The Night Mail

[Dave Hunt]

1 hour ago, Northmoor said:

My own nomination for overpaid profession is the Project Manager.  Good ones are worth the money....

 

The only project managers I have ever been involved with have been on defence contracts and have been good blokes. The grit in the works has invariably been the MoD Procurement people.

 

Dave

[PhilJ W]

6 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

At the hospital I have just been in the patients’ food is prepared in the same kitchens that supply the staff and visitors’ canteens, albeit with a slightly more limited menu, and whilst not haute cuisine or in over-generous quantities is good quality.

 

Dave

Same in our local hospital, apparently some people who are not visitors use the visitors canteen that also provides the patients food. My understanding is that the service is provided by an outside contractor. 

[PhilJ W]

I went to the Rayleigh toy fair this morning. On one of the stalls I found a plastic bag of what looked like  some 'bits of kits' mainly railway coaches. When I got home I examined the contents and among them there was some assembly instructions. Reading them I realised they were for a Southern Pride kit of a Southern Region 4-CEP EMU and furthermore an examination of the kit bits revealed that it was in fact the kit itself and not just a bag of bits and it seems to be complete. Best of all was the price £3!

[Happy Hippo]

4 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

The only project managers I have ever been involved with have been on defence contracts and have been good blokes. The grit in the works has invariably been the MoD Procurement people.

 

Dave

The original SA80 was project managed to death by various 'weapons' staff officers, which was why the original was such a pigs ear.

[PupCam]

On 06/04/2024 at 16:25, Dave Hunt said:

The Dental Officers on RAF stations certainly got more dosh than I did.

 

Dave

 

Yes, but think of the wonderful toys you had to play with!    All they got was a drill and a pair of pliers 🤣

 

12 hours ago, polybear said:

Not him; I can't recall his name at present ( @PupCam ?) but it'll come back to me.....

 

No I can't remember now,   too many grey cells have departed for a better life elsewhere.

 

12 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Which would require a Dentist!

 

No,  I can do wire-locking and I ain't no dentist.     Actually, I really enjoy wire-locking, there's something therapeutic about doing it when it goes well.

 

 

[Tony_S]

31 minutes ago, PupCam said:

No,  I can do wire-locking and I ain't no dentist.     Actually, I really enjoy wire-locking, there's something therapeutic about doing it when it goes well.

 

We were on holiday in Austria when Matthew was a teenager and one of the wires on his orthodontic braces snapped and was sticking into the inside of his cheek. I think Matthew must have taken a few modelling tools on holiday to assemble some Warhammer figures if the weather was bad. He was really good while I cut the wire and fed the end into a gap between the teeth. On return the orthodontist said it was a very good temporary repair. 

[figworthy]

7 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

It must have been catching. In the same period I worked with a chap who used to buy cheap bangers at car auctions, at which his brother who was an AA patrolman would accompany him to give them the once over so that he didn't buy anything dangerous or liable to die in short order, then run them until they became uneconomical, scrap them and repeat the process. Generally they could find cars with valid MOTs at knock down prices and when the time came to dump them it was surprising how much he got for scrap. He used to keep a record of everything and he claimed that the sums came out quite favourably compared with buying more expensive cars and keeping them for longer. 

 

Dave

 

Known as "Bangernomics"

 

Adrian

[skipepsi]

10 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

It must have been catching. In the same period I worked with a chap who used to buy cheap bangers at car auctions, at which his brother who was an AA patrolman would accompany him to give them the once over so that he didn't buy anything dangerous or liable to die in short order, then run them until they became uneconomical, scrap them and repeat the process. Generally they could find cars with valid MOTs at knock down prices and when the time came to dump them it was surprising how much he got for scrap. He used to keep a record of everything and he claimed that the sums came out quite favourably compared with buying more expensive cars and keeping them for longer. 

 

Dave

Called banger economics.

Edited April 8 by skipepsi
didn't read to the end before posting

[Happy Hippo]

1 minute ago, skipepsi said:

Called banger eonomics.

I thought that was to do with sausages

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[J. S. Bach]

13 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

And four large Royal Marines to hold the recipient down whilst you attempt the surgery

Nah, just a bottle Pendyrin (sp?)!

[J. S. Bach]

12 hours ago, Hroth said:

Ear defenders too, the noise will be truly horrific until surgery has been completed...

Yes, a Dremel is quite loud!

[J. S. Bach]

17 hours ago, rockershovel said:

 ...snip... The ultimately failed revolution of 1945-8 was based upon equality of opportunity, not outcome. It was based upon the long-term accrual of social capital - a better life for the next generation - and no-one thought that wrong.  ...snip...

I am currently reading a good book about that:

AUSTERITY BRITAIN 1945-1951 by David Kynaston

 

He wrote a second volume

FAMILY BRITAIN 1951-1957 by David Kynaston

I have it and will read it immediately following AUSTERITY .

Edited April 7 by J. S. Bach
To correct a typo

[Winslow Boy]

10 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

I am currently reading a good book about that:

AUSTERITY BRITAIN 1945-1951 by David Kynaston BRITAIN 1945-1951 by David Kynaston

 

He wrote a second volume

FAMILY BRITAIN 1951-1957 by David Kynaston

I have it and will read it immediately following AUSTERITY .

Isn't hindsight wonderful. What's that saying about when you don't know your history your bound to repeat it's mistakes or something like that.

[Tony_S]

53 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

Isn't hindsight wonderful. What's that saying about when you don't know your history your bound to repeat it's mistakes or something like that.

The cabbage in the 1950s was horrible. I hope no one tries to bring that back. 

[skipepsi]

2 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

I am currently reading a good book about that:

AUSTERITY BRITAIN 1945-1951 by David Kynaston

 

He wrote a second volume

FAMILY BRITAIN 1951-1957 by David Kynaston

I have it and will read it immediately following AUSTERITY .

There was supposed to be a third volume but I never found it and had forgotten about it.

[pH]

3 hours ago, skipepsi said:

There was supposed to be a third volume but I never found it and had forgotten about it.

I think the third volume may be:
‘Modernity Britain: 1957-1962’.

 

It was apparently later split into two books:

Modernity Britain: Book One: Opening the Box, 1957-1959 

Modernity Britain: Book Two: A Shake of the Dice, 1959-62 

 

 

[iL Dottore]

8 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

I am currently reading a good book about that:

AUSTERITY BRITAIN 1945-1951 by David Kynaston

 

He wrote a second volume

FAMILY BRITAIN 1951-1957 by David Kynaston

I have it and will read it immediately following AUSTERITY .

Kynaston is an excellent, unsentimental, historian.  His books on the 1945-1962 period of British can be a bit depressing, given the litany of cock ups, bad decisions, and incompetence at all levels that allowed Britain to lose its hard won technological and engineering lead in so many critical areas.
 

Probably one of the worst, and far reaching, decisions made by the immediate postwar governments was to try and prop up the pound, rather than let it find its own level in the international money markets. That was money that could’ve been better spent repairing and upgrading Britain’s infrastructure and industrial capacity which was pretty much clapped out and knackered at the end of the Second World War.
 

In reading his books, I do get the impression that it was not until the 1960s, that Britain started to emerge from a grey, dismal and austere postwar period, and start to embrace the vibrancy of what modern technology (and youth culture) could provide.

[jamie92208]

10 hours ago, Tony_S said:

We were on holiday in Austria when Matthew was a teenager and one of the wires on his orthodontic braces snapped and was sticking into the inside of his cheek. I think Matthew must have taken a few modelling tools on holiday to assemble some Warhammer figures if the weather was bad. He was really good while I cut the wire and fed the end into a gap between the teeth. On return the orthodontist said it was a very good temporary repair. 

I have had to use my modelling tools on a few occasions to reattach teeth dentures and recently to make new hinges for spectacles.   The attempts have all worked.  

 

Jamie

[Happy Hippo]

56 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

I have had to use my modelling tools on a few occasions to reattach teeth dentures and recently to make new hinges for spectacles.   The attempts have all worked.  

 

Jamie

I once castrated a flea by stamping on it.

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Kynaston is an excellent, unsentimental, historian.  His books on the 1945-1962 period of British can be a bit depressing, given the litany of cock ups, bad decisions, and incompetence at all levels that allowed Britain to lose its hard won technological and engineering lead in so many critical areas.
 

Probably one of the worst, and far reaching, decisions made by the immediate postwar governments was to try and prop up the pound, rather than let it find its own level in the international money markets. That was money that could’ve been better spent repairing and upgrading Britain’s infrastructure and industrial capacity which was pretty much clapped out and knackered at the end of the Second World War.
 

In reading his books, I do get the impression that it was not until the 1960s, that Britain started to emerge from a grey, dismal and austere postwar period, and start to embrace the vibrancy of what modern technology (and youth culture) could provide.

It isn't generally understood that the British political class expected a continuation of Empire, post-WW2 and to that end, intended to preserve Sterling as an International Reserve Currency. Britain still ruled an Empire in Africa and the South Seas; the young Queen was still Head of State in places like Australia and Canada. 

 

Hence the continuation of post-Colonial wars in Africa and Asia, to protect the interests of organisations like Lever Brothers and Barings. 

 

It was a trading, maritime Empire in which it was absolutely taboo to act on behalf of industry, unless of course your name was "Brummagem Joe" Chamberlain. 

 

The working classes understood this and swarmed to emigrate. They understood that their victory was being squandered or thrown away. 

 

Then in 1956 it all came crashing down, at a place called Suez. Uncle Sam administered a sharp lesson in macro-economics. By 1962 the last colony of any consequence (Nigeria) had gone; by 1964-5 the Labour government had had its nose firmly rubbed in the electorates  resistance to mass immigration and was heading for its second post-War devaluation. 

 

[Happy Hippo]

 

 

Hoy! Ramrod.

 

Remember squeezing into these little beauties?

 

 

https://fb.watch/rjnSWUOzDi/

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

In reading his books, I do get the impression that it was not until the 1960s, that Britain started to emerge from a grey, dismal and austere postwar period, and start to embrace the vibrancy of what modern technology (and youth culture) could provide.

 

As far as I'm concerned, mid-December 1964 was the turning point.

[Willie Whizz]

Unfortunately, by the mid-1960s, in both defence and transport too many over-ambitious and poorly-focused hi-tech projects were chasing too little remaining money to fulfil them properly. 

[iL Dottore]

49 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

As far as I'm concerned, mid-December 1964 was the turning point.

I take it you are not a fan of those lovable mop-tops, the fab four, The Beatles.