Early Risers.

[Ozexpatriate]

12 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

I used to work with a guy who was an inveterate social snob and who made no secret of the fact that he was looking for Oxbridge graduates, and preferred applicants from the Foreign and Commonwealth office or other government foreign services on a list of countries he considered acceptable alternatives.

One hopes things have improved since the days of needing the right stripy necktie or handshake to gain employment.

 

The last bastion of hiring discrimination is ageism.

[Grizz]

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

One hopes things have improved since the days of needing the right stripy necktie or handshake to gain employment.

 

The last bastion of hiring discrimination is ageism.

Not in the UK it’s not.

 

Especially if you want get past the initial screening of certain large government run transportation HR departments. 
I doubt most if not all people on here would get in using their real names. 
At interview it is likely you would be asked subtle scenario questions that would be used to determine or identify your like political view point. Especially for managerial positions. 
I have personally witness this.

 

I would agree that ageism definitely exists but for sure it is not the only discrimination still extant in the UK workplace recruitment / potential employment.

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

With a gag order in place?

 

 

That doesnt cover the judge apparently....

[iL Dottore]

3 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

That's something I like about London, name a style of food and you'll probably find it in London and find it done pretty well.

And outside of London it’s a desert - with oases few and far between…

Certainly, you can get (pale imitations of) “ethnic food” (Asian, Indian [well, mostly Bangladeshi], Italian etc) but it’s nearly always what you could term “Hollywood Movie” food, as in “A Blockbuster Movie based on….” where the only thing that is actually original (authentic)  is the name used…

[iL Dottore]

9 minutes ago, Grizz said:

I doubt most if not all people on here would get in using their real names. 
 

In my case probably not…

 

I can’t see any hiring manager announcing that the next candidate is Dr Scourge of God, Betrayer of Christendom, Satanic Blasphemer of the Occident, Flayer of Innocents, Vile Servant of Beezlebub, Destroyer of the True Faith iD PhD, DPharmMed etc. etc.

[iL Dottore]

In regards to “eating out” outside of London, I suppose - if you stretch things a bit - you could claim that it’s “fusion” cuisine (UK + XXXX), such as…

• Baked bean and turkey twizzler lasagna
• Black pudding fried rice
• Battered sushimi and chips
• Treacle gelato
• Pizza en croute
• Caviar, crisps and iced vodka
• Spotted D1ck soufflé

The mind boggles

 

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

The last bastion of hiring discrimination is ageism.

And I’m damned proud to be ageist.

 

None of the staff in my little company is under 50 years of age - even our guard dogs (Lucy & Schotty) are over 50 in human years.

 

Yoof? You can keep the spotty, self-entitled, whiny little ******* 

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from the Charente.  It's sunny and there is much to do as our house guests arrive this afternoon. Our oldest French friends, who we first met in 1996.  We are looking forward to their first visit to our new home.  I was hoping to post something using the laptop but the dreaded Windows Update struck half an hour ago.  Still cleaning apparently.  I must now go and start on the bathroom. 

 

Ttfn. 

 

Jamie

[Barry O]

8 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

 

Did you  do the Dickie Bird Dismissal Finger in tribute?

 

 

 

Nope

[Hroth]

50 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

In regards to “eating out” outside of London, I suppose - if you stretch things a bit - you could claim that it’s “fusion” cuisine (UK + XXXX), such as…

• Baked bean and turkey twizzler lasagna
• Black pudding fried rice
• Battered sushimi and chips
• Treacle gelato
• Pizza en croute
• Caviar, crisps and iced vodka
• Spotted D1ck soufflé

The mind boggles

 

 

You forgot Spam, Spam, Spam, fried eggs and Spam...

🙂

[Grizz]

58 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

In my case probably not…

 

I can’t see any hiring manager announcing that the next candidate is Dr Scourge of God, Betrayer of Christendom, Satanic Blasphemer of the Occident, Flayer of Innocents, Vile Servant of Beezlebub, Destroyer of the True Faith iD PhD, DPharmMed etc. etc.

Yeah I struggled with ‘Thorbin Skullsplitter’. …..it was pure prejudice…just because the chair of the interview panel was from York.
 

So a few relations of mine may have had ‘The odd Away-day’ to York, several generations ago. Ok. And ok, so a few of the locals can still be’a bit touchy’ about it. 
 

 

[Barry O]

8 hours ago, Sidecar Racer said:

 

 Well it's no good complaining , for the last 3 or so years you've been saying you were giving up

umpiring .  

I have.. but did this as a favour.. everyone is very short of umpires. No league cricket umpiring just special occasions.. 

 

Baz

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

Presenting to a group of muddlers today. They are expected to try turinng clean things into dirty things.. should be fun!

 

No major aches and pains from yesterday. Good! But it reinforces my decision to longer umpirevleague cricket..

 

Time for a bacon sarnie (or so my tummy tells me!)

 

Hope all of our missing ERs are well.

 

Baz

[jjb1970]

At the risk of sounding cynical, the aspect of diversity sorely lacking in work places (and perhaps society) is diversity of thought.

 

I am a marine engineer by training, marine engineers attend similar colleges and universities offering essentially the same syllabus everywhere and are assessed against the same criteria for their exams and to determine their grading. The result is that we all tend to think the same and fall into a common conception of conventional thought. Now in some ways that is unavoidable and a natural result of the nature of engineering but it also limits peoples receptivity to new ideas and change. And 'group think' introduces issues of its own. This isn't about prejudice in the usual sense but there's also an unwillingness to consider ideas outside our own experience.

 

In class I was authorised to approve stuff under alternative design and arrangement rules, meaning they were outside existing regulations, rules and standards and were done on the basis of first principles and analysis. The usual response of most to the proposals submitted for such approval was 'what idiot thought this would be a good idea?' and I'd say that in reality that response was justified by subsequent developments but if you don't remain open to such ideas you will lose the small minority of brilliant ideas which do rewrite the book and change how we think about things.

[Gwiwer]

Good Morning all. Welcome to the weekend. The sun is shining cheerfully but hasn’t yet switched the heater on. 
 

Last night we bade farewell to that same sun from the clifftops. 
 

 

[Winslow Boy]

22 minutes ago, Grizz said:

Yeah I struggled with ‘Thorbin Skullsplitter’. …..it was pure prejudice…just because the chair of the interview panel was from York.
 

So a few relations of mine may have had ‘The odd Away-day’ to York, several generations ago. Ok. And ok, so a few of the locals can still be’a bit touchy’ about it. 
 

 

I believe it's forty years since they established there 'holiday camp' aka Jvorik. Did you get an invite to the ceremony?

[polybear]

 

11 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

They DO get sprayed with some stuff to keep the flies off.

 

That'll be the DDT....now't to worry about there then......

 

11 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Much of the value of a property in the UK is in the ground it stands on. The ground is still there even if the property burns to the ground.

 

Materials prices have gone thru' the roof over the last couple of years; I have a buddy who's "in the game" and who gave a quote for an extension to someone - who then proceeded to suck thru' his teeth at the price and shop around for a cheaper quote.  Six months later he came back, having discover that he'd already got the cheapest quote at the outset.  When buddy then told him the quote was 6 months old and worthless - materials had gone up so much that he'd have to re-quote, at which point the guy was rather p1ssed off, to say the least.

 

7 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Not recommended legal strategy - when about to be tried on numerous charges, publicly call the judge who will decide your sentence if convicted a "whackjob".

 

What sort of Bozo goes and does a dumb thing like that....oh, hang on - there is one.....

 

6 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Reconstruction cost drives the price of insurance. I had my 'sticker shock' moment with increased home owners' insurance last Autumn. The insurance industry is being hammered by climate-change related catastrophes (wildfires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes) coupled with a scarcity of builders* and inflation in the price of building materials. The replacement/reconstruction cost of my home exceeds its resale value dramatically.

 

* Many of the subcontractors disappeared around 2017. I'll let you do the maths.

 

 

The other cost that's increased dramatically is renting accommodation & Hotel rooms; these are costs that the insurance company picks up as well (limited to a year?) if the house isn't fit to live in.

 

3 hours ago, Grizz said:

I would agree that ageism definitely exists but for sure it is not the only discrimination still extant in the UK workplace recruitment / potential employment.

 

 

Bear's "Boss"** was on record as saying (several times, to different people) that "if you haven't got a Degree then you're not fit to be a Manager".  Wottanarsehole.

 

**The tw@t one, above the sensible (and much smarter & well-liked) one.  Fortunately I had very, very little to do with him.

 

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

• Treacle gelato
• Spotted D1ck soufflé

 

 

 

iD could be onto something there.....I feel a Beary Challenge to iD approaching.  Are you up to it?

 

Incidentally, Bear's most favourite Ice Cream flavour (when done well) is Turkish Delight Ice Cream; first encountered many years ago at a seller kinda opposite (IIRC) the Magpie Chippy in Whitby.  Sadly you see it very, very rarely.

Edited April 20 by polybear

[TheQ]

Hmm server unavailable...

 

Then it all sprang into life...

 

Mooring Awl,

3 hours sleep, long awake, 2 hours sleep, 1 hours sleep.

 

Ben the happy Collie bounced his way down the garden and had a good snuffle around. Meanwhile I sheltered behind trees and bushes from a near 40mph wind, that's at 7C, it's supposed to reach a huge 8 C later.. definitely padded overalls time when I head to the workshop later. I'll be keeping them on for Ben's long walk.

 

Stalham population 6000 ish. Has...

Turkish, Thai, Chinese*2, British * 2 takeaways, one Chinese restaurant, one very good filled baguette shop in a very good butchers, several cafes... Two pubs, one of which does good food, Oddly the Thai advertises itself as a Chinese but has both foods on the menu, all are run by their appropriate nationalities.. how close they are to their true national produce I have no idea..

While checking Stalham's population, I discovered it has doubled since 2001, ( we arrived a few miles away  in 1999) they are still building houses there.

 

Ben meanwhile has enjoyed a larger than normal bit of my bacon sarnie..

 

Plans for today..

Electric spinny thing...

 

 

[polybear]

22 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

I am a marine engineer by training, marine engineers attend similar colleges and universities offering essentially the same syllabus everywhere and are assessed against the same criteria for their exams and to determine their grading. The result is that we all tend to think the same and fall into a common conception of conventional thought. Now in some ways that is unavoidable and a natural result of the nature of engineering but it also limits peoples receptivity to new ideas and change. And 'group think' introduces issues of its own. This isn't about prejudice in the usual sense but there's also an unwillingness to consider ideas outside our own experience.

 

 

Similar in the Aircraft Design Industry; one of the problems is that for systems requiring "dual redundancy" they get separate teams to design each one separately - but those teams went to the same teaching establishments and therefore think alike, meaning there's a risk they'll each make the same mistakes.

[monkeysarefun]

23 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

Welcome to the weekend

LOL,  ITs half over..

 

 

And Collingwood won.

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

42 minutes ago, polybear said:

The other cost that's increased dramatically is renting accommodation & Hotel rooms; these are costs that the insurance company picks up as well (limited to a year?) if the house isn't fit to live in.

And the increasing risk of natural disasters. The 2022 floods cost the insurance companies here $5.87 billion. The 2020 bushfires, $2.32 billion.  Increased premiums reflect both the recouping of payouts like that  as well as building up the kitty for the next one.

Edited April 20 by monkeysarefun

[monkeysarefun]

22 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Stalham population 6000 ish. Has...

Turkish, Thai, Chinese*2, British * 2 takeaways, one Chinese restaurant, one very good filled baguette shop in a very good butchers, several cafes... Two pubs, one of which does good food, Oddly the Thai advertises itself as a Chinese but has both foods on the menu, all are run by their appropriate nationalities..

 

Ben meanwhile has enjoyed a larger than normal bit of my bacon sarnie..

 

 

 

Ben obviously needs to broaden his horizons!

[Grizz]

 

Yes……yes I did get an invite. 
 

However I was turned away at the gate….because they didn’t appreciate some of my essential ‘cultural tools and equipment’. Discrimination right there. 
 

Me politely putting my point across at the gate. Taken from security cameras on the day. 
 

[DaveF]

Today started cool at 2°C but it is now warming up in the sunshine though cloud is expected later.  It might reach 7°C by late morning and then stay at that.

 

All being well the greenhouse floor will be given another good sweep to remove the now dryish soil then the plants can go back in.  

 

I also intend to look at yet more old photos with my coffee. There isn't much else on the agenda.

 

David

[Coombe Barton]

From WhatsApp to Greggs - why is tech going down more?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxrz350qyy5o