alastairq

Their Facebook page says ''temporarily closed.''

A bit of a bargain,methinks? https://www.trainworld.com/model-train-specials/o-scale/williams-23103-ge-44-ton-switcher-southern-1957-williams-23103.html

I find it disturbing that, when I order stuff, I usually get a delivery date of about a week to 10 days hence. The disturbing bit is, it usually arrives tomorrow instead! Now, what I cannot get my head around is, customers often have a more expensive shipping option of 'next day', etc..... So how come one pays more for 'next day', and f one opts for the week or so delivery, it still carrives next day? Who is making, or losing, money on that one? I also still cannot get my head around why it takes a UK car parts supplier nearly a fortnight to send me a package? Yet when I order a car part from the USA on the Tuesday, it's on my doorstep just after Friday lunchtime???? [Especially having told me it wouldn't likely arrive until the next week?]

Well, I got called out this afternoon on a Dad's taxi run.....actually son fancied a coffee at a nearby [10+ miles away] Maccydees [best value coffee]. So I went into town to fetch him. Passing two petrol stations [Esso & Jet]...both with longish queues out onto the roads...Friday afternoon flappers? Or weekend cumfitz? Anyway, having coffee'd and sat in a quiet spot for a chatter, then home to put tea on, and take his lordship back home..I decided to pop twenty pensionquids' worth of petrol in. Seeing as I've been 'booked' for a Uni run next week as well [cheaper than getting a bus pass, sharing taxi chores with his Mum, my Ex]]...ANyway, still a bit of queueing, but turns out the queues are caused by a preponderance of Diesel Dorises! The Esso spot had run out of diesel for cars, with only the LGV pump still running [and Adbloo....whatever that is?} I just wanted a dose of E10, so had zero problems getting fuel. Garageman said they'd had a run on diesel [media again] but had plenty of petrol. Plus, the tanker was due to arrive around 10 PM! So the answer is, use petrol! If I had my Daihatsu 4trak on the road, I might have been tempted to pop a gallon or two of petrol in it to tide me over...seeing as it'll run on anything...ulike today's technology! Shortage of drivers? What shortage of drivers!

If one has to become a lemming wannabe, I suggest sipping on a can of Red Bull first?

The autonomous vehicle situation is a bit like the problem railways faced at the end of the goods train era. Goods still needed distributing or leading in, before & after the train journey. [Or, autonomous truck journey?] Unfortunately in this country, the delivery system is faced with a truly ancient infrastructure, which it has to deal with....In terms of the points of delivery. Few if any of which are laid out to be of benefit to AI. Outside my home, on what may be considered a 'country lane', I can observe several rather large, [44 tonne] artics wending their way past the parked vans, roadworks, etc...on their way to & from the many farms up the road....Bulk this & bulk that.... Not quite the M25, but these vehicles are a daily fact of agricultural life....

Except that this has been the situation in the industry for many years now..... My jibe was at us, actually, 'wanting' more stuff, in the first place.Not just 'wanting', but, demanding, more stuff. Thus 'supply' will always be playing catch-up.

Aaaah, the sunny South[east?]....up here, I popped 20 pension quids worth of E10 in one of my old bangers [in the south it would be a ''classic car''].....Esso spot, no queues, just a continuous flow of customers, and the fuel costs £1.34 a litre...which is somewhat less than that in the photos. This at a 'main road' service station.... I guess we don't get MSN up here? CAn't tear it up to wipe bums when the toilet roll shortage hits? Mind, we have our 'own' refineries just an hour's drive away[Humber region]....so i guess much will depend on how close one is to refineries, and how many folk are runnign around in cars, locally? OR....is is a secret ply to convince everybody to go electric??????

Usually spouted by those who actually don't have a proper understanding of the skills they are supposed to display. Often cannot get their heads around the difference between 'My way' and the 'Correct way'... I usually found 'those that can do', actually cannot, in reality, so need refreshing..ie re-teaching! It's often referred to a skills fade.....An initial lack of proper understanding leads eventually to so-called 'bad habits'..... Also, teaching is a whole new world in itself.....right across the board, as I found out 20 years ago. I too, had the above idea.....what a shock I got! There is always a huge disconnect between what [work] practitioners think people should know.....and what those people actually should know.

No. The minimum age to undergo a PCV test is 21. Same for the CAt C LGV test. The exceptions being, the Armed Forces {GB], and those fortunate enough to obtain a recognised apprenticeship in the haulage industry. They can take a CAt C LGV test at age 18. [C+E can be taken & driven, but a far as I recall, cannot drive without a qualified driver's mate, with a trailer.} I broke from the system of education education education when I passed my 2nd Mates exams when at sea, employed by BP tankers...and decided soditt, and left. Then got a job doing something I fancied at the time, being a London Transport bus driver [1972, still old school]....I passed my test [PSV, there was a difference]....2 months after my 21st birthday. You won't find many young bus drivers today simply because no youngsters want to be bothered! In general. Bus & lorry driving were traditionally [past 40 years or so] seen as being jobs one took when there was nothing else to be had. BAck in the 70's and 80's, I remember students coming onto the buses for summertime jobs [East Yorkshire Motor Services, United, etc], as conductors....and one or two went on to pass their tests and drive. With rare exceptions, they all enjoyed their time on the buses....it wasn't quite what the general public thought it was, as a job. I left the buses [along with many other 'old hands'] when I noticed how we were being considered less & less as 'drivers', and more like shop assistants!

What is completely ignored here , with lorry drivers [ignoring also the fact that there has been a huge shortfall of LGV licence holder willing to actually work in the haulage industry, for at least 2 decades, if not more??] anyway?], is that wonderful EU thing called the European{?} Working Time Directive! Thus, GB lorry drivers are subject to not just the tachograph rules, but also the working time directive rules! IN an industry such as road haulage, what is forgotten is that, whilst it's nice that lorry drivers can have a whole weekend off now & again, like the rest of us overpaid, over-bloated workers.....but that the wheels still need to be turning, to keep up with the supplies for us over-bloated other-workers. Which means, far more[drivers] are actually needed just to do what at one time, a smaller workforce achieved.[ Back in the days before universal power steering] The exodus of EU workers from the driving industry especially, was starting to be seen long before the B referendum! As I said, when the living standard of countries like Poland, Bulgaria, etc etc started to catch up with our own, then what incentive was there for EU citizens to remain working in an alien country?? Especially when we all wanted cheap prices, so the driving industry couldn't pay the levels of wages a lorry driver was really worth? Brexit happening was merely coincidental to the exodus. It was already happening! Like I said,we wanted our cake, and to eat it as well...and now we are reaping the whirlwind, so to speak. The biggest issue I see is the lack of a genuine GB work ethic, since the 1960's.

To add, just some 'evidential' notes to emphasise my thoughts above? Concerning one aspect of work, the current lack of lorry drivers? From the RHA {not a union as we understand it, either].... Plus, the RHA quotes the average age of lorry drivers is, 55! More importantly, to emphasizes how far as a society we have drifted, less than 1% of lorry drivers are under the age of 25!! The last bit says it all! I say, lower the school leaving age. Change the country's work ethic! After all, all the raising of the school leaving age did, was to massage past unemployment statistics. Another example? The GB's Armed Forces? Year on year for the past several decades, the Armed Forces have repeatedly failed to recruit personnel in sufficient numbers to meet their stated needs. Why? Youngsters leaving school didn't want to work in the Armed Forces. Or the nursing profession. Or become lorry drivers. Or become bus drivers. Or go into the Care sector! The youngsters 'fault?' Or the parents' fault? Such work being beneath our dignity? Or were there easier, more lucrative jobs to be had? As a result, the Armed Forces were compelled to recruit from the myriad of former commonwealth countries...or, not even former commonwealth countries? The NHS compelled to recruit from Indonesia, etc for nursing staff? Anybody recall the very real recruitment problems London Transport had, trying to get enough bus drivers? Back in the 1970's??? Look at the staffing issues in the current Care sector??? Where do our working carers come from?? Certainly not from the typical GB family, who wouldn't get out of bed for those sorts of wages???

According to the RHA, the average age of a UK lorry driver is 55!!! Less than 1% of lorry drivers are under the age of 25! The last bit actually says it all, about the labour issues we as an affluent nation[as well as others] face. Our younger generations no longer deem it appropriate to be aiming to work in such menial trades. Or maybe, it's the parent of our younger generations who are doing the deeming??

Well, having read avidly through the preceding rants & ''woe-is-me's,'' my first thoughts were, we are where we are, most likely because, we all wanted our cakes, and to eat them as well! But I look at the current mini-crises, and cannot help wondering whether we have all endeavoured to benefit from a modern, more acceptable , version of a slavocracy? We are bombarded with demands for apologies and denials over the GB's [I prefer GB to UK....which somehow attempts to be inclusive when it really isn't!], roles in the slave trades of the past few hundred years [I still do not see any signs of apologies from the Moroccan arabs, or the Turks, for their part in raiding Cornwall & carrying off hundreds, if not thousands, of Cornish people into slavery?}, Yet we, as so-called 'modern' citizens of the world {I include Europe in this as well].....have the lifestyles we have, and enjoy, because all the fetching & carrying we expect to be done [the picking of vegetables, the care of the elderly, lorry drivers, bus drivers, and all the nasty tasks none of us really want to know, let alone be compelled to work in......] has been conducted [over the past 80 years at least] by people from less affluent countries, who come here, one way or another, to do the work we ourselves deem to be 'beneath us'....for wages that few of us would even consider getting out of bed for.....! Now, when those countries finally get somewhere near to to our own, precious, standard of living, and the migrant workers return home, as there is no advantage to working thousands of miles away .....we all start bleating about government policy, politics, brexit, and every other aspect of life which hasn't gone the way we, as individuals, would have wished it to....! HAving our cake, & eating it?? We have all enjoyed that to some degree or other..... Where has the 'working class' disappeared to? Yup, I reckon we are seeing the end of the modern ''slavocracy,'' and are all bemoaning the fact! Perhaps if we all weren't so in lurve with the idea of sending our kids to UNi after the mandatory gap year......and went back to a school leaving age of 14, we might not have such a shortage of...for example, lorry drivers? Or, nurses? Maybe we as a country/society would not have to rely on the less-well-off from the far side of the world, to come here to do the work we ourselves deem to be, beneath us?? Yup, one step up from a slavocracy, in reality!

There is much political banging-on about making testing 'easier', recruiting, etc. I seem to recall there were massive campaigns, financial incentives, etc and much money poured into the health sector to boost nursing numbers? Everybody bangs on with ideas to make things easier, or 'boost recruitment', but, as the health sector discovered it's one thing having the finance there to increase numbers...its entirely another thing to actually get folk to actually apply for the positions! We've had this problem for 50 or 60 years now. The problem being that the so-called 'working classes' in the UK gradually ceased to exist as such. Back in the 1950's through to the 1970's, I recall London Transport having real staffing issues with drivers. No-one actually wanted to drive buses in London...out of the nations so-called 'work-force'. Staff had to be recruited from other parts of the world. Huge numbers came from areas like the Caribbean, simply to drive London buses. Only the daft young enthusiasts like me would apply to LT to be trained as a driver! My family [such as it was] were frankly horrified that I went to drive London buses, instead of making use of my ''education' and tottering off to university to study for ''something worthwhile''... Imagine going around the 6th form colleges today and trying to recruit youngsters to be 'lorry drivers?' Perhaps we should encourage more boat people to arrive, as long as they promise to drive lorries? Shortage of tanker drivers? The Army [& Hair Force] have already got training in hand for military personnel to take over driving civilian tankers...[Op summat or other]....Strategic operation in case of a tanker drivers' strike....but could easily be used for other strategic reasons. [These folk are trained & assessed to the tanker Owners' required standards....before anybody questions the wisdom of letting an RLC driver loose in Birmingham with a tanker full of petrol? How do I know? Well,it was one of the strings to my bow I had, when I worked]

There...just for you?

Not a cough, nor a cold, since I retired.... I guess folk steer well clear of a grumpy smelly old git?

I cannot believe folk are still buying{?} newspapers....

Chinese-made repro pistols..JB will miss at that distance! US trade deals? [We can, apparently, now offload all our dead sheep to the US!] I think the US is running scared on that one? They're worried we might try to off-load all our Chinese-made rubbish onto the gullible American public? Cannot be having that at all, can we? After all, most American-made goods really means ''Made in Taiwan?'' Anyway, we can export to Canada, and let them con the Yanks?

The answer, of course, is, open-top buses? {In all weathers too..that'll fettle 'em!] For the railways, there's always the cattle wagons?

Lidls own-brand biccies are better! Their Jaffa cakes are quite the finest jaffa cakes around..and knock the original ''Jaffa Cakes'' into a cocked hat, taste-wise.....so my dearest daughter says. Anyway, methinks time to go the home-made biscuit route? My Ex [Number 3 Ex] made some cookies the other day.....I got two...Son ate one instantly, then asked about the other one last night [when on a visit]....very disappointed when I told him I'd eaten it! I think I'm supposed to save the goodies my Ex gives me, for my son's visits???? I get homemade bread from the Ex as well. We 'share' the minimal cost of flour from our local mill [Bradmalt flour]...18 kilo bags for less than a tenner. Biggest problem with home made is sourcing supplies of yeasts, and other ingredients....

Even longer than a decade....maybe two or three decades? A possible problem is that the [eastern?] European countries which yielded much of our lower paid labour market, have now got a standard of living close to, or even better, than that of the UK...So there is no longer an incentive for folks to come here, to work. When I worked for the MoD, training military personnel , there were oft quoted figures for the numbers of Cat C & C+E licence holders in the UK. On the face of it, there seemed to be plenty of drivers. But a very significant proportion of those licence holders didn't work in the haulage industry. Nor were they ever likley to. The problem is, there are plenty of licence holders out there.....few of which actually want to use those vocational categories......Me included! One often heard reason might have been, the unwarranted pressure placed on drivers [via modern technology] by those in haulage management positions...under pressure to achieve targets themselves. Many a driver I know could happily do without that annoying aspect of the job. Allied with the above must be, health issues? Stress? {Especially negative stress?} Because my pay as a civil servant [alluded to by others] was pretty pathetic, I used to do some weekend work for a local haulage company...mainly driving artics to some ungodly parts of places like Glasgow, London, even Dover or Fife. I really hated it, for all the pushing and shoving of pallet trucks...[Mosty NISA deliveries.....Horrible job] What I got paid for a couple of weekend day's work often equalled what the regular drivers got for their working week. One part I really really hated was having to get my overnight break in Heston services, on the M4. [A Saturday night, usually] Had to be there, for the crack o dawn first deliveries around London...Like stopping over in a Bulgarian gipsy encampment! Really strong smell of carbolic soap!! Hated it!!! Packed it in after a while, too much strain on the wife-of-the-moment...

Except , I don't use the splitter all the time...just short bursts now & then.....I try to do it when neighbours are trying to charge their cars....pinching a few of their volts.

I think this is down to Lidl's stock policies as a whole, perhaps? Lidl have a tendency to mix types of stock of the same category, all together in one box. For example, their 'deluxe' ground coffees? Each box, when it hits the shelf, contains at least three different sorts of ground coffee. Now, I prefer by far the Guatemalan blend...the purple coloured pack. I don't like the columbian, or the other one at all. Yet they all come in the same box. So it's a matter of shopping the Lidl way, sorting through the boxes to find the colour of coffee pack I like. It seems my favourite is also the favorite of a lot of other local customers, so the purple packs soon disappear, leaving the less popular ones, taking longer to sell before the store re-stocks. As a result, I now grab a purple pack whenever I see one, regardless of whether I actually need one or not. Because I just know that if I wait till next week, the purple ones will be nowhere to be seen. Same goes for laundry liquid, fro example....bio, color bio & non bio all come in the same box..... A confirmed Lidl shopper is used to rummaging!!! Currently I don't know whether Lidl is suffering from a driver shortage or stock shortage or what? Simply because, Lidls is always like that. The people who suffer must be those customers who use the likes of Tesco, etc..??