Castle Aching

[wagonman]

28 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

It must be a hard life advertising funeral services. Like the wedding "industry", there's not much repeat business.

 

But unlike the wedding industry, there is at least an endless supply of customers for undertaking services. And no competition from the Register Office.

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

38 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

 

On the other hand, the local undertakers have started mailshotting me.

 

 

 

At the height of our ongoing lockdown and plague the local cemetery chose to place a sign in plain view saying "New burial plots available" ..... 

[St Enodoc]

1 minute ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

 

Oh I dunno most undertakers find that people are just dying to see them .......

There is a certain similarity between "layout" and "lay out".

 

Just sayin'.

[St Enodoc]

1 minute ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

 

At the height of our ongoing lockdown and plague the local cemetery chose to place a sign in plain view saying "New burial plots available" ..... 

Buy now and save!

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

1 minute ago, St Enodoc said:

There is a certain similarity between "layout" and "lay out".

 

Just sayin'.

 

It's a metaphor for the state of mine at the moment.

[Edwardian]

Classic. We're now being sued by Europe.

 

Hugely amusingly, Bill Cash MP is attempting to explain to those unpatriotic pinkos at the Beeb how suing the UK for its bad faith impugns UK sovereignty and is, therefore, bad faith on the part of the EU.

 

No, I'm not making that up. 

 

Restores one's faith in the intellectual rigour of the Lower House. 

 

After all, what is Albion if not Perfidious?

 

It's enough to make you tear your hair out!

 

[Edwardian]

30 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Buy now and save!

 

I think with the death rate rising, households should be offered a buy-one-get-one-free discount.

[Edwardian]

34 minutes ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

 

At the height of our ongoing lockdown and plague the local cemetery chose to place a sign in plain view saying "New burial plots available" ..... 

 

".... offer subject to availability"?

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

It must be a hard life advertising funeral services. Like the wedding "industry", there's not much repeat business.

 

Alas, unfortunately, also rather like a litigator.

 

For me to have repeat customers, they need to be pretty unlucky. 

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

It must be a hard life advertising funeral services. Like the wedding "industry", there's not much repeat business.

 

Perhaps the "wedding industry" should start thinking about forging links with divorce lawyers?

 

What goes around, comes around might be a suitable motto for the alliance...

 

 

[Edwardian]

3 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Perhaps the "wedding industry" should start thinking about forging links with divorce lawyers?

 

What goes around, comes around might be a suitable motto for the alliance...

 

 

 

Undertakers will still be better off ....it is at least possible to avoid marriage.  

 

 

[Nearholmer]

17 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Hugely amusingly, Bill Cash MP is attempting to explain to those unpatriotic pinkos at the Beeb how suing the UK for its bad faith impugns UK sovereignty and is, therefore, bad faith on the part of the EU.

 

Yes, I was having a sandwich and a bit of a play with the toy train-set while listening to that - it was about as unconvincing an argument as I've ever heard. The way I understand it: we announce loud and clear that we intend to breach the contract (to use language from the world I'm used to); then we complain loud and clear when the other party gives us due warning of their intent to take the matter to the arbiter. Bizarre. Who, apart from the most gullible British voter, is the performance intended for? Actually, that is the answer, isn't it?

[Edwardian]

3 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Yes, I was having a sandwich and a bit of a play with the toy train-set while listening to that - it was about as unconvincing an argument as I've ever heard. The way I understand it: we announce loud and clear that we intend to breach the contract (to use language from the world I'm used to); then we complain loud and clear when the other party gives us due warning of their intent to take the matter to the arbiter. Bizarre. Who, apart from the most gullible British voter, is the performance intended for? Actually, that is the answer, isn't it?

 

Perhaps it's a case of that old, old adage, "you can fool slightly more than half of the people all of the time".  

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, St Enodoc said:

Buy now and save!

 

33 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

I think with the death rate rising, households should be offered a buy-one-get-one-free discount.

 

Well, actually, having as some of you will be aware recently had to arrange my father's funeral, I can say that things were made very much easier (and cheaper) by my father having bought a double plot when my mother died. That was an instance of repeat business for the cemetery and the undertakers. That's why I wrote "not much" repeat business - still some.

Edited October 1, 2020 by Compound2632

[webbcompound]

16 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

Perhaps it's a case of that old, old adage, "you can fool slightly more than half of the people all of the time".  

Or you can fool slightly more than half the people who bother to vote

[Edwardian]

1 minute ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

Well, actually, having as some of you will be aware recently had to arrange my father's funeral, I can say that things were made very much easier (and cheaper) by my father having bought a double plot when my mother died. That was an instance of repeat business for the cemetery and the undertakers.

 

I'm sorry to hear that, Stephen, my very sincere condolences. 

 

I'm sorry if my gallows humour is a little too near the nerve.  Truth be told, I'm in a real funk about my Aged Ps; the isolation is literally killing them off by stages and I cannot get to them.  The NE lockdown prevents anyone from the "Protected Area" visiting a house outside it. I am suggesting meeting at a pub somewhere nearer their end - a long way for a short time together but the only way to see them legally.  Persuading them out of the house is a problem though. I feel like I'm watching their terminal decline at a distance.  I suppose people here know me well enough to know that the way I cope with anything bad is to be exceedingly flippant - I'm your basic Chandler Bing - but I should realise that doesn't always make it appropriate.    

 

If course, the irony is that, at the time our regional restrictions were imposed, the cases per 100,000 in Co. Durham were 39 as against a, then, national average of 16.  However, the Borough of Charnwood, where the Ancestors live, had 41 cases per 100K. 

 

Anyway, I have other issues, too, and last night I had vivid and unpleasant dreams that sort of infected today, also hence the rash of bad taste humour.  I offer all this by way of explanation, not excuse, and I am sorry for appearing so callous. 

[Edwardian]

2 minutes ago, webbcompound said:

Or you can fool slightly more than half the people who bother to vote

 

Good point, well brought out!

[Hroth]

2 hours ago, wagonman said:

 

That reminds me of another one for the Reading List: "1000 years of Annoying the French" by Stephen Clarke (Bantam 2010)...

 

At the moment, available as a Kindle book for 99 pence.

 

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

So, here was I speculating as to whether the Plague might free up some of the local housing stock and drive the prices down, and whether, if so, I might somehow steal a march on the baying hordes of latte swigging Millennials.  If so, I might live long enough to own a house.

 

Well, it seems not.

 

Depends on what you're looking for and the sort of housing stock available.  Where I am, there appears to be no demand (for example) for fairly decent* 3 bed semis, £160k-£200k.  I constantly get emails from estate agents offering houses that have been reduced.

 

* Decent meaning: Not on a crammed, huge housing estate, reasonably "large" rooms, adequate front/back garden with garage (ideal for railway), ready to occupy...

 

[Edwardian]

Actually, apropos Kevin's post, is this not a case of playing to one's base, the way we have seen in the States? Where an electorate is polarised, the opposite camp will not be swayed by anything you say. Likewise, your base will accept anything you say, so you just have to say something. Thus, it does not matter overmuch that what Mr Cash said was utter b0ll0cks, as Jonathan Sumption, rather more elegantly, pointed out right after he'd finished.

[sem34090]

Unfortunately it seems that the concept of a political debate in which both sides stand a chance of convincing others via evidence and reason has ceased to exist.

[Compound2632]

Just now, sem34090 said:

Unfortunately it seems that the concept of a political debate in which both sides stand a chance of convincing others via evidence and reason has ceased to exist.

... because we have been taught that all opinions are of equal value and to be respected*?

 

*With the exception of those that are proscribed.

[webbcompound]

15 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

Truth be told, I'm in a real funk about my Aged Ps; the isolation is literally killing them off by stages and I cannot get to them.  The NE lockdown prevents anyone from the "Protected Area" visiting a house outside it. I am suggesting meeting at a pub somewhere nearer their end - a long way for a short time together but the only way to see them legally. 

 

We are assuming we are considered to be in the "support bubble"  of the aged mother-in- law, so although she is not of our household we can interact indoors. This is the only way we can understand what to do as she is staying with us this week If this wasn't the case we would have had to turf her onto the street halfway through the week and wouldn't even be able to drive her home to North Yorkshire from Northumberland. You suffer from having more than one parent, but I'm sure the government is working hard to resolve that problem for lots of families through the "accidental cull"

 

 

Edited October 1, 2020 by webbcompound

[sem34090]

Quite possibly, although a good deal of opinions are deemed to be so invalid as to be not be worth listening to. Anyone who holds those opinions, or more accurately put doesn't hold the right opinions, is labelled as stupid or in some instances as a Fascist for no particularly good reason.

 

I saw it, and was labelled as such, many times in college and expect the same to happen, probably more so, now that I'm in a university.

 

I take it these are the proscribed opinions that you refer to? 

Edited October 1, 2020 by sem34090

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

I'm sorry if my gallows humour is a little too near the nerve.  Truth be told, I'm in a real funk about my Aged Ps; the isolation is literally killing them off by stages and I cannot get to them.  The NE lockdown prevents anyone from the "Protected Area" visiting a house outside it. I am suggesting meeting at a pub somewhere nearer their end - a long way for a short time together but the only way to see them legally.  Persuading them out of the house is a problem though. I feel like I'm watching their terminal decline at a distance.  I suppose people here know me well enough to know that the way I cope with anything bad is to be exceedingly flippant - I'm your basic Chandler Bing - but I should realise that doesn't always make it appropriate.    

 

If course, the irony is that, at the time our regional restrictions were imposed, the cases per 100,000 in Co. Durham were 39 as against a, then, national average of 16.  However, the Borough of Charnwood, where the Ancestors live, had 41 cases per 100K. 

 

Anyway, I have other issues, too, and last night I had vivid and unpleasant dreams that sort of infected today, also hence the rash of bad taste humour.  I offer all this by way of explanation, not excuse, and I am sorry for appearing so callous. 

 

I was contributing to the gallows humour myself, which is a good sign that I am becoming reconciled. Actually having had the funeral has helped with that. You probably didn't see my post on the G&SWR 8 ton box wagon:

Of course the Parents-in-Law continue to be a concern; we're fortunate in that they, ourselves, and my sister-in-law and brother-in-law and their families are none of us in a lockdown region at present. I feel for your predicament. It is with some apprehension that I am returning my elder son to Durham this weekend.

[Compound2632]

Oh, and by the way, it appears that schools are being effectively prohibited from teaching parts of the government-mandated A-level History curriculum. That is one that I fully expect to be a dead letter.