AndrewC

Afternoon all. Deliveroo are absolute shitgibbons as far as delivery goes. I know a few smaller pop up food businesses that refuse to use them anymore after food was delivered in poor condition or went missing. Deliveroo blamed them instead of the driver. They treat both the supplier and the customer equally bad. We've used Just Eat for the past few years and never had a problem. As far as hygiene ratings go we check these online before choosing the restaurant/takeaway. The downside we have found is some places will cancel their subscription, vanish for a couple of weeks, then come back as "under new management". That means any saved orders vanish and I have to start over. Annoying, as our favourite Chinese does this every 3 months or so. Their menu is so large and disjointed that it can take 15 minutes to find everything. I think it is a way of getting a discount from Just Eat as a new subscriber. Sort of like the Sky TV scam, where you subscribe until the discount ends, then cancel, and get someone else in the house to subscribe, and repeat. Little else of note. Work trundles on. The Festivus dust magnets have all been strategically deployed as has the Festivus bush. Enjoy what is left of the day.

Greetings all from the boring borough. Weather improving. All the pre-Chrimbo stuff is done. Today will be very quiet and restful methinks. Last night was our Christmas dinner aboard the Golden Arrow @ the Bluebell. The Landrover needed water wings on parts of the A22 & A275. Cold, wet, windy, and a lot of water on the road. The evening consists of canapes and mulled wine in the Bessemer Arms prior to boarding. Starters on the trip up to East Grinstead. Mains on the way back. Upon arrival back at Sheffield Park there were carollers and a chance to stretch before the second trip. By this time the temp had risen to 8c, wind had gone, and we had clear skies. Second trip was afters followed by cheese and coffee. Not cheap but well worth the evening out with proper Pullman silver service. Looking forward to seeing Reg on the Darwin Awards in the near future. AndyRam, is there nothing in your card processor's Ts&Cs that covers card fraud. Surely if you shipped in good faith it is the card processor that will be on the hook. That's about it. enjoy the day.

I don't think the upholstery was brown when he started on those stairs.

Unless of course it is Monty Python's 3 sided record. 2 grooves on 1 side. Or depending on the age of the record, the innermost end was technically a separate and deeper groove to keep the stylus from wandering.

Does that make him one of Pan's People? asking for a friend.

The great philosopher George Carlin once said: ' Think about how stupid the average person is, and then realise half of 'em are stupider than that." The stupider the person the smarter they think they are.

Greetings from the boring borough. Thoughts with John & Sandy. Why does the universe tend to sh*t on good people. Little of note here. Tree up, awaiting the plethora of baubles to be added. Most of the rest of the decorations are in place. House still needs a lot of work. Managed to over stretch my lower back on Sunday. 2 nights of no sleep and a lot of pain. Work is still a fustercluck of cockwombles. I think our client hired parliamentary rejects to run their IT department. On that note, I'll just say cheery bye. Cheery Bye.

A Brussels sprout tree it is.

Greetings all. The mourning next door continues. I paid my respects today while dropping off a misdirected letter. I now have the full story. Beyond sad and what sounds like a failure of the health services. What is worse is the funeral has been put off until next Thursday to allow her parents to obtain a visa. Bloody useless Home Office. That means another 6 days of mourning. If anyone asks I've accidentally used the blunt knife to cut onions. Christmas breakfast will be us and the offspring. Dinner will be a massive turkey (ordered in expectation) for just the two of us as the offspring's lady has decided that she wants to cook for him and the rest of the housemates. Only the second time in 27 that it will just be 2 for dinner. Our "I don't have to cook" dinner is next Saturday on the Golden Arrow @ Bluebell. Looking forward to that as it was excellent last year. TFIF.

Morning all from a rather sad and subdued borough. Last Wednesday a woman jumped in front of a non stop train at Welling Station. At that point the train would have been travelling around 90-100km/h. This woman, Priya was our next door neighbour. Saturday's marquee and gathering was the family's post funeral gathering. She leaves behind a husband and 10 year old son. If I hadn't been delayed getting out the door I would have been on the platform at the time. We've lived next door to them for nearly 11 years and barely know them. Extremely quiet and private people.

Greetings from the boring borough. Missed the local Bexleyheath model railway show yesterday. I was in the loft sorting out crap and bringing down the Ch******s decorations. A rather busy weekend in all. Trying to get the house in some sort of state of completion. Still painting, which for me is quite painful with my shoulder and knee not wanting to cooperate. That means doing about an hour, then taking 3 or 4 days until I can continue. At least we can declare 4 rooms complete now. Doors on 2 and the rest of the hallway is all that remains. No word on the legal action. The court has deferred until after Christmas as the builder failed to file a defence but they are back logged in reviewing such cases. Friday saw the arrival of a box from Amazon. Most disappointed that it wasn't singing. It did contain a nice surprise though. A beer advent calendar sent by my son. Speaking of boxes, Royal Mail were knocking on the door at 07:01 this morning with a small parcel. Very early for them. Next door (the nice ones) have erected a marquee that covers their back from corner to corner. Some sort of family celebration on Saturday that went on to the wee hours. Party atmosphere but not intrusively loud so no complaints really. Its been a good 8 days for sport. WHU stuffed the barcodes on Saturday. Welling United top of the table. Calgary Flames top of their division. Calgary Stampeders Grey Cup champions. Andyram. Depending on your bank there have been changes to deposits and debits over the weekends. Normally something that used to be dated for Saturday or Sunday, now frequently isn't processed until Monday AM. Hopefully, all will be well this morning. That's about it from here. More coffee. Enjoy the day.

Colour me well jealous. You will really enjoy it.

Unofficial slang for small measure. 100ml or as large as a 1/3 pint. (which is the smallest they serve)

We need to work on the coordination of our schedules. Missed you in the Mikkeller bar by 48 hours.

Greetings from the boring borough. Bit windy here. So much so as I just spotted a house go past with a young girl and small dog clinging on for dear life. <overly political reference to the house landing on the resident of #10 has been redacted> Interview went ok yesterday. Not convinced by the job but who knows what will come of it. I almost didn't make it. Just before I left the house there was a one under on our line. Quick diversion via Woolwich and the DLR became plan B. Amazing how people on Twitter reacted. Those replying to the initial SE railway tweet were more concerned about the driver than anything else. The trip home was marred by yet another signal failure at Lewisham. Twitter was much less understanding towards NR and SE from that fustercluck. Problems at Lewisham are beyond a joke now and there is at least 1 "signal failure" per week. May be more reliable to hire retired police officers and give them flags to guide the trains through. Getting really windy now. Time to batten down the hatches and grab another coffee. Enjoy the day.

Greetings from the borough that is quite boring but not as boring as usual. Chilly and meh outside. Damp squib comes to mind. Half day today as I venture into the square mile to interact with actual people for a change rather than a voice on a headset. With luck a new job will appear from the meeting. I may even do some C*******s shopping before the shops in the west end get too manic. EMT, Paramedic, First Responder. There is no way in hell I could do their jobs. I know 2. One in Norfolk who's Facebook page is littered with coworkers who have had enough and are leaving in record numbers, and posts around managing stress & depression. The other is my best friend back in Canada. This guy has done it all over the years. We went to high school together. We worked together in a local TV station. We worked together at the 'phone company'. We both left at the same time to go back to school. I went for a Bsc. He went into aircraft maintenance. He spent a couple of years in the bush fixing planes. Moved back and started working for the local transit. Bus and LRT. Until some idiot in a big a55 pick up truck decided that traffic lights didn't apply to him and ripped off most of the front of his Siemens Duwag U2. After that he decided to become a Paramedic. Years of being a first aider in the oil patch, ambulance driver, EMT, fire dept, school, etc. He finally got what he wanted. 2 years later and he burnt out and just walked away after one too many responses to road fatalities involving children. I can't begin to understand how they can do what they do every day. Take care

Greetings from a foggy borough of boringness. No news from next door but things seem to have quietened down. Not a lot happening. Managed to finally empty a couple of storage tubs in the office. The filing cabinet has been refilled with crap vital archived material and my Lego Tower Bridge is whole once again and on a shelf above my desk. Hoping I can get my Dinky Toy display case back up today. <<<< I do live on the edge, don't I? Hopefully AndyRam can cage the black dog again. I was reading an article around how depression and pain are intertwined. One can trigger the other in either direction. Makes sense. I noticed I'm at my lowest when my shoulder or knee are acting up. Work calls as does the coffee maker. Enjoy the day.

Good moaning from the slightly less boring than usual borough. Yesterday was done and dusted by noon. Brekkie, found more furniture in the local hospice charity shop, some music in the record store, and a fast dash painful crawl around Horrorsons. We have both grown to hate that place. Normally our big monthly stock up is at Sainsbury's and Horrorsons is for our weekly items. Not any more. Tired of them constantly moving everything around like it was some sort of puzzle that needs solving before you can get a tub of soured cream. The other issue is that for some reason it is rammed with coffin dodgers from opening till late evening. No idea why but the aisles have become some sort of oldie's drop-in centre. They all have the knack of being able to locate the narrowest point and congregate there blocking passage. What should have been a 10 min, in & out precision operation took over 45 minutes trying to find things, and then discovering they were guarded by a Hell's Granny chatting to another about their neighbour's cousin's cat. The rest of the day was a total write off as intentions to do some more work on the house went down the tubes with my knee refusing to cooperate. No idea what is happening next door. When I popped out around 3pm to feed the glass recycling bin, the Bill were just exiting the unlicensed HMO. Flashy lights still on their car. Then around 8pm another showed up with flashy lights, and were there for around an hour with a second car arriving on scene. Didn't see them leave so no idea if they dragged off one of the residents or not. I will have to try to corner the lovely Russian lady who acts as their Den Mother for some goss. SWMBO and I have decided that once she leaves, we'll be reporting the unlicensed property to the council as I fear the only thing keeping the other inmates on a short leash is Natalya. To those going to Warley today, may it be a body odour and rucksack collision free day. Thoughts with John, Sandy, and Debs. edit: speeling cogue ups from autocorrupt

When I had my old satnav I'd get Badgers Mount Pratts Bottom all together in one row on the screen whenever I drove the M25 approaching junction 4.

Next to Badgers Mount.

My revenge for calling me Andy. In other recent developments, my manager is miffed as I didn't respond to the supposedly anonymous corporate employee survey. Anonymous my ar5s. I replied that my response was to not fill in yet another survey. This coincides with the semi-annual, yes twice a bloody year, assessments. Even our management thinks that is just another make work project for HR. These are pretty meaningless as everyone gets a "meets" rating unless they manage to either kill a customer (bad) or generate extra revenue from the customer (good). This effectively means there is no incentive unless you are a sales weasel or an account manager. Then they wonder why projects almost always have issues and why turnover of staff is so high. Livin' in a Dilbert reality.

Greetings from the boring borough. TFIF I see Ian (RH) received the same Model Junction newsletter as I did. A veritable crop of cabbages in stock. I have my eye on one of the GEVO ES44AC locos instead. Then again PWRS sent me some train porn with their black friday sales, as did the TfL Museum shop. They are flogging the 4 car Bachmann S stock for £271.99 That's £68 off. Soooo tempting. Must dash, course time again. For those off to Warley, have a great weekend. Enjoy the day.

Snap. Greetings from a frosty and yet still boring borough. 2 days of training starts in half an hour. Course being delivered from Norway so by the end of it I doubt I'll be pining for the fjords. Good to see Andyram posting and keeping his black dog in a box where it belongs. Still no word back on any of the interviews I've had over the past few weeks. Not even so much as a PFO email. Oh well. back to the drawing board. I'll look at the finances and see if its practical for me to take a 6 month sabbatical. Maybe a rest is as good as a change. Little else of note. More coffee needed. Enjoy the day.

Yes they are. No buffers so the coupler has to be engaged, which means removing the FRED, so the rear loco has to also be connected to the brake line of the last car. There is no electrical connection as such.

In the US and Canada the locos would all be under control of the lead unit through Locotrol. (aka DPU)