Early Risers.

[colin penfold]

How fur will this doggy stuff go before you paws? My cat prefers gangster rap but only cos his name is coolio...

 

Otherwise its fe line dancing

[AndyB]

I quite liked this song. Till Pete piped up. Now I'm considering therapy. 

[sixoh8sixoh]

My Dad liked Kathleen Ferrier, I think... It's his 70th birthday a week today, not sure what to get him.  I gave him a Dave(Max S)-weathered B1 for Christmas so maybe ought to avoid another loco...  I've bought a Hornby horsebox for him already but need to give him something else.  Any thoughts about what to get a 70 year old with no layout, who doesn't read, watch DVDs, listen to music...?

[Tony_S]

   Any thoughts about what to get a 70 year old with no layout, who doesn't read, watch DVDs, listen to music...?

Socks?

[trisonic]

One of the special Glenmorangie? Someone gave me a bottle of Artein........part of their "Private Stock"

 

Best, Pete.

Edited January 9, 2013 by trisonic

[Happy Hippo]

Ooh, I feel like living dangerously  .

 

Am I the only person to think that Leonard Cohen's songs are mostly lyrically twaddle? I mean have you really listened to the lyrics to "Bird on a Wire"? They're crapulous. I hate that other one too, the rhymes are trite. Overrated.

 

I was thinking what a great song  Otis Rush's "Double Trouble" is, even the title is great and it is about a man trying find a job and respect in the World. If you haven't heard it 'Ric Clapton has recorded it about 4 times....

 

Best, Pete.

Pete,

 

I don't know enough about music to identify lyrical twaddle!

 

I do however, know what I like, and LC is best described as 'Dronin' and Moanin' rather than singing.

 

He'd be so much better if accompanied by bagpipes.

 

Regards

 

Richard

Edited January 9, 2013 by Happy Hippo

[The Stationmaster]

I take your point Ian, but they had an Internet business. OK the stores obviously cost money, but it would seem most of the market are not worried about absolute picture quality and if your phone will take great snaps, who needs a camera?

 

They have been teetering on, and occasionally over, the brink for at least two years and I'm not really surprised if the couple of branches I have come across at close quarters have been any guide.  Mind you both branches (Reading and York) were in towns with a specialist camera shop where you get helpful and knowledgeable attention and answers to questions without being pestered into buying the most expensive or most heavily gizmo'd model - often at little difference in price from the really hard discounters.  

 

Sorry but Jessops are an all too typical contemporary retail failure - too much emphasis on price when they couldn't compete with the internet and too little attention to wishing to help customers even if it didn't lead to the highest profit/staff commission on a sale.

 

And as for 'Quartet' - marvellous, a really great film if you can tolerate a bunch of skilled elderly musicians and singers doing a smashing job; not often you seem a woman who is probably in her late 70s (with two others of similar age) singing 'Three Little Maids from School' - in her case a part she sang with the D'Oyly Carte company when many of us on here were probably still at school. 

[skipepsi]

To cheer us up county sent us a selection of ways to leave! voluntary early retirement, voluntary redundancy or half retiring........ Way to motivate staff for the New Year or what on the first day back. The only problem I have is the only one that appeals, redundancy and return to teaching in school for a few years is not available to me because I am between 55 and 60.......  Emigrating to a third world country will make my pension live as long as I might, Somalia is favourite at present. I think Mrs B is hankering after a death in service grant so she can buy a very small shed of her own.

[trisonic]

Bloody hell, Mick!

 

Best, Pete.

[martin_wynne]

Where now for Acutol? Remember all this?

 

 

 

 

Jessops dies and I end up spending most of the evening on this fascinating site:

 

http://www.photomemorabilia.co.uk

 

From which

 

"1998 is (was) the 50th anniversary of the founding of Paterson, the company that invented the developing tank spiral as we know it today and helped to bring home processing within reach of the masses. In those 50 years Paterson have gone on to produce an estimated 7 MILLION spirals and pioneered a large number of other darkroom products. And, like all great companies, it all started with one man - and a chance encounter.It was whilst on safari that Donald photographed a snake slowly swallowing a rabbit that it had caught and marvelled at the way the snake's backward facing fangs prevented the squirming prey escaping. That evening while recalling the encounter he realised the concept could be used to make a self loading film spiral, with the "fangs" gripping the film. Some months later he showed his design to photographic distributors R. F Hunter Ltd in London and they immediately ordered 500 reels. The rest, as they say, is history and the seeds of the Paterson company were sown. Late in 1948 Donald patented the spiral and 50 years on, the only major design change is that the "fangs" have been replaced by stainless steel ball-bearings."
 
Sadly Donald Paterson died in 1975 while attempting to save a young boy from drowning. The Times for Monday 4th August 1975 carried a 'News in Brief' article entitled "Two Die in Loch. Emmanuel Williams, aged 14, of Hilde Court, Hackney, London, and Mr Donald Paterson aged 62 of Rivermead Court, Fulham, drowned in Loch Vaa, Inverness-shire (Loch Vaa is a small 1/3mile diameter loch about 3miles north of Aviemore) yesterday (Sunday August 3rd 1975). Mr Paterson was trying to rescue the boy."

[Tony_S]

 . I think Mrs B is hankering after a death in service grant so she can buy a very small shed of her own.

The one bit of information that the teacher's pension computer didn't seem to have was that I was married. I had to enter some info that they said was required in case I died while receiving pension. 

[skipepsi]

Don't worry Pete it is all part of the gallows humour if you can't take a joke you shouldn't have joined approach. I work in state education and I can see in the children I am asked to help how we are drifting away from helping children to do better than their parents. Schools are being asked to replace social care and the health service. We are told one in four adults will have mental health problems we pretend children don't have them until they are 17 at least. It is easier to put them in young offenders and get them hooked on heroin. Parenting when young is crucial, things lost in the first three years of life are never fully recovered even with the most loving adoptiive or fostering parent. I could go further but it becomes political about choices.  

[The Stationmaster]

To cheer us up county sent us a selection of ways to leave! voluntary early retirement, voluntary redundancy or half retiring........ Way to motivate staff for the New Year or what on the first day back. The only problem I have is the only one that appeals, redundancy and return to teaching in school for a few years is not available to me because I am between 55 and 60.......  Emigrating to a third world country will make my pension live as long as I might, Somalia is favourite at present. I think Mrs B is hankering after a death in service grant so she can buy a very small shed of her own.

 

There is a good reason for not offering that option (although it shouldn't be available to under 55s either on this basis) and that is the question of taxation - yours!  The first £30,000 (currently) of a redundancy payment is tax free, the rest is taxable as part of the current year's income - which means the best month to leave on redundancy is the first month of a new tax year.  But if you are re-employed by the same employer you become liable for tax on your first £30,000 and the employer has to refund any government subsidy they received for the redundancy.

 

The way round this financial nuisance is simple - and quite legal (still) - you go to an employment agency and they sell your services to the original employer which means you are not personally employed so no tax etc penalty.  I suspect a fiddle used to get round it in some cases is that people establish their own little company and it 'sells' them to the LEA, school or whatever although I think that bit of craftiness will increasingly come under HMRC microscopes in the next year or two.

 

Now an option which might be worth investigating is to see if any part of your redundancy money can be put into your pension fund (this has to be doe by the employer - it is liable to tax if you do it yourself after receiving the money).  This has two potential advantages in that firstly it increases your pension and secondly you might still be in a position to take a goodly lump sum out of the pension on retirement (i.e when you start drawing a pension).  As standard pension legislation now allows a pension to be drawn from age 55 (it used to be age 50) it can work out quite well - in my case virtually all of my redundancy money above £30,000 went into the pension fund and I then took out of the fund the maximum permissible tax free lump sum (as well as the maximum permissible pension).  

[skipepsi]

That would have helped a lot Mike because I knew nothing about it, the downside is that at the rate they are offering it, it  is just over half a years salary which doesn't even reach £20,000. To buy additional years of pension costs upwards of £5,000 per year in fact nearer to the £12,000 pa I might get if I keep a job until I am 60.

[sixoh8sixoh]

Morning all. Extremely Early Riser today.  Have to be in Glasgow before 7.

 

Thanks for the socks & whisky suggestions. Got him whisky for Father's Day last year, he's still only about 4 drams down the bottle...

 

To cheer us up county sent us a selection of ways to leave! voluntary early retirement, voluntary redundancy or half retiring........ Way to motivate staff for the New Year or what on the first day back. The only problem I have is the only one that appeals, redundancy and return to teaching in school for a few years is not available to me because I am between 55 and 60.......  Emigrating to a third world country will make my pension live as long as I might, Somalia is favourite at present. I think Mrs B is hankering after a death in service grant so she can buy a very small shed of her own.

 

Fifty Sheds of Grey?  I've often joked I'm worth more dead than alive as my in-service benefit pays out 3 times my annual salary.

[travelintrev]

Good Morning all,  

 

Not much to report from here, though I do remember doing my own b/w film processing in the early '70s....bit of a passing fad so went back to trains....

 

What ever you're up to try and enjoy some of it today, 

 

Trev

[Bartb]

So i'm not the only one awake early in the morning, weather misty and cold in Harlow, Essex, must be time for another cup of tea

John

[Robert]

Morning All,

 

It seems to be another gloomy morning here. We were cheerfully told on the Radio yesterday afternoon that there hasn't been a single hour of sunshine in Hessen, so far, in 2013.

 

Sorry to hear of your troubles Mick. I honestly wonder what the world is coming to - It sounds over dramatic, I know - but you can only reduce to the "lowest common denominator" so far.

 

Is it any wonder that teachers (and others) are finding motivation difficult in this perpetual culture of bean counting? Meanwhile, much weeping, wailing and wringing of hands takes places and the media wonders what is happening to modern youth and warns of a breakdown of law and order in society in general.

 

It seems to me, the obsession with statistics and saving is becoming dangerous.

 

Nurses can't wait to get out because they don't have time to care for their patients, the thin blue line is getting ever thinner, teachers have to worry about their jobs, and for many preparing the "ever important" (don't make me laugh) statistics takes almost as long as the job they are supposed to be doing.

 

(I sound like an angry old man!)

 

Have a good day everyone...

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

 

Dry so far but a bit cooler at 2^oC. There may be rain later.

 

This afternoon we have been summoned to the hospital to discuss MiL's ongoing health situation & care with her doctor. There seems to be little cause for optimism.

 

Pete-I've got one recording of EC's version of Double Trouble recorded live in Tokyo in 1979.  (It's one of my favourite tracks)

 

Regards

 

Bob

 

 

 

[trisonic]

I just went out to the backyard and swore I heard a "37" ticking over in the distance. As a breeze was coming from the WNW it could have been from the Gladstone Branch, this was hit badly during Hurricane Sandy (OHLE). Maybe some more remedial work was being done, I wonder what it actually was I heard?

 

Weather: Sunny High: 8C, Low -1C.

Sunrise: 7:21am Sunset: 4:50pm

 

The outlook for the next week is becoming milder until next Thursday though the chance of Showers and periods of Rain will increase from tomorrow. Slight chance of snow in the overnight hours later in the week.

 

Best, Pete.

[skipepsi]

Morning all, chilly but dry outside, I am not a human resource I am a person! 

[NGT6 1315]

Morning all...

 

Looking gloomy indeed and I did feel somewhat blue last night, though eventually having dinner and then a glass of whiskey did provide relief.

 

 

Sorry to hear of your troubles Mick. I honestly wonder what the world is coming to - It sounds over dramatic, I know - but you can only reduce to the "lowest common denominator" so far.

Is it any wonder that teachers (and others) are finding motivation difficult in this perpetual culture of bean counting? Meanwhile, much weeping, wailing and wringing of hands takes places and the media wonders what is happening to modern youth and warns of a breakdown of law and order in society in general.

It seems to me, the obsession with statistics and saving is becoming dangerous.

Nurses can't wait to get out because they don't have time to care for their patients, the thin blue line is getting ever thinner, teachers have to worry about their jobs, and for many preparing the "ever important" (don't make me laugh) statistics takes almost as long as the job they are supposed to be doing.

 

Second that entirely, Robert - if that should make us both sound like angry old men, then so be it. I'd also like to add that in my opinion, you can only put so much on every person's shoulder in terms of work load and responsibility when you want them to still provide a well-enough result. Which is often forgot, or disregarded, in socially oriented professions in particular, and as such a particularly dangerous approach in the long run. Especially so when you consider that there is something which I guess you might call a moral barrier against saying "enough" when you're in a job concerned with educating, or otherwise caring for, other people.

[AndyB]

Morning resources.

 

A chilly morning here. 

 

Robert may have a point about stats. I believe a recent stat showed that they hadn't printed enough money yet for me to earn and then save into a nest egg for retirement. 

 

I'd worry about this but another stat shows that I'm overweight by a pound or two and reliable stats show that this may lead to death in service. Result! Pass the pies. 

 

Thinking of taking a break from office work today and defrosting the freezer. It's way more interesting than paint drying. May even get time to do some woodwork on Roding Reach. 

 

Catch you all later. 

Andy

[Barry O]

Frosty in Leeds this morning. A car went past which looked like it was covered in snow but as there are no reports on local radio I assume it was just a very heavy frost.

 

Re Teachers - full timers think yourselves lucky - her indoors is a peri and is treated badly at some of the schools she goes to ( unheated rooms, teaching in a store room, no use of staff room so no chance of a hot (or cold) drink etc) and sometimes they don't let her know when the full time staff are taking the children out for the day - wasted journey ( and money) for wifey.....She has been "Ofsteded" more times than most teachers ( one memorable month saw her being "inspected"  4 times - a bit stressful all round.

 

They asked if she wanted voluntary redundancy and haven't bothered to reply to her yet.  Shame other than a PGCE she is probably a lot more qualified to do the work she does than a lot of the teaching staff.

[gordon s]

Jeez, I feel for you guys that are teachers.  Reading about the issues you face, makes me count my blessings that I spent my working life in industry/manufacturing.  Investment in our children is probably the most important responsibility we face and yet everything I read about the teaching profession from those at the coal face is one where you are totally undervalued.  I can only admire your fortitude in dealing with children, parents and all the governmental interference you clearly face on a day to day basis.

 

The same goes for those in the Police Force.  My father served his 30 years in the Met and he would turn in his grave seeing what's going on these days.