Early Risers.

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl,

 A poor nights sleep mostly caused by Ben the unsettled Collie having a bad night.

He didn't come up for his bit of cheese, then refused his evening patrol, then appeared upstairs much later wandering around. I went downstairs with him and offered him out again, he refused, as he has refused the offer again this morning.. 

 

We've occasionally had the odd American manager who doesn't understand the UK or European way of working, they don't like our shut downs for fixed holidays.  They also don't understand why we don't give them thunderous applause every time they say some thing at a briefing, but just sit there in silence...

 

As for sports at near retirement, other than sailing, no chance, too many sports injuries make it too painful. When they tell you to keep fit in your teens, twenties , thirties, they don't tell you the injuries will come back to bite in your sixties..

Luckily when I designed Blue Moon, it was copying the idea of America's cup 12M Yachts in miniature of which there were a outbreak in the late 1970s early 80s. The difference is Blue Moon is a small version of a Norfolk Broads style, keelboat.

In the UK the biggest class of mini 12M was the Illusion, 

I've taken the idea of that and the Yard and Bure one Design,

 

To produce Blue Moon.

 

The advantage of the mini 12Ms is in all of them you sit in a chair and sail. No leaping around, no leaning out, putting pressure on knees and back.

The biggest class of the mini keelboats worldwide is the International 2.4mR

Well I have a 5 day weekend, Thursday, my replacement for Easter Friday, Friday my normal day off, Saturday Sunday and Easter Monday.

So today we're off shopping in the big bad city, before the main crowds hit it tomorrow..

 

There's daylight outside now and Ben's normal morning patrol time.

 

Time to see if he'll go out this time.

[Grizz]

16 hours ago, polybear said:

a.k.a Brighton?

 

 

Well done Bear! Gotham City is Brighton! 😆

 

Now can you guess what the real name is for the nearby local land feature known colloquially as ‘Lucifer’s Lesbian’? ....

 

answers on a postcard....

[TheQ]

Success, Ben the git orf moi land Collie came charging out, chasing away the pigeons.

Very misty, very heavy dew, the great fried egg is up burning away the fog.

First time this year  I've not needed my heavy coat out there at this time.

[chrisf]

My two pennorth on tea: I use leaf tea, a small teapot and a strainer.  What remains of my sanity depends on starting the day with a cuppa so I felt quite deprived on the Mediterranean island where tea was not to be found.  I can tolerate coffee if it is not too strong but, as you might expect from a retired Civil Servant, I much prefer tea.

 

Today I hope to have a blitz on outstanding tasks.  These include the post-holiday customer survey for Ffestiniog Travel and another dawn patrol to the supermarket to buy what I forgot to put on the list yesterday.  The day would not be complete without that perennial favourite, ironing.  At least I do not have to spend any more time scrabbling around on the floor for a 20p piece that I dropped yesterday.  It took ages to find and did my aching back no favours. 

 

Tomorrow I plan to pay what is normally my annual visit to Pendon Museum.  I will not be deterred by the gloomy prophecies on the radio of traffic congestion.  Famous last words?  We shall see.

 

Chris

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from the Charente.  Our house is now safe, Teddy the retriever has settled down outside the side door and has a good bark at the bird scarer that goes off every few minutes, it's in the next big field beyond our garden and the truffle orchard.  He's sttling down and doesn't seem to be missing Margaret too much. We enjoyed our long walk yesterday and good as gold he stopped and sat down for me when a tractor approached. He also knows where to stop when we get nearly to the main road, for me to put his lead back on.

 

Anyway the day is to be seized.  There iare essential tasks to be done suchbas strimming and wine buying. Not at the same time though.  Then tonight an some friends from the UK are coming for a meal as they arrive today.  

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

[New Haven Neil]

7 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

If you start early enough you can get to the highest peak on this continent  by lunchtime, and its wheelchair accessible.   (theres a trickier challenge in PNG which often gets used as a stand in...)

 

Phil didn't consider Everest in general a hard climb but more of a very hard walk, the challenge was the oxygen situation and time scales against the weather rather than dangling off cliffs on ropes and all that caper.  He didn't summit on his first attempt by a few hundred metres, due to weather. 

 

On their way down another in the group had a fall through a ladder used as a bridge over a crevasse, and Phil saved his life.  This is generally considered to be a way of killing yourself rather than saving someone else's life up there.  The person he saved turned out to be 'rather' well off and paid for the second attempt a couple of years later, which Phil wouldn't have been able to afford again.  He is always very sad to recount the amount of litter left up there, used oxy bottles and stuff like that, although I understand there has been 'litter picks' in recent years.  His praise for the Sherpas is never ending, he reckons they are real heroes.

[iL Dottore]

8 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

Surely they could save the frontage of the M&S building. 

The problem is some buildings become unsuitable for current uses over time…

In a way, Simon, I have to somewhat disagree with your latter observation: in Italy there are many extremely old buildings which, from the outside, you expect to be at best livable but primitive but are in fact completely modernised inside ( I visited some acquaintances with a Palazzo in Venice: it looks like it’s falling down outside, inside: completely, beautifully and tastefully modernised).

 

I would say, with my usual cynicism, that the owners won’t even bother to try and save the M&S frontage because (a) it would cost money! and (b) the owners have an architect with “daring” and “innovative” plans for the site

6 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Didnt you say the same thing at Christmas? Whats going on over there - are public holidays considered communist, like socialised healthcare and gun laws?

4 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

It's called Government of the people, by the rich, for the rich. Possibly coupled with an extreme version of the protestant work ethic which tends towards living to work rather than working to live.

Whilst I was living and studying in the US I imbued some of the “Protestant Work Ethic”. At its best, this Protestant Work Ethic does away with the whole “not my job/can’t do that/I can’t be arsed to do this properly” attitude and makes work a pleasure; at worst it’s soul and life destroying - generating a lot of frenzied activity with little to show for it except an überstressed life chained 24/7 to the job.

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

With the exception of Christmas day*, there are no religious US Federal public holidays, consistent with the first amendment.

 

* Not that it is celebrated as a religious holiday by many.

 

There are now eleven:

 

In Switzerland, there are a total of 31 public holidays when you add up all the various public holidays celebrated in the Cantons. Each Canton sets its own public holidays with only five being mandated as public holidays nationwide.  Where I live, in Baselland, we have 13 public holidays (although if the calendar date of the public holiday lands on a Saturday or Sunday then it is not moved).

 

Our holiday (vacation) allowance varies from company to company but also it is allocated according to age. For example, when I turned 45, my holiday allowance was bumped up to 30 working days (roughly 6 weeks) - paid of course.  With careful scheduling one was able to get as much as two months off work, holidaying, and all was perfectly acceptable to the company.

46 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Mooring Awl,

 A poor nights sleep mostly caused by Ben the unsettled Collie having a bad night.

 

…..We've occasionally had the odd American manager who doesn't understand the UK or European way of working, they don't like our shut downs for fixed holidays.  They also don't understand why we don't give them thunderous applause every time they say some thing at a briefing, but just sit there in silence...

Poor Ben, my heart goes out to him. 💔

 

Regarding working with Americans: the company I used to work for has its headquarters in Switzerland and the corporate culture was an interesting international mix, but heavily dominated by Swiss attitudes. Which meant that you did your job to the highest possible standard you could achieve and just got on with it. The corporate culture also mandated that decision-making should be pushed as low as possible down the food chain. The corporate culture in our US affiliate was more or less similar.

 

It was only when you worked with an outside US company that the huge difference between European and US working styles emerged.
 

Firstly, it was not unusual for people’ salaries on the US side to only be 75 - 80% guaranteed with the rest to be made up by bonuses achieved by hitting targets/timelines. This of course meant that for the US colleagues setting targets/timelines was a critical activity in their business year and their “stretch/ambitious” targets, dates and deliverables we in Europe regarded as very easily achievable without any extra effort. (“hitting stretch” meant bigger bonuses)
 

Secondly, they expected us Europeans to be on call 24/7 and were most disgruntled when we said (frequently) “it’s the weekend/public holiday and we’ll continue with X when it’s over!” (and don’t get me started on their insistence in holding teleconferences at 6 or 7 pm at night Euro time!).

 

Thirdly, nobody on the US team ever made any decision! If something had to be decided, instead of delegating the decision to the lowest possible person in the hierarchy (i.e. the ones who actually do that work) it had to be passed up the food chain until an assistant VP or similar could make a decision. More than once I’ve participated in teleconferences where on the European end all the decision-makers were in the teleconference (including myself), whereas our American West Coast counterparts were there without any decision-makers. As the US team members wouldn’t (couldn’t?) make the decisions that we could make, this resulted in a teleconference (ostensibly to get to a mutual agreement/decision on various topics) which was a waste of our time as nothing got decided!

Finally, there was always a feeling attitude of “rah-rah triumphalism“ whenever the US side actually achieved anything. As I observed, both caustically and cynically, to a colleague at the time “when they manage to tie their shoelaces it’s “open the champagne and hand out the bonuses“, whereas when we get shot at we are expected to just slap a Band-Aid on the hole and carry on”

 

Undoubtably, there are many American companies that don’t work that way, but I’ve yet to encounter any.

[iL Dottore]

After reading his numerous erudite, instructive and illuminating posts about boat building and sailing, I have a question for @TheQ:

 

“Is it true what they say: that the best way to become a millionaire boat owner is to start as a billionaire boat owner?” 😁

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

Had a day trip to Scarbados yesterday. Followed a Fraggle Rock plated car.. that was scary! It was either doing 25mph or 75mph on the A64.

 

Mission was safely completed so time for a day of rest.

 

How companies in the USA actually achieve things is a mystery. Standard work hours meant we were working 7 day weeks.. they did Monday to Friday. I explained to a VP of a large company at Dallas Fort Worth that he needed to make a decision before the fence he was sitting on split him in two. He was less than amused but after two days of talking round a problem we then fixed the problem. Pah!

 

The shortage of GPs is of the Government's making. It is no longer the case of being a GP being a great job. You can act as a locum doctor, have no concerns about patient responsibility,  get paid the same and ...work when you feel like it.  This all started years ago when Tony Blur got a new GP contract in place...

 

As @jamie92208said.. Time to Carpe Diem!

 

Have a great day!

 

Stay safe!

 

Baz

[polybear]

8 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

I empty the used tea leaves into the kitchen caddy which goes to the council composting. Its as easy as using tea bags. I've been using loose tea now for quite a few years, I buy it in bulk 1500 gram at a time and it works out cheaper than any of the supermarkets. 

 

May a Bear ask - where do you source bulk bags of loose leaf?

 

3 hours ago, TheQ said:

Just over 100 working days to go and now you tell me...

 

Ah yes, but when you're retired YOU get to choose what to do - not the Boss.

Unless SWMBO has other ideas, that is.....

 

1 hour ago, Grizz said:

Well done Bear! Gotham City is Brighton! 😆

 

Now can you guess what the real name is for the nearby local land feature known colloquially as ‘Lucifer’s Lesbian’? ....

 

answers on a postcard....

 

That'll be where the Hang Gliders and R/C Slope Soarer's hang out........

Unless of course they've been banned for some reason since a Bear was last there many moons ago.

 

33 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

He is always very sad to recount the amount of litter left up there, used oxy bottles and stuff like that, although I understand there has been 'litter picks' in recent years.  His praise for the Sherpas is never ending, he reckons they are real heroes.

 

There ought to be a compulsory deposit scheme on the oxy bottles - not 10p, but much larger sums to encourage all to be returned.  

 

Bear here.....

Another day with the leccy drill and chop saw; the cordless drill is now back in action, which will no doubt please the neighbours.

 

Bear's News of the Day.....

Seems the Russian Black Sea Flagship has been hit by two A.S. missiles, setting off ammunition stored on board and the ship is on fire.  Apparently all 500 crew were saved, according to the Ruskies.  Bear suspects there may be a little bullsh1t in that last sentence somewhere......

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/russia-admits-black-sea-fleet-flagship-is-in-flames-as-ukraine-claims-missile-attack/ar-AAWcM8C?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=0a5a83dd586343fba09990a314906594

 

First class - I hope they leave the place in some sort of Trust so it can never be sold & flattened:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/one-standout-homeowner-refuses-to-budge-from-her-home-for-augusta-to-expand-masters-course/ar-AAWbIw8?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=0a5a83dd586343fba09990a314906594

[TheQ]

 

23 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

After reading his numerous erudite, instructive and illuminating posts about boat building and sailing, I have a question for @TheQ:

 

“Is it true what they say: that the best way to become a millionaire boat owner is to start as a billionaire boat owner?” 😁

Its certainly the way many of the bigger boat owners operate, who pay for someone else to do the work.

However down at this end of sailing.

The club is operated by volunteers, the only paid person is a cleaner, after each sailing day.

 

This enables our fees to be very low, annual membership for a family is £150, a mooring fee for a 25ft keelboat is £305 this year. Though I use a mooring I've already paid for for the motor boat.

My fully comprehensive insurance including racing risks for Blue Moon, a one off home built "special" £78. Later this year I'll buy a new set of sails £800 they will last a minimum of 5years. So £160 a year.

Anti fouling £34 a year.

So my total is around £550 a year so allowing for other minor costs, like bacon butties and paint £700  will cover everything...

I'm betting many on here spend more on their muddling.

[TheQ]

There was a house in one of trump's Scottish golf courses, that he wanted to buy, he got nasty cutting off water, blocking access to the home etc..

[Barry O]

In Leeds City Centre a lot of older building facades were saved by building the new buildings behind them if ever you visit Leeds look upwards.. the older buildings are very ornate. The saving grace for the stop in destruction of these facades was a very, very active Leeds Civic Trust who managed to get enough councillors on board to make it all happen...thank goodness.

 

Baz

[iL Dottore]

17 minutes ago, TheQ said:

…other minor costs, like bacon butties…

Sorry Q, that does just not ring true!
 

Since when have bacon butties (and their distinguished cousin the soss sarnie) ever been a minor cost to a true ER.

 

I reckon if I totalled up the total amount spent yearly by ERs on bacon butties, soss sarnies, pork pies, LDC and biscuits it would be enough to buy an Oligarch’s yacht!

[New Haven Neil]

Gray Street in Newcastle also has fantastic building frontages that were saved, with new behind.  I suspect this was a kick back after the Poulson etc affair of so much getting destroyed in Newcastle due to corruption on a grand scale.

 

Manx drivers - oh dear, worth a thread on its own.  Appalling.   25mph anywhere they are not familiar with (even out in the country in derestricted areas), then at least 45 in 30 and 20 mph limits when they get back to the Big City, or somewhere they know. 

 

Having almost hit three people on zebra crossings, ignored give way and stop lines, and driven the wrong way up a one way street 'because it was like that when they were young', and stopped at a roundabout for ages because they 1 don't know what to do, and 2 they can see their friend Orry Quirk at another exit so want to let him go first, they will then tell all and sundry in the pub while having a couple or ten pints how disgraceful driving was on the mountain road with people going ridiculous speeds (no 60/70 limits here).  Then drive home....after the ten pints...... repeat ad nauseum.  Not even that exaggerated! As for when they get to Heysham/Liverpool and get on a 3 lane motorway (not even any dual carriageways here), you can imagine the chaos!

 

Edit - entry for P-bear's 'Rant of the Week'

Edited April 14, 2022 by New Haven Neil

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Not a lot to report this morning, a bit of the G word to be done today and thats it.

41 minutes ago, polybear said:

May a Bear ask - where do you source bulk bags of loose leaf?

I get mine from the Wee tea company. https://weeteacompany.com/

They were recommended to me by Mal, late of this parish.

32 minutes ago, Barry O said:

In Leeds City Centre a lot of older building facades were saved by building the new buildings behind them if ever you visit Leeds look upwards.. the older buildings are very ornate. The saving grace for the stop in destruction of these facades was a very, very active Leeds Civic Trust who managed to get enough councillors on board to make it all happen...thank goodness.

 

Baz

Similar idea in Banbury. I wish that they had done similar in places such as Romford.

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

A bright and sunny start to the day here in England’s northwest. I shall shortly be talking my walk to the butchers for the weekly meat rations and a pork pie for dinner. Once that lot has been packed away, I shall set off to pick Ava up who once again is spending the day with us. After dinner, her elder brother Charlie will drop by for his weekly model making session with me in the workshop. They will both be staying on for tea, spag  Bol has been requested. 

 

Time to head off, back later. 

 

Brian

Edited April 14, 2022 by BSW01

[Coombe Barton]

We managed it at the University with Steamhouse, our new build

[AndrewC]

Moaning all from the boring borough. Tonight's plan of popping to Peterborough to drink for the Ukraine have been scuppered by a small plastic NHS supplied thingy with 2 very bright red lines on it. Yep, forking covid again. I'm really tempted to spend the day on public transport coughing on all the maskless rat licking, motherf*cking, ar*ebadgering, c*ntpuffins. Bit of a headache and a strange (for me) cold, but this has really screwed up my Easter. For anyone else who likes a decent beer, please check out Euroboozer to see if there is a local near you serving beers from Kyiv's Varvar brewery tonight. https://drinkersforukraine.com/ 

 

Enjoy the day, I'm going back to bed. 

 

Addendum: They've now created a map for imbibing Varvar tonight. https://www.google.com/maps/@53.5671808,-3.3797106,6z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!6m1!1s1S-TYoSzjGtQfkS7ton0q9oYaGqKFheqM 

Edited April 14, 2022 by AndrewC

[Tony_S]

2 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

We managed it at the University with Steamhouse, our new build

I wondered why it was “steam” but the website explained Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. At the first college Aditi worked in she was in the Academic and General Studies (AGS) department. After a while, following  a reorganisation (the  college got a new logo too) it was going to be Science, Humanities and IT. Somebody noticed that AGS dept would be SH IT on the timetable (omit space). The head of dept had really worked hard to get Science named first too. 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Tony_S

[Grizz]

iPad update from Gotham City....the iPad is dead! 2 years and 2 weeks old and the M****r **ck** Board or whatever the Apple iPad equivalent is, has died! It is an ex iPad! There is no rebuilding it it has died!

 

...It is dead! 

 

Oh no not yet it hasn’t!

It’ll have truly died when it is on the receiving end of some lead based products and is in a billion pieces! 

 

Then it will have died! 

 

I am curious to see what a 12 bore solid slug would do to it...but I’m leaning towards a 50 Cal expanding round....just to see how many bits it can be made into....the b*****d. 

 

Right I’m off for some anaesthetic! 

 

Have a a good one all! 

 

ATB Grizz

[Pacific231G]

3 hours ago, TheQ said:

There was a house in one of trump's Scottish golf courses, that he wanted to buy, he got nasty cutting off water, blocking access to the home etc..

You're surely not suggesting that Mr. Trump is anything other than a kind, decent, intelligent and reasonable human being who is nearly as honest as our own current head of government. 

[melmerby]

Early Rise and early to Aldi meant I got what was missing last Monday and only one person in a till queue and they were bagging up.

Must go at 8:30 more often, all the shelves were full.

[monkeysarefun]

28 minutes ago, Grizz said:

iPad update from Gotham City....the iPad is dead! 2 years and 2 weeks old and the M****r **ck** Board or whatever the Apple iPad equivalent is, has died! It is an ex iPad! There is no rebuilding it it has died!

 

...It is dead! 

 

Oh no not yet it hasn’t!

It’ll have truly died when it is on the receiving end of some lead based products and is in a billion pieces! 

 

Then it will have died! 

 

I am curious to see what a 12 bore solid slug would do to it...but I’m leaning towards a 50 Cal expanding round....just to see how many bits it can be made into....the b*****d. 

 

Right I’m off for some anaesthetic! 

 

Have a a good one all! 

 

ATB Grizz

Do you have an implied warranty scheme  there? I assume it came with a 1 year warranty which has run out. Here an implied warranty takes over, meaning that there is an expectation that something that cost as much as an ipad would last longer than 2 years, so if that happened to you here, you  can demand your money back, with backing from consumer affairs department or whatever they are called now should Apple be a bit hesitant.

[Pacific231G]

4 hours ago, Barry O said:

In Leeds City Centre a lot of older building facades were saved by building the new buildings behind them if ever you visit Leeds look upwards.. the older buildings are very ornate. The saving grace for the stop in destruction of these facades was a very, very active Leeds Civic Trust who managed to get enough councillors on board to make it all happen...thank goodness.

 

Baz

It's very possible. My first job after graduating was at the London Business School which is a modern academic building built behind a regency facade. My local Tesco now is the Hoover Building (or to be more exact the former factory area behind the listed building).  It's a classic and very striking piece of Art Deco and fortunately they speeded up the listing of many such buildings after the equally classic Firestone Tyre Factory on the Great West road (A4) was torn down over a bank holiday weekend just before its listing went through.

 

I understand that it was the civic vandalism in Paris when they tore down les Halles that led  directly to Covent Garden Market being saved after the it closed as a veggie market. ISTR that there was an idea abroad that Haussman's Paris was far too old fashioned and the city of light would benefit from becoming more like Manhattan's city of plate glass. 

Modern buildings behind tradional facades are all very well but don't compare with something like St. Pancras that uses the original building in its entirety. 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Pacific231G