Grumble Thread

[oddoneout]

Our local Tesco seems poorly-managed. Despite the size of the building we're surprisd tp find how often they don't have even some basic items like a 2-pint carton of whole milk or half a dozen eggs. or small pork pies. Yet aboiut half the store is given over to clothes and stationery.

Cutting costs by cutting staff means less flexibility to get stock out onto the shop floor, so if a delivery(eg milk) is held up there may be no-one to put it out. The other reason for gaps is if the deliveries don't arrive at all.
I suspect that priority is increasingly given to the online order business which doesn't help either.

[Serial_Apologist]

Advance warning email from Thames Water - bills to go up an extra £192 PA from April.

[french frank]

Handyman has just rehung my 4-panel Victorian door upside down, and lo!, at a stroke, it is now a 4-panel 1920s door.

[Roger Webb]

Handyman has just rehung my 4-panel Victorian door upside down, and lo!, at a stroke, it is now a 4-panel 1920s door.

The worst thing is that knockers hung upside down!!

Edit. Sorry that remark was unhinged.

[french frank]

The worst thing is that knockers hung upside down!!

It would be except that it's an inside door - people are not required to knock or ring.

[oddoneout]

Advance warning email from Thames Water - bills to go up an extra £192 PA from April.

Well those dividends and CEO bonuses won't pay themselves you know...

[Roger Webb]

It would be except that it's an inside door - people are not required to knock or ring.

Yes, not even the most cack handed 'handy'man wouldn't notice the letterbox flap was the wrong way up!. It occured to me after I'd posted (geddit?) that it might be an inside door - did he put it right?

I'd offer to fix it (I'm in your manor tomorrow...funeral) but I'm not a great DIYer......

[Pulcinella]

It would be except that it's an inside door - people are not required to knock or ring.

PLES RING IF AN RNSER IS REQIRD.
PLEZ CNOKE IF AN RNSR IS NOT REQID.

[oddoneout]

Handyman has just rehung my 4-panel Victorian door upside down, and lo!, at a stroke, it is now a 4-panel 1920s door.

Normally the bottom hinge is placed at a different(greater) spacing from the edge of the door to the top one - an optical illusion then makes them look equal - so he must have got lucky - or drilled new holes. Or did the hinges change sides? My nasty plastic external doors don't observe that which is why the bottom hinges look as if they are set lower than the top ones although both sets are in fact equidistant from the upper and lower edges of the door.

[french frank]

did he put it right?

He's returning in three weeks to do some more handiwork. Ironically, it was actually a Victorian-style door made earlier by myself to the exact dimensions of other doors in the house. I took exception to a couple of modern replacement doors and hurled them out. I made this one and half-inched one which renovators had discarded next door. I could have offered them one of those I attacked with a saw, smashed the glass and chucked into the wheelie bin. Alas, no longer capable of such things.

[Roger Webb]

- people are not required to knock or ring.

If you have to keep getting up to answer the door, rising butts are handy!

[french frank]

If you have to keep getting up to answer the door, rising butts are handy!

Oooh, we're motoring, we're really motoring this evening ... :-)

[Roger Webb]

.............. it was actually a Victorian-style door made earlier by myself ......

I'm impressed! How do you make a 'Victorian-style' door?

In woodwork lessons at school (early 60s) I remember making a book shelf - a simple three-pieces-of-wood model (with dovetail joints, no less!) to house, say, half a dozen books. After we'd toiled away for several hours, over several lessons, came the great day - the woodwork master was to inspect the finished product and 'mark' it. He walked along the row of benches with a mallet in his hand, those judged not worthy of any marks were ruthlessly destroyed by a single blow of the mallet.....I heard it approach, every one seemed to suffer the same judgement under the 'gavel', then it was my turn 'CRASH'.....I've never really taken to carpentry since!

[cria]

Cruel - the spiders will get lost & the cobwebs will grow upside down ...

[french frank]

I'm impressed! How do you make a 'Victorian-style' door?

The 4-panel door is made up of a basic frame of 3 horizontal rails: the top rail is relatively narrow, the bottom rail is wider and the middle rail, or lock rail, the widest and is set a bit lower than halfway down. These are tenoned into the two side pieces, or stiles. The lock rail has a double tenon each end - a very wide tenon with a piece cut out of it, to increase the gluing surface. Before gluing into the stiles two short perpendicular pieces (muntins) are tenoned, the first into the top rail and lock rail, the second into the lock rail and bottom rail. So to assemble: take the top rail and push the top muntin into its bottom edge; then push the other end of the muntin into the lock rail. Then do the same with the lower muntin - up into the lock rail and down into the bottom rail. You will have cut a narrow groove into the inner edges of all the pieces and you slide the four thin panels into the grooves. Then you push the stiles on to the tenons sticking out from the rails. There should be shoulders cut into the two top tenons to prevent twisting and you can hammer in small wedges to tighten the tenons. Cramp it up and if it's square, disassemble the whole thing, apply the glue and put it back together again. Cramp it up with sash cramps and leave overnight.