Elite 11+ shopping and chat thread part 2½

locarr

Anon wrote: »

I haven't been yet ... I need to drive round a bit first to make more space for fuel .

Anon

I know what you mean! was planning to do an out of town S tomorro but I'm all juiced up...put £80 worth in today :eek:

TrulyMadly

LANGO1966 wrote: »

Can confirm Debenhams and Next gift cards gave out bonus coupons

Freewheeling

I spent £5.40 on chai today and got £6 back from COS!

TrulyMadly

Just looking at the Jack Munro cookbook.

Put 2 handfuls of pasta in a mug and fill with boiling water. Put a saucer on the top and leave for 10 minutes.

Then it's done

Really?

How much gas / electricity have I wasted over the years?

Savvybuyer

braveheart60uk wrote: »

Savvybuyer, rules are VERY important, to an autistic they can be absolutely solid and undeniable. In the NT world it just seems they only use them when it suits them :mad: . I live in a black and white world with rules, NTs seem to live in a fog of grey. For example, parking. They know what the rules are, but still park where they get a ticket, then blame the traffic warden or say that they only did it for a minute ???
[...]

Thanks for that, I've now got an extra post to add to my other four or five now waiting in the queue:rotfl:. I think you've missed the point though (and I know you won't mind me saying this as it is the truth) - rules aren't important at all as most people don't follow them, except that they are important all of a sudden when non-autistic people decide that they are. I think I've used the phrase "when it suits" in one of my posts before. Bound to have done with the amount I write:rotfl:. Then again, it's not only me that says this - I've heard non-autistic people (or what are probably non-autistic people) saying "when it suits" about other non-autistic people. So it shouldn't be assumed it's only an 'issue' that we have, about the 'rules', or lack of them, or sudden application or disapplication of them seemingly at will and whim, of the world.

On parking, I've actually got something that happened with me on that the other day.

To start though, I think we're actually seeing it in a different way when you say "they know what the rules are". I think - and I'm correct aren't I as ever? - that you are thinking in terms of the written-down rules displayed clearly for all to see (and NTs to ignore) on the parking signs/meters etc. However, perhaps this is a mistake: they know what the rules are, but in terms of the unwritten rules, that I am still to this day unaware of precisely what they are, that seem to override what I see written in front of me on signs. NTs know the rules, i.e. those rules, the unwritten ones that say "really this doesn't apply" and it's those rules that they are following. In fact, it's probably now a mistake to think people are following any rules at all or that people have even considered them before they did whatever they did (namely park in breach of the written rules - boohoo, you killjoy Savvy, you boring parking enforcer). I think it's possible that people are retrospectively trying to justify what they did afterwards, even though they have broken the rules.

However, the 'blame the traffic warden', or moan that you only overstayed by a minute (which is probably another whopping lie that comes from people's lips - the truth being they left their vehicle there for an extra half an hour) when they have got a parking ticket, is a situation of the rules being enforced against the (non-autistic) person that broke them. People do things though, hoping to get away with them and I think largely they are successful - I think most people don't get caught and therefore the 'rule' is to break the rules and the vast majority of the time you won't get caught so all is fine and so the rules don't really apply. That's why, possibly, I think, people generally may not be following them (although they will still claim to be 'law-abiding'). However, let's still give the benefit of what may be a naive and unjustified doubt on my part and say it's probably only a minority of people that don't follow the rules. The problem I have though is that I comply with the rules (that it often seems - maybe because it's actually true and I am being naive? - that no-one else complies with) and the moment if I were to decide to follow 'everyone else' and not comply with them, it would be me that would get a parking ticket every time. I am always doing something wrong - if I comply with the rules, I am then still doing it wrong:huh:.

A parking situation the other day - actually at a place I hadn't visited before - I actually left a car park, in order to park elsewhere, in order not to break the (written, displayed) rules of the car park. That has actually put me at a disadvantage in the extra time taken to travel outside to park and then the extra walk to go back in, to visit the place I whose car park I would have used had the rules allowed it. At least three vehicles were already there, none of them parked in bays as required by the written rules (you stickler Savvy). They, I reckon, have got away, despite the written rules. I don't think those rules really apply (and their display is therefore misleading). I however, because of my disability, went elsewhere to park, because my disability makes me do so, and to follow the rules as displayed results in treating me less favourably as I am put to having to spend extra time to travel out of the car park to park on the road where there are no yellow lines and then spend the time walking back to the building. The car park owners ought therefore to make the reasonable adjustment of putting a notice onto their sign stating "These rules do not really apply" so that autistic people can know that that is the position. I suspect, if I tried to ask for this one, I would be told the Equality Act 'doesn't really apply' however:rotfl:.

On another matter to do with car parks, sometimes you still see car parks that have a notice claiming "Vehicles parked at owner's risk" and some of them even expressly deny responsibility for the car park's own negligence. These still likely don't comply with what used to be the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations and now the Consumer Rights Act. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) got several complaints about notices like this in the early days of the law and took action against the car parks, including even government bodies, such as local councils, whom you might (wrongly) expect to comply with the law. Some of the notices were removed but, even after complaints, some of them remain even though they are likely unenforceable and misleading to consumers generally (who will not know, because most people know next to nothing at all, that they are unenforceable). Then, after getting enough complaints about numerous different car parks, the OFT decided that it had got enough of its own precedents and wouldn't act against individual notices anymore instead just write to the general trade. Of course, no-one ever really complies with rules and so this resulted in nothing or almost nothing changing. Responsibility now rests with the Competition and Markets Authority (and local Trading Standards) and, over two decades after the rules first came in, signs like this are still found on display. No-one complies with the rules and the same car parks then enforce other rules against other people also failing to comply with those.

The thing I found strange when in my car once - I am normally driving alone and so never realised it - was when I had a non-autistic person, who of course knew better, in my car with me once. I was coming off a dual carriageway onto a slip road and the slip road has clear signage to go down to 30 mph. So, what did I do? I braked, like you should, to be travelling at 30 mph when I reached the sign. That is the speed limit. As soon as I began to brake, my passenger cried out, as if startled by my reasonable and expected braking, "don't do that!". They even wanted to take control of the vehicle and stop me doing it. It turned out that, apparently, "no one ever complies with those signs".:rotfl: Ridiculous - more fool me again, apparently you're not supposed to slow down to be travelling at 30 mph when you reach a 30 mph sign.

I still do. I can't drive any differently and, if I did, I'd suddenly find a police car appear and then the 30 mph rule would suddenly be reapplied. It's actually been 30 mph plus 10% - they don't even comply with what they've actually said on the sign there either. I just make sure I am aware of what is behind me, so that no-one runs into me by failing to expect me to actually comply with speed linit signs (what a novelty and unusual thing that is!) and often have to pull over into another lane to let speeding drivers (in other words every other driver on the roads as far as I can see) just do whatever speed they want to. People generally are just determined to break the law.

I think people would say I'm annoying going at 30 mph. In fact, that's exactly what people say - Google "the annoying Asperger car". However, if so, it's not just me - and people then should be driving at 30 mph so would never catch up with me and would therefore be no cause for any annoyance - but my own problem with annoying drivers is those that drive, in cars, at 40 mph when national speed limits (60 mph for their vehicle) apply. We'll have 30 mph and they'll want to do 40 behind me and then national speed limit comes - and I'm away, gone before their brain even recognised the sign probably and then stopped by an annoying driver in front of me at 40 mph:(:mad:. It got so bad on one road recently - miles of road out in the country and no place where I could overtake - that I actually thought about reporting the driver in front to the police It's actually a criminal offence to fail to show reasonable consideration to other users on the road. I was getting annoyed by their unreasonable slow driving and I don't think it was showing reasonable consideration to me and any other road uses behind them wishing to drive, safely, at the speed limit rather than being held up by them. I am right, and everyone else is wrong. I am entirely reasonable when driving in the 30 mph zone - I cannot go 40 mph for them and, of course, by coming close behind me trying to do that when I am complying with the law, they are tailgating and breaking the law. It's them, at other times, not going safely at higher speed limits (we are not talking about inclement weather when the speed limit is, supposedly, a maximum limit and you should do lower if it is to be safe) and failure to drive at what you should be driving at and seemingly failing to notice the driver behind you all the way, who would like not to be annoyingly held up when lower speed limits do not apply, is failing to show reasonable consideration for me. "Everyone else" is wrong on both counts - they drive too fast and too slow. (Too fast in 30s, too slow in 60s - not just wrong, but doubly wrong!! Wrong on both - how wrong can you be?)

Of course, it's me that is wrong because I am approaching it from the view of "it's what you should be doing". I'm wrong there according to the rest of the world - we shouldn't be doing what we should. Or people should be doing it - but they don't. Apparently I am the one that annoys others for 'doing what you should':huh::rotfl:. Clearly I am missing the point again I know.

Freewheeling

TrulyMadly wrote: »

Just looking at the Jack Munro cookbook.

Put 2 handfuls of pasta in a mug and fill with boiling water. Put a saucer on the top and leave for 10 minutes.

Then it's done

Really?

How much gas / electricity have I wasted over the years?

I'd be very skeptical that this would work! Unless of course it's tiny 'soup' pasta shapes.

TrulyMadly

Freewheeling wrote: »

I'd be very skeptical that this would work! Unless of course it's tiny 'soup' pasta shapes.

Me too but I'm definitely going to try it

Anon

TrulyMadly wrote: »

Just looking at the Jack Munro cookbook.

Put 2 handfuls of pasta in a mug and fill with boiling water. Put a saucer on the top and leave for 10 minutes.

Then it's done

Really?

How much gas / electricity have I wasted over the years?

... Must be small hands or a big mug .

Anon

curlgirl

My results from Swipe and win
1x2000 2x1000 3x 500 3x 200

we got 4 £10 lots of fuel plus needed some wine for curling prizes

food shopping mostly got things that were on special offer, yogurts,Vimto Aunt Bessie chips,Pataks curry sauce, special k, some magazines and a few own brand things in 4 x£10 shops. Wish I had known about the gift cards.

Lady in front of me spent £81 :eek:don't think she even had a nectar card

pacifica9

Good evening Elite.

Hoping everyone is warm, happy and well. Hugs to those not so.

School Halloween party just finished. 30 kids hyped up on chocolate, cakes and sweets for two hours. :eek: I'm shattered! And perhaps slightly deaf. :rotfl:

I think I will stick with virtual children.