Sue

Sorted that one, now I can't get onto page 3 of the Sainsbury's thread, maybe just as well :) Getting the Error 400 message again. Am I the only one having problems?

I had to go to Dulwich Hospital for an X-Ray this morning, and was a bit surprised at the state of the pavements - I would have thought gritting the pavements between Lordship Lane and the Hospital, even just on the hospital side, would have been a priority given the pedestrian traffic to the hospital for X-Rays and blood tests etc!

I thought the proposal for a tube link at East Dulwich had been - sadly - scrapped years ago?

I am still waiting for a CD I ordered from eBay for a Christmas present. This was posted to me on 13 December by a seller with 100% feedback, who says all the others posted that day have safely arrived. It was a bit of a niche genre but I guess the thief wouldn't know this prior to nicking it, if that's what's happened. Also - I have heard nothing back from Royal Mail re my two pre-Christmas complaints about packets being left on my doorstep. I am putting this down to a complaints backlog over the Christmas leave period, but I shall be chasing them hard if I haven't heard anything soon.

That thread's now OK, but I just got exactly the same message when I tried to edit my first vegetable grater thread post in the Wanted section to say I'd found one - unable to edit it. Weird. Never had this happen before!

Don't encourage Eater81 to continue, ffs. I've got no wish to continue a discussion with anyone who describes other people as muppets and morons and then tries to defend it.

If the roads are OK, you can get the 176 all the way to Tottenham Court Road, so from the point of view of not having to change that might be best, I usually allow an hour but depends on time of day and traffic.

Here's the link to complain again - click below: Royal Mail complaints

Back to Black - Amy Winehouse

Thanks LegalBeagle. To be fair, I wouldn't describe the builder as a cowboy - didn't deliver on promises and didn't always seem to know how to do things, but I'm sure that wasn't deliberate. Was very over-confident, however, which was why it took me a while to realise that things were going so slowly and so wrong.

OK I thought you were the person who had made the devil's advocate post, as you were going on about it, so what? My point still stands. Now don't you think it would be a good idea to debate the issue this thread is supposed to be about?

eater81 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > Sue, please read my posts properly and at least > attempt to understand the message I am trying to > convey before insulting me. Hell, you've already > embarrassed yourself by getting on your high horse > through not understanding the concept of 'devils > advocate'! > >xxxxxxx Excuse me? I'm not in the least embarrassed, and please don't patronise me. Your post was not worded in a way that implied you were playing devil's advocate, it was worded in a way that implied you yourself believed what you were saying. That may not have been what you meant to convey, but it was how the post came across, and it was not only me who picked that up. If you don't want people to misunderstand you and your posts, perhaps you should read them all through thoroughly before hitting the "post message" button. Edited to add: And I don't believe you have helped your case by continuing to slag people off in the way you are doing, for example the people at Halfords. And why should earning a relatively low salary be related to how people behave or how you describe them?

Might be a good idea to post this on the rail guy's thread? Edited to add: Ooops, you have, sorry!!! :-$

I can no longer get into page 3 at all, and whatever way I try I get this: Error 400 We're sorry, but we could not fulfill your request for /forum/read.php?5,392355,page=3 on this server. Your proxy server sent an invalid request. Please contact the proxy server administrator to have this problem fixed. Your technical support key is: c35d-1261-b783-0251 You can use this key to fix this problem yourself. If you are unable to fix the problem yourself, please contact db at eastdulwichforum.co.uk and be sure to provide the technical support key shown above. (I tried the fix it yourself link but got a strange message. Has this page been corrupted in some way?)

Haven't seen a single bird in my garden today, maybe they're just all sheltering somewhere till the snow goes, so maybe it wasn't your cake! There's normally loads of them on the peanuts and fat balls, and eating stuff off the ground if they can't get at those.

Back Street Slide - Richard Thompson

Thanks both for your support! LegalBeagle I may well PM you at some point, just trying to get a load of stuff sorted I wasn't able to do over the holidays as I've been ill for a while (better now). HelenaHandbasket, they filmed loads and then edited it right down. They had already told me that they weren't going to cover the problems with the builder, because those only became gradually apparent as the project progressed (or didn't. It was such a relief to have my living room back, which I hadn't been able to use for almost two months, and have a bath, which sat around unplumbed in for a month (I feel another rant coming on here - it wasn't the plumber's fault, the plumber was great) that my happiness on the final day of filming was genuine, even though nothing was finished :))

I've had so much stress already with the builder, who threatened to take me to court (I withheld the final week's payment pending discussion of what was due, but the builder refused to discuss things with me in person with or without an independent mediator, and hasn't responded to any of my further efforts to sort the situation out), that I'm not sure I can take on the TV company as well. They have told me OFF the record that the whole TV team was appalled at the builder (who spent a day with them on the reveal day and amongst other things apparently took three hours to make a few pencil marks on one cupboard door. At this point the TV team rightly or wrongly decided that apparently the builder did not actually know how to attach the doors and was playing for time knowing that there was none left. The builder had previously promised both myself and the TV company that all the doors would be completed and attached by a date three days prior to the reveal day. The builder then apparently used a 7" masonry drill to put up a picture in the living room, thereby drilling right through to my newly plastered hall and knocking out large lumps of my hall wall. One of the TV assistants, an amateur DIYer, also apparently put up three blinds in the living room in the time it took the builder to put up one). This all cost the TV company money because they had to keep the film crew on for several hours after they should have left, at vast expense, because things weren't ready for the reveal. However, ON the record, is a different matter. The reveal day was last August, the TV programme was shown in October/November, can't remember the exact date, and the ?100 was offered only after the programme had been screened. I'm not sure how long I could legally wait before approaching the TV company for a better offer, and also I'm not sure quite what I would say except that they effectively put pressure on me to retain the services of and pay somebody who I would otherwise have replaced, in order for their programme to be completed. The thing is - at the end of the day, I employed this builder, the TV people didn't force me to, albeit I would have replaced them PDQ in other circumstances after I'd given them the benefit of the doubt once too often (6) Edited to say: All the trauma physically aged me about twenty years (seriously), and caused me to lose my rag big time with the builder plus snap at my poor partner who I'm amazed stuck with me through it all. He has also tolerated many long long rants about the situation and its effect on my retirement plans :-$ Edited to add: My retirement plans will be forced upon me if I don't get back to work now :))

To be fair to the TV company, the deal was that they provided a designer (though he was minimally involved) and I found and paid for tradespeople. Unfortunately a person who was supposed to be just sanding my floors convinced me that they could do all the other work required as well. There were one or two hitches outside their control, but mostly it appeared that they just couldn't do the work within the required timescale, even though the TV people extended this as far as they could. Also they took on things which they apparently didn't have the skills and/or experience to do, which not only meant that they had to spend time putting right their errors (which they charged me for doing!!) but has also left me with having to arrange for other people to mend or redo things. They promised me verbally and in writing a fortnight before the "reveal day" that all the work would be completed in time, and in retrospect I have been very naive as despite all the evidence to the contrary I kept on hoping that things would somehow come right in the end. I think the culpability of the TV company is in more or less forcing me to keep this person on just so that they could complete their programme on time, even though they knew of the problems. They also persuaded me to pay them at a point when I would have just called a halt, again to keep them working on the house even though progress was painfully slow and I was stupidly paying by the hour. It will cost me well over a thousand pounds just to get the floors redone, plus wiring has been wrongly done (this person insisted on rewiring ceiling roses even though I had an electrician, saying they could do it cheaper, and in the process broke the wiring of both lights next on the circuit), newly plastered bathroom walls have apparently been undercoated without being properly sealed with PVA, as is apparent from some of the unpainted parts, apparently the living room cupboards have been built so that the doors will not fit flush, which may be why they were never fitted, and I have a very expensive and beautiful basin plus very expensive and beautiful taps, but the taps/spout are not suitable for the basin although the builder saw pix and the dimensions of everything before I bought it, so nothing has been installed. I've also got three pieces of very expensive iroko wood which are the wrong size. There's more. I can't bear to go on :-S But hey, the TV company got a good programme out of it. They subsequently offered me ?100 in an email which mostly consisted of legal stuff disclaiming any responsibility - which I thought was such an insult I haven't responded.

Penguin68 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > > Calling someone who is poorly paid 'a muppet' - > presumably wholly based on their wage rate - seems > extreme. I have, in the main, found the staff at > Dog Kennel Hill helpful (in locating or searching > for items) friendly and by no means stupid. xxxxxxx I have also found the DKH staff very helpful and friendly. They are doing a useful and important job, and just because their pay is low does not make them muppets, whatever that is supposed to imply. Says more about the person name-calling really. Wonder how s/he would have reacted in the same situation?

Yeh but I had to find and pay for the people to do the work - I kept flagging up to the telly people that there were problems but all they were really concerned about was getting an hour's programme out of it at the end of the day working to a very tight deadline - so they put pressure on me to keep on a builder who had promised the earth but bitten off more than they were capable of doing properly in the time, unfortunately (and has now disappeared despite all my efforts to contact them). And yeh the living room did look great despite the cupboards having no doors :)) but it wasn't really "me", and I still haven't got it feeling comfortable :-S And yeh at least I have a flushing loo and can have a bath, but for six months I've been living without a proper bathroom, and with a very expensive new shower which I can't use. And all the floors have got to be redone (6) Still, live and learn eh - I'm having to keep on at my day job to pay other people to get it all finished, once I summon up the energy to get yet more quotes (6)

My house and I were on "Love the Place You're In" earlier in the year - has it been repeated? Edited to say: It was sold to other channels I think so maybe they've changed the name. Don't all rush for autographs :)) What the programme doesn't show is the problems I had with the builder and the fact that despite a six week extension to the filming neither the living room nor the bathroom were finished (still aren't, I was totally traumatised, haven't been able to bring myself to sort it all, AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH).

Like I Do - Maureen Evans

My central heating thermostat/timer thingy, which has batteries in it, was going haywire when I got up this morning. If the boiler is fired electrically (showing my total lack of techy knowledge here) could an electrical fluctuation have affected the thermostat?

eater81 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > > The fact of the matter is that supermarket staff, > security guards included, are and always will be a > complete bunch of useless muppets. > Tell ya what though, if you really wanna encounter > a bunch of chumps who put even the ED Sainsbury's > staff to shame I suggest paying a visit to Brixton > Halfords. Utter morons. xxxxxxx Pots and kettles spring to mind here .......