Early Risers.

[iL Dottore]

HH, I couldn’t agree more with your assessment. Whenever you take the running of an entity away from the people who actually do the work (or have done the work) then it’s a recipe for disaster. Furthermore, as you rightly pointed out, the NHS was created NOT to cure all ills, but to get (and keep) people fit for work and military service (I think that most people don’t realise that the impetus behind the creation of the NHS was that during WWII the powers that be [of all parties] were horrified at how many were unfit for military duty or war work). One other observation: despite many “tweaks” over the years, you could argue that the general structure of the NHS remains faithful to its 1948 creation and what other entity in the UK is still following the post-war “Whitehall knows best” model?

Whilst I believe  that I would certainly disagree with Tigerburnie on many things, I certainly think that his experience of knowing the job and then managing from that experience is the way to go. Had both management and the unions been pragmatic, flexible and been willing to compromise and modernise (as the German unions and management were [and are]), perhaps the UK’s industrial decline would not have been as severe or as widespread (having said that, I think that it would still have been rough - given the emergence of low-cost/high-quality Chinese manufacturing). If I may be so bold (and controversial) perhaps there are too many in the workplace who have been “promoted beyond their station in life” (a rather damning Edwardian era comment).

As for letting the accountants drive business decisions... let’s just say the mindset of the typical accountant (as splendid as many of them are) is probably not best suited for running a business.

iD

[iL Dottore]

4516: you’re indeed a kindred spirit! Saveloys are indeed food for the gods (along with all kinds of sausages, pies [proper pies! i.e. pastry top AND bottom], pasta and roast meats).

[Happy Hippo]

15 hours ago, AndyID said:

In the last 30 minutes we have experienced snow, sleet, hail, thunder/lightening and an earthquake!

My fault on the last one.

 

I farted and blew myself out of bed.

[TheQ]

3 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

 

 

Well at least they are working at 100%  Let's wait until they drop before we worry too much, we can always get agency staff in or failing that military assistance.... (Yes that's me being facetious.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

And while all your statement was going on they closed all the military hospitals as well... 

 

Afternoon Awl,  

I don't remember the first primary school's dinners,  the second primary schools dinners were the awful ones I've mentioned before.   I didn't get chips or a choice till the third secondary school. 

 

You lot were lucky,  as I lived in the Hebrides for the majority of secondary school,  I had to go to school in Inverness,  and stayed in a council run hostel.  You lot had school dinners for five meals a week,  I had them 7 days a week, 3 meals  a day, with a milk coffee and biscuit for supper.. 

 

Today's  events.. 

The phone call from the boss went well,  it turns out the 4days to do the work shouldn't have been sent to me.  It's what they are charging the other division for my work. 

In actual fact I have what's left of the 12 week isolation to do the work. So O'Neill only need to do an hour or two work each day. 

An additional email has arrived with the spreadsheet from which I'll work,  I'll take a peek tonight,  but start work tomorrow,  I'll do my hours first thing while it decides to warm up a little outside. 

 

The inkle loom was turned over and painted on the second side. 

 

The keel  clamps were removed,  the excess ply trimmed off,  it turned over and excess squeezed out glue scraped off. 

Then I did a trial with the buoyancy foam and the resin I'm using to see if it reacts. It didn't which is Good.  Tomorrow I'll paint the inside with the resin, to protect the inside should there be a leak,  as the foam doesn't react i can  immediately put the foam in. 

 

I've had two trips to the MhRC,  the first,  was making and fitting the hillside end plate. 

The second was more of slartybartfasts work,  mass grassing and mass grey rock painting.. Detailing will start tomorrow I hope.. 

 

Time  I pressed a couple of buttons,  I have a curry defrosting in the popettyping. 

 

PS if you cycled on the country roads round here passing at a 2 metre distance would put the majority of the vehicle in the field,  the road I'm on is only 8 to 10ft wide... 

 

 

 

Edited April 1, 2020 by TheQ

[Andrew P]

School dinners.

 

I found a bit of rusty barbed wire in my Mash Potato once. 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

17 minutes ago, Andrew P said:

School dinners.

 

I found a bit of rusty barbed wire in my Mash Potato once. 

Perhaps teacher thought you were looking anaemic and advised the canteen?

 

My experience of Hertfordshire's provision generally very favourable. Think I have previously mentioned the joys of their smoked haddock, and the liver and bacon was consistently good, and always available as seconds at secondary school because so few really liked it. I would try and work the various lunchtime duty rotas to be on last sitting if I had managed to find out that a favourite item was 'on'. This was some compensation for regularly swapping into the duty of standing at the gate booking latecomers: usually head cook came through and could be asked what was to be served that day.

[Gwiwer]

24 minutes ago, Andrew P said:

School dinners.

 

I found a bit of rusty barbed wire in my Mash Potato once. 

That certainly beats my experience of finding both a caterpillar and a spider crawling across the lettuce.  Upon alerting the supervisory staff to this fact I was admonished that they were both protein and that I was required to eat my meal or do a detention for refusing to do so.  

 

Potato was served "mashed" which was code for near-raw lumps among watery goo; custard was tested regularly to see if it moved when the bowl was inverted - it never did.  

 

School milk was often warm and occasionally off but again had to be drunk except by the one or two whose parents had lodged notes with the school.  I learned later that there is such a thing as lactose intolerance.  

[Tony_S]

28 minutes ago, Andrew P said:

School dinners.

 

I found a bit of rusty barbed wire in my Mash Potato once. 

We had strontium 90 in our milk...

[Tony_S]

I liked the school meals at secondary school. Generally better than food at home. Food at university was really good.

Food at the first infant school I went to had to be transportable from somewhere near Bristol to Clevedon so was usually quite robust! 

[Ian Abel]

HUMP day all...

 

Nothing happened yesterday, except a trip out to get a take-out from a local watering hole we frequent, and hope to see it survive the current "storm". They do kerbside pickup so about as safe as anything else is...

 

3 and sunny here first thing, supposed to manage 12 for the high.

 

Tally ho... <yawn>

[JohnDMJ]

Pivot Day draws to a close after another hectic day answering phone calls including from some who seem to clearly escapes from the asylum! Still, "la vie continue malgré tout"!

 

 5 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

It's basic math. if you have (for the sake of argument) a population of 1000 and a disease (lets call it the Blue Lurgi) gets into the population. If you test ALL 1000 people and you find that all 1000 test positive for the Blue Lurgi (for ease of calculation) of whom 125 have minor symptoms (turn pale blue) of which 60 progress to severe symptoms (turn dark blue) of which 6 die, then the mortality rate for the Blue Lurgi in this population is 6/1000 x 100 = 0.6%. If you only test the people showing symptoms (major and minor) then the mortality rate is 6/125 x 100 = 4.8% and if you only test those having severe symptoms then the mortality rate is 6/60 x 100 = 10%. And that's without getting in to the thorny subject of deciding the true cause of death. We know that the elderly, people with certain co-morbidities and the immunocomprised are particularly vulnerable, So the difficult question to answer would be: did John Smith die because the Coronavirus directly killed him, or did he die because the Coronavirus was a complicating comorbidity to his leukaemia which killed him...? Every country does it differently.

 

"There are lies, damn lies and statistics"!

 

4 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

when one looks at the media, everything is talked about in percentages.

 

Now unless you know what the actual figure is then, the percentage quoted is useless.

 

I did go through a set of statistics and using published ONS figures came up with a figure, which was far less alarming that the headline implied.  Unfortunately, good news does not sell newspapers.

 

 

The art of journalism: never let facts get in the way of a good story!

 

4 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

However, just as was happening in the military logistics field, the American 'just in time' system was applied to ...

 

All too often overruled by the JTL system (Just Too Late)

 

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Whilst I believe  that I would certainly disagree with Tigerburnie on many things, I certainly think that his experience of knowing the job and then managing from that experience is the way to go. Had both management and the unions been pragmatic, flexible and been willing to compromise and modernise (as the German unions and management were [and are]), perhaps the UK’s industrial decline would not have been as severe or as widespread (having said that, I think that it would still have been rough - given the emergence of low-cost/high-quality Chinese manufacturing).

 

I would question this comment!

 

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

If I may be so bold (and controversial) perhaps there are too many in the workplace who have been “promoted beyond their station in life” (a rather damning Edwardian era comment).

 

This, along with the Seagull and Mushroom styles of management have exaserpated not helped the situation. Where I work, communication goes without saying!

 

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

As for letting the accountants drive business decisions... let’s just say the mindset of the typical accountant (as splendid as many of them are) is probably not best suited for running a business.

iD

 

"Oh, That's the machine that goes Ping", "it's the most expensive piece of equipment in the hospital"!

 

[New Haven Neil]

Frazzled again.  Then there was me plus one.  Just about keeping our heads above water.

 

iD, savaloy and pease pudding is a Geordie staple, Dickson's pork shop in South Shields was the place to go!  Haven't had one for years, it being a bit far now.

 

The chat about ar$e licking and back stabbing managers above sums up why I left NHS management, (eek 18 years ago) and 9 years later Fraggle Rock's Youth Justice Team.  Why, oh why, is it these people are believed and experienced folk who are running a successful department ignored.  Then all falls down afterwards and its 'not their fault' but that of incompetent workers.  Who are not really incompetent, but inexperienced (because all the good ones left) and poorly led (see ar$e licker above).  Calm down Neil.....

[Simon G]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

We had strontium 90 in our milk...

 

That’s nothing!  You should try the milk from cows around Sellafield!

[Simon G]

On the subject of poor managers, the number of times that I was told “You are a safety advisor - I hear your advice and choose not to take it” or words to that effect.  My response was usually along the lines of “It will be you up in the dock and not me” and that almost invariably had the desired effect!  I was also a great fan of using union safety reps to help, whereas line management wanted little or nothing to do with them.  Just last week, I had a Facebook friend request from one such safety rep, who I have not seen for 5 years.  I had suggested that becoming a safety advisor could be a good career path for him, and now he is a safety advisor and thanked me for my help and advice, which was nice.

[jamie92208]

Good evening from a still slightly warm part of the Charente.  Various minor muddling jobs have been done and Beth and I went out for a walk in the sun this afternoon. We just went round the village and called into a friends house to check that there were no dead mice making the place smell.  There weren't any.   

 

Keep safe one and all, now to update my layout thread.

 

Jamie

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary- Land. In my job I not only had to deal with some of the bozo's further up the ladder in my own department but I also had to deal with the managers from other departments. The varied from the good, the bad and the ugly. The good ones were obviously the best to deal with and with only one notable exception came 'off the tools'. That notable exception was a woman in the building department who had stepped into the managers job from being the managers PA and she was mustard. The bad were just that, in a job that was beyond their competence. How they got there was sometimes a mystery but one everyone was certain he got promoted for letting one of the senior managers roger his missus. Now we come to the ugly, the @r$e lickers, the bullies and a few really nasty bits of work. As a trade union rep, and in my union we were all trained as health and safety reps, I had an incident were a member was on a diciplinary for refusing to obey the instructions of one of the nasty ones. I was tasked with representing  the young woman at the diciplinary. I immediately realised that the managers request breached health and safety regulations and further checking revealed a catalogue of health and safety breaches within the department. I only had to present this to the diciplinary board and of course the complaint against the member was thrown out. It only took a few weeks for that particular manager to resign, rumour was that he was ordered to do so.

[Erichill16]

Dear All,

 I hope that you have all managed to do something  enjoyable or useful today. Ok at work today but it looks like NHS/government is going to cancel the Easter Bank Holiday for general practitioners (doctors) and pharmacies. Will have to wait and see and then look for volunteers.
I’m a little bit jealous of the jobs and modelling that is being done whilst I’m stuck at work! But then again at least I get to go out and speak to people( and get a chance to catch Covid-19 ). I’m looking forward to doing a bit of modelling when this is all over but I think house cleaning and gardening will take priority. 
Keep safe,

Robert
 

[jamie92208]

I mentioned the bully I had for the boss.  Someone  else who had crossed paths with him earlier described him as a drunken wife beating DS.  He became a licker and got well up the ladder. Some years after I'd left I heard that he had risen to Deputy Chief but got forced to resign for corruption.  I raised a glass to whoever  the whistleblower was.

 

Jamie

[Ozexpatriate]

7 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

And that's without getting in to the thorny subject of deciding the true cause of death. We know that the elderly, people with certain co-morbidities and the immunocomprised are particularly vulnerable, So the difficult question to answer would be: did John Smith die because the Coronavirus directly killed him, or did he die because the Coronavirus was a complicating comorbidity to his leukaemia which killed him...?

The heart of the question is the notion of "excess deaths". We will all die. Anyone whose death was accelerated by COVID-19 would be an excess death and it is reasonable to count them as a casualty of the disease.

 

"Underlying causes" include such things as heart disease and diabetes. While people seem to want to quibble over counting terminally ill cancer patients with a couple of months to live as COVID-19 "victims", someone with managed diabetes might easily live for decades yet if they succumb to COVID-19, they will be reported as having "underlying causes".

[pH]

1 hour ago, New Haven Neil said:

The chat about ar$e licking and back stabbing managers above sums up why I left NHS management, (eek 18 years ago) and 9 years later Fraggle Rock's Youth Justice Team.  Why, oh why, is it these people are believed and experienced folk who are running a successful department ignored.  

 

Why? Because they spend so much time promoting themselves and backstabbing others. While the 'experienced folk who are running a successful department' are too busy running the department to have time for all that.

[Happy Hippo]

45 minutes ago, Simon G said:

On the subject of poor managers, the number of times that I was told “You are a safety advisor - I hear your advice and choose not to take it” or words to that effect.  My response was usually along the lines of “It will be you up in the dock and not me” and that almost invariably had the desired effect!  I was also a great fan of using union safety reps to help, whereas line management wanted little or nothing to do with them.  Just last week, I had a Facebook friend request from one such safety rep, who I have not seen for 5 years.  I had suggested that becoming a safety advisor could be a good career path for him, and now he is a safety advisor and thanked me for my help and advice, which was nice.

I once had a bit of  a disagreement with another officer at a planning meeting for training prior to a deployment to NI.

 

He wanted soldiers to positively identify  packages suspected  of being IEDs before calling in the Ammo Techs to do the business.  I was dead against this, as anti handling devices were not unheard of, so once there was a suspected threat, the policy should be leave it alone.

 

I was over ruled, and was later tasked by the same officer with providing a suspect package for the exercise, as being the resident ordnance office I would know about such things.  Basically they wanted me to wander around the barracks and dump a bag in a random location.

 

So I had a word with the QM, who was a good friend, and a plan was hatched.

 

The barracks was searched and nothing was found outside, so they were a bit baffled.

 

I pointed out that they just hadn't found it yet.

 

Come officers coffee time, (NAAFI break for the troops), most of the officers not involved in the exercise went into the conference room and as I suspected, somebody asked 'Whose does this old bag belong to?  Don't leave it on the table!'

 

As it was picked up, the primed smoke grenade that was under the bag went off. 

 

I'd made my point.

[tigerburnie]

Big news in our household...…………………………………...we are due a Tescos delivery tomorrow, SWMBO has been sitting up till silly hours for two weeks and getting nowhere, then her mate from the slimming club messaged her and she got straight on and hopefully we will have some much needed goodies coming our way...………………..

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, JohnDMJ said:

I would question this comment!

So would I, although there is high quality engineering and products coming out of not only China, but the rest of the far east, there is also low cost junk as well.

 

I recently ordered a number of colletts for my milling machine.  Great stuff.

 

I also ordered some spare colletts for a router trimmer: Garbage.........

 

They were all bored out undersize, and although they fit the machine, none of my cutters will fit.

 

But as Baz, Debs, NHN and any of the other engineers will tell you, it's easier to remove some metal than to try and put it back.

 

All I need to do is secure the collett so that it is at it's widest, and them pass a parallel reamer through the centre.

 

The maths to close it up and then work out what size of smaller reamer to do the job so that when it opens it is the correct size, is too complex for my feeble mind at present.

[brianusa]

The day is half over here in GH.  A nice day, even Spring like with warmer temps and sunshine which helps take your mind off the ongoing CV emergency.  Which as yet has to make its presence really known this side of the Narrows.  Our local hospital has had a few patients, one died but the others are now home again. Not many when compared with nearby Tacoma. It seems to be following its usual course; older and those with ongoing problems seem to succumb more easily.  I'm older but don't have anything else, I hope!

   Wash your hands!

      Brian.

[PhilJ W]

Here's one for Dave, Southend Airport had a visitor yesterday.

 

Apparently it was an exercise, it done a touch and go which made it officially the largest aircraft ever to take off from Southend.

Edited April 1, 2020 by PhilJ W