weird. Why didn't they just do it all at once?

Because that would cause unemployment. Far better to send two crews out on separate occasions,  keeps them busy. Since Google pay no tax anywhere that is not an issue. Just keeps them busy.

SimonTrew wrote:

.....
It is about assertiveness. If you stick your bike in the middle of the road, which you are perfectly entitled to do, then you are saying "f off whoever is behind me, you can wait". Move over when it is safe, obviously, but just block them off and make them wait.
....
I will hazard a guess, if hazard is the right word, that it is not so much yourself you care about but the Fluffiettes. And that is quite right, That is as it should be.

It's also about common sense.  Human flesh vs high speed metal is not a good bet to have. 

There's always some Jack the Lad in 20 year old BMW with go faster stripes or some nouveau riche guy in a Cayenne willing to overtake on a bend there.  The road is quite winding, with dips and bends and the overtaking places are quite small.

I do care very much about myself and I care even more about the Fluffyettes.  I won't cycle down there and I'd never allow them to cycle down that road.

SimonTrew wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

the deer sign and it changes from winter to summer in a few metres.  Bit weird. Why didn't they just do it all at once?

Because that would cause unemployment. Far better to send two crews out on separate occasions,  keeps them busy. Since Google pay no tax anywhere that is not an issue. Just keeps them busy.

Nah, it's the famous Google Time Portal.

That is perhaps where we differ. I don't give a shit about myself. I make sure the missus is safe and all that, but I am going to die somehow and I really don't care which way it is.

It is perhaps not true. There is a junction in Cambridge it comes off the A10 and is a shortcut through Milton to the science park roundabout. There is another feeder into it also at 60mph and it comes together in a rather acute triangle. Off goes the car, bang goes the motorcyclist, bang goes the other car. Of course we called for ambulances etc and it was the doddery old fool's fault for not seeing the motorcylist, who had you know it could not have been a more visible motoryclcle. The doddery old fool was screaming in pain, you think, hmm, that is OK, he is conscious, let's attend to the biker. He is on the middle of the road he know what he is doing DONT MOVE and he didn't move we did not remove his skid lid. Now check heart and pulse, OK, now back to doddery idiot, climb out, forget about the car, have a sit down (needless to say I was in the pub at lunchtime but only having a nonalcoholic beer, I do not drink and drive) and right. that is OK. Now we there are three lots. About a quarter of a hour later after I have been stoppimg and directing traffic so they do not run over the poor sod (first rule,. do not move a motorcylist,  you do not want to cause them a spinal injury) officer dibble turns up, I inform officer dibble about it. About five minutes later ambulance turns up to look after motorcyclist

i am not saying I am a hero I am far from it but i have been trained in first aid and so on for god knows how many years and I know what to do until the ambulance arrives,. Directing the traffic was the hardest part. The bastards WOULD run over the biker rather than reverse back and go a different way,

I had a similar thing in well fortunately nobody got hurt on this one. A swedish truck driver tried or rather did not try to get under a low bridge near Hitchin station. He has no excuse really it is clearly marked in both metric and imperial how tall it is, I am not sure there are any advanxce signs, so he (I just happened to be walking back home to Ickleford) he slams on his brakes quite rightly to avoid hitting the bridge.

Obviously now there is a tailback of cars behind him. F all he can do about it. He needs those cars out before he can reverse back.

He cannot have been Swedish or he would have spoken English, but the truck was a load from Sweden. He did the right thing by NOT hitting the bridge, that not only causes damage to the top of your cab but the railway inspectorate has to come out and make sure the bridge is safe, and this is on the East Coast Main Line, one of the busiest railways in the UK, it would have caused a huge amount of disruption if he had even nudged that bridge.

I just start telling the cars behins you have to reverse. But I need to get to Safeway or whatever. Madam, you are not going anywhere until that truck can reverse back. Well how do I get there. Turn it around, go down at this mini roundabout it will bring you out on Nightingale Road which is the road the other side of this bridge. Reluctantly, one by one, they all turned back and reversed. One, actually, said sod that and nearly ran me over as I am in the middle of the road telling the cars to back up.. Having realised he could not get through he thought he would have another go at running me over on his way back, such is the impatience of car dricvers.

Got it cleared in about ten minutes, truck reverses back and does a three point turn where I told him he could, everybody happy, road clear, no police, nothing, everyone is on their merry way.

The impatience of car drivers is just, well, it just floors me really. They will not wait for two seconds. Rather kill you than wait two seconds.

Trew's Law of Certificates

Trew's Law of Certificates states that there is an inverse ratio between how good a certificate looks and how much it is worth.

At five years old you swim a length of the baths and you get a beautiful OKlevel on cream laid paper with calligraphy
At sixteen you get your bsasic education certiificates, on reasonable paper with perhaps a signature
When you get a degree it is laser printed on not-very-good printer paper
When you get your PhD they just write it on the back of a cigarette packet and chuck it at you.

Now that was a good bit of one-upmanship-

At the London 2012 Olympics, the British Royal Mint issued special sets of fifty pence pieces, there were forty-nine in all, one for each sport, but they just put them into general circulation so you had to kinda "find" them like you do with Pannini cards. Well my late mum liked a coin or two, nothing valuable, just as a hobby so the missus and i started to kinda keep an eye on fifty pence pieces and apparently so did my twin brother.

The problem  for him was that my missus worked in a retail bank and has stacks of cash running through her fingers daily, if someone paidi in some fifties from a pub or shop she would just run through them.

At the end of her shift she would go through thousands of fifity pence pieces to see if there was one that we hadn't got. (She was the chief cashier and responsible for putting the money away and balancing, so if she found one, she had another fifty pence of our own ready to make up the difference).

We gave my late Mum the whole 49 set about two weeks after they were issued. My twin brother came to visit her two weeks later and said "we got fourteen". Mum said "But Moo and Simon have already got the whole lot". I would have loved to have seen that moment.

SimonTrew wrote:

Trew's Law of Certificates

Trew's Law of Certificates states that there is an inverse ratio between how good a certificate looks and how much it is worth.

At five years old you swim a length of the baths and you get a beautiful OKlevel on cream laid paper with calligraphy
At sixteen you get your bsasic education certiificates, on reasonable paper with perhaps a signature
When you get a degree it is laser printed on not-very-good printer paper
When you get your PhD they just write it on the back of a cigarette packet and chuck it at you.

I still have 2 of my  "Good Citizen" certificates from elementary school! Talk about being a nerd!
My Girl Scout pin in still safe in a box too.
Not sure why I was always getting a good citizen award in school, being called up on stage and awarded a certificate. They used me and a few other "goody two shoe" kids to make the other children get in line.
I never even tried to be a good citizen at that time, just wasn't as horrible I suppose and the rest of the kids.
They always picked me to be a "snitch" , gave me a paper to write down the names of any children that got out of their seats or talked when the teacher went outside to meet another teacher and have a smoke. Never wrote down even one name, not that dumb to turn everyone against me.
Was always asked to be the hall monitor too, had to wear a white sash over my little dress.
Tell kids not to run in the halls etc.
Little police child really.
Not sure what happened though, later became a rebel.
My son never got any good citizenship awards in school, in fact, no lie I was called into the principles office his very first day of kindergarten. He was ,"instigating a break out". Had the other 5 years old trying to climb the fence to freedom!
Honestly I was more proud of him doing that then I dared let on in the office.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

....
My son never got any good citizenship awards in school, in fact, no lie I was called into the principles office his very first day of kindergarten. He was ,"instigating a break out". Had the other 5 years old trying to climb the fence to freedom!
Honestly I was more proud of him doing that then I dared let on in the office.

More power to him!  If he'd been in WW2, he'd have been in demand at Stalag 13.

Earliest certificate I have (and still have) is a swimming certificate from about age 8 - swim 20 yards on a recognised stroke and jump or dive from the side of the swimming pool.  I even remember taking that test.

After that major achievement, it's been downhill ever since.