The Night Mail

[Dave Hunt]

Regarding the discussion about casting actors, I may be a dinosaur or blinkered or both but if I go to see a play or film involving the portrayal of a character from a book or historical fact who is or was, let’s say, a black male then that is what I expect and, indeed, want to see. Frankly I don’t care how good the acting is, nothing will convince me that a white female can portray a black male, nor can a white male or even a black female successfully. I’m afraid that I am firmly in the camp of those whose reaction to a ‘progressive’ director’s and/or critic’s (other descriptors are available) outpourings of exploring media or reinterpreting works with up to date viewpoints etc. is, “Bo!!ocks.”

 

Dave

[zarniwhoop]

Like most newspapers, the Grauniad has a significant amount of "make the readers worry or feel insecure" content. I say that as a subscriber of the Grauniad.

[Hroth]

37 minutes ago, pH said:

 

You may not have to wait too long:
 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/25/gulf-stream-could-collapse-as-early-as-2025-study-suggests

 

Its an "old" article predicting that the shutdown of AMOC could take place in two years (2025) time.  So far there does not appear to be any further studies or confirmation that such an event could happen next year, or it would start showing up on the front page of the Daily Star*! However, it'll come sooner or later, we're probably too late to the party regarding CO2 emissions reduction.

 

* "Boffins claim Britain will get Canadian Weather!!!"

 

[Winslow Boy]

8 minutes ago, zarniwhoop said:

Like most newspapers, the Grauniad has a significant amount of "make the readers worry or feel insecure" content. I say that as a subscriber of the Grauniad.

I thought its - we are all doomed!!! or we're all going to hell in a hand cart.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

Regarding the discussion about casting actors, I may be a dinosaur or blinkered or both but if I go to see a play or film involving the portrayal of a character from a book or historical fact who is or was, let’s say, a black male then that is what I expect and, indeed, want to see. Frankly I don’t care how good the acting is, nothing will convince me that a white female can portray a black male, nor can a white male or even a black female successfully. I’m afraid that I am firmly in the camp of those whose reaction to a ‘progressive’ director’s and/or critic’s (other descriptors are available) outpourings of exploring media or reinterpreting works with up to date viewpoints etc. is, “Bo!!ocks.”

 

Dave

 

Othello.

[bbishop]

53 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Regarding the discussion about casting actors, I may be a dinosaur or blinkered or both but if I go to see a play or film involving the portrayal of a character from a book or historical fact who is or was, let’s say, a black male then that is what I expect and, indeed, want to see. Frankly I don’t care how good the acting is, nothing will convince me that a white female can portray a black male, nor can a white male or even a black female successfully. I’m afraid that I am firmly in the camp of those whose reaction to a ‘progressive’ director’s and/or critic’s (other descriptors are available) outpourings of exploring media or reinterpreting works with up to date viewpoints etc. is, “Bo!!ocks.”

 

Dave

I'm a half and half person.  In a film or on TV the actor has to be the correct sex and ethnicity.  However I can be sex or colour blind when watching a play, this might be because I would be doing chemistry experiments with a boy on a Thursday afternoon, then wooing him on stage in the evening.  Of course, it doesn't matter on the radio!

 

 

 

[Winslow Boy]

1 minute ago, bbishop said:

I'm a half and half person.  In a film or on TV the actor has to be the correct sex and ethnicity.  However I can be sex or colour blind when watching a play, this might be because I would be doing chemistry experiments with a boy on a Thursday afternoon, then wooing him on stage in the evening.  Of course, it doesn't matter on the radio!

 

 

 

I hope you didn't get the two mixed up.

[Northmoor]

20 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

Ships cook is often a thankless task, they are expected to serve great food which will please everyone within a preset feeding rate 

 

I was lucky in that most of the cooks I sailed with were excellent.  There were some that weren't particularly good and some duds but overall the standards were very high.

 

That said, in my sea career I worked for companies which offered a good quality of life - good food, good accommodation onboard, good routes and high safety standards. They weren't the best paid, but I was always paid on time, treated well and had little to complain about (other than MaK engines running on HFO and Ruston engines). I have friends who prioritised high pay, they seemed to be significantly better paid than me but also had a lot more whinges. I was of an attitude that time at sea was too big a part of life not to enjoy and it didn't matter how high the pay if you hated over half of your life and were worried about drowning or burning.

I wish far, far more people took that attitude.  I have known so many who would moan to anyone who would listen (and to plenty more who wished they didn't have to) about how awful their job was but also always wanted pay rises.  When they got them, they were happy for about 24 hours, but it doesn't solve the problem!  I learned that in GCSE Business Studies nearly 40 years ago; pay is one of the least effective methods of motivating staff.

 

During the pandemic, the general public were howling in demand for big pay rises for NHS staff.  I thought what they actually needed, was time off; if I was working a 70-hour week in an NHS hospital during 2020-21, being given a juicy pay rise but no extra recovery time would have felt like, "Here's a few grand, now stop whining and get back to work".  Yes it would have reduced NHS productivity but it would also have drawn attention to the underlying problem which was (and is) understaffing.  Or perhaps that's why the government didn't do it?

[pH]

8 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Its an "old" article predicting that the shutdown of AMOC could take place in two years (2025) time.  So far there does not appear to be any further studies or confirmation that such an event could happen next year …

 

I think the headline is an example of picking the most extreme part of the content of the article to grab attention. Within the article there’s a more detailed estimate:

 

“The new analysis estimates a timescale for the collapse of between 2025 and 2095, with a central estimate of 2050, if global carbon emissions are not reduced.”

 

I’ve read more about this elsewhere (as I’m sure others have). Apparently the tipping point will come when the density of the warm water coming up from the Caribbean becomes more than that of the cold water further north. At the moment, since both are about the same salinity, temperature is more important and the warm water stays on the surface as the Gulf Stream. As the ice cover of Greenland melts at an increasing rate, the released fresh water will dilute the salinity of the surface water and decrease its density till it is less than that of the warm salt water. At that point, the cold water will remain on the surface, the warm water will go down in the ocean, and  the warm current of the Gulf Stream will “short circuit” and return south from just south of Greenland.

[Northmoor]

13 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

May I add Crepelle to that list, please?

 

A more appropriately named engine is yet to be made, although my late father (C/E/O) would have added Paxman to the list!

A former RN MEO who I worked with stated that if a Paxman wasn't leaking oil you should assume it was because there wasn't any left in it.

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[SM42]

1 hour ago, Northmoor said:

I learned that in GCSE Business Studies nearly 40 years ago; pay is one of the least effective methods of motivating staff.

 

 

But reducing it is a very good motivator but not necessarily in the way you want. 

 

I find that the average employee will tolerate most things as long as you don't mess about with their pay, leave and conditions. 

 

Or as Dilbert put it

 

Happy,  with low self esteem 

 

Andy

Edited August 16 by SM42

[Winslow Boy]

2 minutes ago, SM42 said:

 

But reducing it is a very good motivator but not necessarily in the way you want. 

 

I find that the average employee will tolerate most things as long as you don't mess about with their pay, leave and conditions. 

 

Or as Dilbert put it

 

Happy,  with low self esteem 

 

Andy

Bit like paternity leave then. You can have six months but after the first month your not getting paid.

[polybear]

8 hours ago, Northmoor said:

I wish far, far more people took that attitude.  I have known so many who would moan to anyone who would listen (and to plenty more who wished they didn't have to) about how awful their job was but also always wanted pay rises.  When they got them, they were happy for about 24 hours, but it doesn't solve the problem!  I learned that in GCSE Business Studies nearly 40 years ago; pay is one of the least effective methods of motivating staff.

 

During the pandemic, the general public were howling in demand for big pay rises for NHS staff.  I thought what they actually needed, was time off; if I was working a 70-hour week in an NHS hospital during 2020-21, being given a juicy pay rise but no extra recovery time would have felt like, "Here's a few grand, now stop whining and get back to work".  Yes it would have reduced NHS productivity but it would also have drawn attention to the underlying problem which was (and is) understaffing.  Or perhaps that's why the government didn't do it?

 

Bear went on a four-day week some years ago (my choice - they weren't happy) and it made a huge difference to me; the G.E. didn't suffer in any way (many would take a flexiday or half-day on a Friday anyway, meaning Fridays/Friday afternoons were often like a Ghost Town) and the work still got done.  I also played the line that if they specifically needed me on the Friday then I'd take the following Monday off instead; if I was working away from Base then I'd work a standard 5-day week and claim it as O/T (flat rate) instead.

 

Quite a few said to me "I wish I could do that" - but as soon as I mentioned they'd lose 20% Salary & Pension they soon changed their tune..... 

[iL Dottore]

8 hours ago, Northmoor said:

A former RN MEO who I worked with stated that if a Paxman wasn't leaking oil you should assume it was because there wasn't any left in it.

Many years ago (in the late 80s/early 90s), I was reading an interesting book about why – at the time - Japanese products were taking over the world. 
 

One of the stories in that book went along the lines of the following: an American company, making some sort of industrial machinery, through great effort managed to sell one of their complicated and expensive machines to a Japanese company, beating the Japanese competition.
 

Shortly after the machine was installed, the Japanese owners called the American company and basically (and very politely knowing the Japanese) asked “what pile of crap have you sold us? Your machine is leaking fluids all over our nice clean shop floor”.

 

The Americans were mystified as none of the American companies they had sold that machine to had complained of a similar thing. so they investigated further: to make a long story short American customers basically expected machines from that American company to leak and had a low paid janitor with a mop and a bucket clean up the machine every day. The Japanese had the expectation that the machine wouldn’t leak.

 

I have no idea whether or not this story is apocryphal, but from what little I know about the Japanese and the Japanese culture, it does ring a bell. One thing I do like about the Japanese culture is that when they do something they do it properly and they do it well. 

[AndyID]

Any thoughts about Sir Larry playing Othello?

 

 

EDIT: I see Compound beat me to it 😀

 

 

 

Edited August 17 by AndyID

[iL Dottore]

One of the hallmarks of my career is that I’ve always worked for companies that have treated me like a “grown-up”. This has meant a total absence of micromanagement, the expectation that I am grown up enough to get on with things by myself and that I’m intelligent enough to seek assistance/discuss matters with colleagues as and when appropriate. They hired you because they thought you were able to do the job and the expectation was you just went ahead and did it.
 

In addition to very good financial recompensation (even by Swiss standards, and certainly extremely so by British standards), I enjoyed a very good working environment. And there were lots of little things that made the difference; for example, many companies whose employees travel a lot for work don’t allow their employees to hold on to their frequent flyer miles, with the companies I worked for those frequent flyer miles were ours to use as we saw fit.
 

Most companies get pretty uptight about alcohol on the premises, but at the company HQ (where I was based), they expected us to behave like adults and so alcohol was available in the canteen (wine or beer), and when we had departmental parties or get togethers, wine and beer was also available. And this approach of treating us like adults and expecting us to behave like adults bore fruit: in all my time there, I never saw anyone get ratarsed, even at departmental parties.

 

Very good salaries, great working conditions, good bonuses*, share options and a solid company pension meant that turnover was extremely low. As I said, I got lucky.

 

* an interesting aside about bonuses: in the company I worked for the bonuses were on top of our salary, whereas in the American company we worked with bonuses were used to make up an employees salary. In other words, if their salary was supposed to be $100 a year, the American company would only guarantee that their employees would be paid $80 with the difference being made up by end of year bonuses. This meant that the American company made a lot of stupid short term business decisions because people wanted to earn the best possible bonus, even though the goals set to achieve that bonus did not necessarily make sense or was the best goal to achieve.

[Happy Hippo]

11 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

I thought its - we are all doomed!!! or we're all going to hell in a hand cart.

You might.

 

I'm going in a pannier tank

[Happy Hippo]

2 hours ago, AndyID said:

Any thoughts about Sir Larry playing Othello?

 

 

EDIT: I see Compound beat me to it 😀

 

 

 

Sir Larry Grayson?

[polybear]

6 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

You might.

 

I'm going in a pannier tank

And some might say that’s the very best place for a Pannier Tank….

[PhilJ W]

One for the granddads.

[Oldddudders]

It is a grey, drizzly morning in Sarthe, but mild and still. 50 years ago today, in bright sunshine, Deborah Clare Miller and I were married at Croydon Register Office at 10.00. I think actually we were back out on the street by 10, things having taken very little time. As most of you will know, Deb has been gone 12 years, so there isn't much to celebrate. But my second marriage, to Sherry, is a great success, despite us each falling to bits in our 70s. We have to make of life what we can. 

[Winslow Boy]

32 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

You might.

 

I'm going in a pannier tank

I think even Hades has standards.

[rockershovel]

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Many years ago (in the late 80s/early 90s), I was reading an interesting book about why – at the time - Japanese products were taking over the world. 
 

One of the stories in that book went along the lines of the following: an American company, making some sort of industrial machinery, through great effort managed to sell one of their complicated and expensive machines to a Japanese company, beating the Japanese competition.
 

Shortly after the machine was installed, the Japanese owners called the American company and basically (and very politely knowing the Japanese) asked “what pile of crap have you sold us? Your machine is leaking fluids all over our nice clean shop floor”.

 

The Americans were mystified as none of the American companies they had sold that machine to had complained of a similar thing. so they investigated further: to make a long story short American customers basically expected machines from that American company to leak and had a low paid janitor with a mop and a bucket clean up the machine every day. The Japanese had the expectation that the machine wouldn’t leak.

 

I have no idea whether or not this story is apocryphal, but from what little I know about the Japanese and the Japanese culture, it does ring a bell. One thing I do like about the Japanese culture is that when they do something they do it properly and they do it well. 

The Japanese simply did things better. I've just had a weekend down in S Wales with a gallop in the Veterans on my 1970s Yamaha TT500. This is Yamaha's effort at beating the then-still-popular British "big singles" as an off-road bike.

 

This is a bike the British could have made. Pure 1970s design, but with properly designed gasket faces and O rings so it doesn't leak everywhere. A very basic flywheel magneto (much like the Bantam D1 unit) and points which give no trouble. Oil-in-frame like the last BSA and Triumph. 

 

These bikes had a hideous reputation for hard starting, but I find that if you keep the points clean and look after the valve clearances, and observe the starting procedure it gives no trouble. 

 

It is, quite simply a better product. 

[Happy Hippo]

24 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

properly designed

At the risk of starting an all out war, when one looks at the likes of the successful English Electric designed diesel locomotives (EE 350 hp shunter, aka Class 08; EE Type 1, aka Class 20; EE Type 3, aka Class 37) they have been is service on the British rail network for 60+ years.

 

Their time in service far exceeds the steam locos that they replaced.