rockershovel

Scattering of ashes next weekend. The American son-in-law has taken it upon himself to organise this - he is rather intrigued, apparently this isn't the American way. 

He has made a 3-weeks-or-so trip to UK, I find. 

We had a convivial meeting with the minister who conducted the original service, who apparently took up the vocation after retiring in his 50s. Interesting man, currently "considering his position" as they say in the light of his experiences with the Episcopality.

So, the funeral went well enough, all things considered. I did some research (which was just as well. I found I had conflated him with another uncle regarding his military service, for one thing). 

I was offered the suggestion that if I used the general terms outlined above, without the specifics then most likely, few if any would understand; depressingly, this proved to be true. 

- one of his grandchildren thanked me for emphasising his devout views and strength of conviction, remarking that as a humanist they had no such pillar of faith... to which I could only reply "no, I don't suppose you do". 

- the American son-in-law came up trumps with a small, but very elegant crossed-staff arrangement of Old Glory and the Union Flag (from his VFW branch, I find he was a Viet Nam veteran who married the daughter in his 50s) and a USB drive carrying a recording of his grandchildren's class singing "Battle Hymn of the Republic" which I included in the proceedings. Americans respect veterans.

Another of life's pitfalls negotiated... 

On 24/02/2024 at 05:29, ess1uk said:

So many seem to forget what PPE is for.

if it is not fit for purpose then what’s the point?

It ticks the box of having been issued. Arco isn't the cheap rubbish supplied by some suppliers, to be fair. 

A14 has had a long delay on the S Bound carriageway, just by the A142 (Newmarket) intersection. It's clear that this section has no effective drainage, one and sometimes two lanes are flooded for about 100m gor several days now. 

That's a basic design error. There is an obvious fish-belly in the alignment - in a cutting, too. 

Ho hum. 

I've sent a rough outline to his immediate family. First reactions fall in the spectrum "you can't say that!" to "that's him all right".

I find that he has outlived all his children; I sort-of knew this. The American relative is a son-in-law who never met him. I suspect this is why I've been asked to do it. 

He was a man of deeply held convictions, which have become highly unfashionable. He regarded it as so profoundly wrong that anyone should be prosecuted for their opinions, that any related legislation was intrinsically wrong. He was married for many years (widowed in his early 80s) and held views on that front best described as "traditional"

He certainly  didn't believe that objective reality was subordinate to ideology. 

He could be quite.... challenging to deal with. The notion that something should not be said because some unspecified third party might be offended formed no part of his thinking; more along the lines of "would strip his sleeve and say, these scars I gained on St Crispins Day"

Putting this in the context of "de mortuus nil nisi bonum" isn't easy. He was estranged from most of his children and his grandchildren inherited this view. I don't wish to give offence for no useful reason to his surviving immediate family but equally, see no reason to gloss over the old monster. 

Let's see what the next couple if weeks bring

That's not quite the issue. I do cook sometimes, but neither of us can cook without ingredients.... and I still work full time, after all. 

No, we've just had our fortieth anniversary but there are still times when I have no idea what's going on in her head...

The A1 doesn't get any better. Yesterday added insult to injury by imposing road closures on BOTH carriageways after 8pm in the Colsterworth / Grantham area. This of course combined with rail strikes.... 

Being headed Southbound from Nottingham about 7:30 meant I ended up trapped between them, with the usual aimless sprinkling of diversion signs essentially contradicting each other. 

Cut off at Grantham (having been diverted back Northbound, heading towards the N bound closure) onto the A52, A15 between Sleaford and Bourne and S bound to Peterborough. I thought of going via Manthorpe but further closure signs in Grantham dictated otherwise.

The particularly frustrating thing is that I could have either stayed on the A52 from Nottingham, or taken the M1 S bound to J19 then A14, without ever joining the A1. 

I see there are Carols and Sermons on Xmas Eve, latest update. 

Interesting scenes. 

Just glanced at the Cathedral's Xmas programme. If I want to pay for a "Christmas Concert" I have a choice of three; if I want a carol service, no options present themselves.

One of our neighbours, a regular communicant asked the Vicar, who produced a printed newsletter which effectively said "not if we can help it, regardless of popular demand" but assuring her that it was "doing everything it could to keep her safe". Seeing as they are active retirees with a regular round of football matches, day centres, pensioners matinee theatre in Cambridge and a ballroom dancing group in Stamford, safe from what? 

Somehow I doubt we will be attending Xmas Carols this year. 

These Boa boots are handy things but they creak loudly as I walk..

Just had a deeply frustrating night involving another issue with another subcontractor who appear to be incapable of reading their own procedures, or of providing any sort of effective supervision or continuity of their site personnel. 

The erosion of quality in the civils sector is thoroughly depressing, none of them would have even been considered, let alone placed in contract in the oil patch...

Ho hum. Seems unwise to walk out on steady money in these uncertain times, but the temptation to simply walk away is definitely real. My erstwhile Dutch employers seem to be circling ever closer to actually being placed under contract on the project....

3 hours ago, DK123GWR said:

The Guardian article states this occurred at Yeovil Junction, on the 18.27 London to Exeter St David's train.

Oh right. I don't actually read the Graun so I only read the article as far as the paywall/registration pop-up

I've just seen South West taking a slating in the Grauniad for various misdemeanours involving abandoning a number of passengers on an unspecified, remote station on a rain-lashed night. These stories are often months to years old,  being the outcome of complaints investigated without haste, and I wondered if it was another leftover from that weekend's misadventures? 

I was going to the "Business and Shoppers Carols" at the Cathedral at the rather unseasonable time of 5pm Tues (usually this is 1230 the last working day but one before Xmas) but latest developments mean that my good wife is back in a dither of reluctance. 

The Cathedral has now produced, very late in the day, Carol services including one on Xmas Eve. Whether we will get to this under present circumstances, or whether it will take place at all, remains to be seen.. 

1 hour ago, PenrithBeacon said:

I was at Peterborough services last Sunday evening, and it was overwhelmed with visitors

I'm not surprised. Hotel bookings of all descriptions have been saturated (at some of the highest rates I've ever seen) during the school holidays and I've never seen so many caravans, camper vans and trailers on the move. No 1 Son is off on an extended Bank Holiday weekend to Cornwall and I can only hope it goes well for him. I'm not going anywhere

I did notice that on the heavily trafficked A roads of Suffolk and Essex (the A12/A120 section between the A14 and Dunmow) a lot of the works appeared to be clearance of the by now, much neglected and now heavily overgrown verges. One Travelodge I stayed in on the A12 a while ago, was so overgrown that its signs were completely masked from the road. 

Just had a perfectly hideous late-night journey from Ipswich to Peterborough. The old plague of endless roadworks with overlapping, incomprehensible diversions which simply peter out as you encounter the next set, seems to be back. This journey usually takes about 1hr 50 for 90-odd miles  straight up the A14. Last night took 3hr 45min for 155 miles  via Stansted. Just the thing to kick off the week before a major Bank Holiday and seemingly extending right through the BH... I WOULD have simply abandoned the journey, but with even isolated Travelodges booked out well over a week ago at room rates anywhere North of £100 THAT wasn't going to happen....

Is it Super Bowl time again? It seems so long ago that I was watching the last one, that warm evening in Florida...

I think you’ve answered the question. O Holy Night appears to have been covered by everyone from Mariah Carey to Martina McBride, and be a favourite with gospel singers ( the third verse appears to be related to the Battle Hymn of The Republic, with its abolitionist sentiments) .... and be much played on Classic FM, so no doubt a regular Classic FM listener would know it. 

Where it doesn’t appear, is in Carols for Choirs or the various preceding hymnals used by Anglican and Nonconformist choirs or congregations back to Wesley in the 1700s. Nor is it based on a traditional, or pre-existing score... which is why it doesn’t feature in the English choral or Anglican tradition or repertoire. 

9 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Really? Is that actually a (Christmas) Carol?

IMHO Cliff's been awful for years, OK when he was younger.

N.B. I didn't see it, not my type of programme.

My wife says not. However it does have the great bonus of being almost universally known, and easy for smaller children to sing. 

My daughter refers to Cliff as “Tutankhamen” 

It was “O Holy Night”. I think anybody could have predicted the other nine, if not necessarily the order, although I was surprised that “All Things Bright And Beautiful” didn’t get a mention, considering that I can’t remember the last carol service I attended that didn’t include it. 

Was Sir Cliff awful, though? 

Another “BBC Moment” today..  “Britain’s 10 Favourite Carols” on in the background. Achingly “diverse” presenting team, a fairly predictable line-up and Sir Cliff Richard croaking and whispering through an embarrassing, elevator-music version of “Silent Night”.. the #1 choice by popular vote, so it was announced, was a carol I’ve certainly never heard of, far less heard before, nor the domestic tv authority on the sofa... and we both sang in our respective school choirs at Church schools, sporadically followed at least the forms of our baptised religion, these many years. But, it was sung by an Italian tenor in the original French, so it’s all good... 

I’ve just been arranging a site visit for subcontractors. Much of the attendant client bureaucracy appears to be derived from the historic paperwork already in place for foot and mouth disease, although thankfully without the requirement for antiseptic welly baths and wheel-washing. 

Getting the necessary forms filled in by visitors has been a considerable challenge. Much as they like to complain about it, the British have little real experience of bureaucracy and no recognition of the notion that “you can’t go there, because you haven’t filled in the right forms” . As I’ve been often told in my travels, their systems are based on trust and as such, easily circumvented or manipulated. 

There’s also the quaint custom of printing forms in every language and script known to man, without any effective procedure for dealing with forms subsequently received. This is very much not my experience of working in other countries, especially the EU where English was very much not regarded as a “European language” at all. 

On 30/11/2020 at 21:03, ess1uk said:

I’ve been working throughout and all over the country from Glasgow to Walsall and Southminster and no two places are doing the same.

making it up as they go along.

and the is just as much traffic about, even on a Saturday night 

I have another site meeting Friday. It’s clear that the construction industry is gearing up for a significant revival in the coming year. Prices are a good question though, the IR35 train crash is coming RIGHT down the tracks, and it’s clear that a decade plus of systematic abandonment of skills training combined with increasingly onerous certification systems are going to be in full effect.