Early Risers.

[jamie92208]

Good moaning.  Another morning without rain and it's going to be warm today.  Once thd dew has burnedboff then it's grass cutting time.  

Beth seems to be recovering slowly and has even threatened to cook tea tonight. Whilst in bed she has seen that a psirbof what we think are Great Tits have made a nest in the verandah framework. At the moment we think that eggs are being incubated.  

 

I made a start on sorting out the shed workshop area. One new set of shelving erected and a plan is emerging.I even got a bit of muddling done.

 

As regards to the famous barrel roll, my retired pilot brother told me it's only a 1g manoeuvre so no problem for most aircraft.  

 

Jamie

 

 

 

 

[chrisf]

Greetings one and all

 

It appears that Q and I are kindred spirits to judge by his views on school PE and flying.  Let us begin with the latter.  I could easily become overawed by the familiarity with the world’s airports displayed by so many ERs.  My experience of airports and passenger aircraft is limited.  I am not sure which of the two I dislike more.  My e-friend Harry reckons that flying is fun.  This indicates a strange sense of humour.  He won’t say why it’s fun, so there’s a challenge for another day.  The clip on the news yesterday of a very full Aer Lingus flight from Belfast to London was enough to remind me why I dislike flying.  Because my only flights have not been for work but for so-called pleasure, I have experience only of cattle class.  Imagine if you will the joy of trying to eat a meal perched on the shelf that folds down from the back of the seat in front and what happens when the occupant of that seat decides that it should no longer be reclined.  A full and frank exchange of views would be a good guess!  My thoughts on airports will have to wait.

 

I suppose that my views on gyms and the folk that use them are coloured by my experience at school, more than 50 years ago, but what Q wrote struck a chord.  It may be hard to believe now but as a youth I was gangly and unco-ordinated and found it difficult to cope with what successive PE teachers wanted me to do.  Today’s millennials find time spent exercising beneficial.  Even the oft-mentioned Harry took out gym membership as a university student, though how much of the time he spent in the gym was to build muscle and how much was to counteract the alcohol is the subject of a debate that will never take place!  I had never heard of “energising” before that rising young executive was recruited by Amazon but it seems to have a place given the scary amount of work that he has to get through.  I spent some time on the interweb yesterday morning checking out “exercises for energising”.  From what I found, and there is much more for me to find, I am satisfied that if/when I decide to do it I need not go anywhere near a gym.  That suits me fine.  

 

Best wishes to all

 

Chris

[Joseph_Pestell]

6 minutes ago, chrisf said:

 Because my only flights have not been for work but for so-called pleasure, I have experience only of cattle class.  Imagine if you will the joy of trying to eat a meal perched on the shelf that folds down from the back of the seat in front and what happens when the occupant of that seat decides that it should no longer be reclined. 

 

Michael O'Leary has heard of your plight, Chris. Ryanair abolished the reclining seat some years ago.

[chrisf]

Thanks, Joseph.  I think the incident was on an Air France flight.  I'm surprised that O'Leary has not abolished seats altogether.  Oh sh!t, I've put an idea into his head ....

 

Chris

[pH]

11 minutes ago, chrisf said:

Thanks, Joseph.  I think the incident was on an Air France flight.  I'm surprised that O'Leary has not abolished seats altogether.  Oh sh!t, I've put an idea into his head ....

 

Chris

 

No need to worry, Chris. He thought about it long ago.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/jul/01/stand-up-for-ryanair

[AndyB]

Barry.

I thought for a moment you were going to say Leeds East was your favourite airport. A free punnet of strawberries with every booking.

I once met the owner who gave me a tour. "You see these verges next to runway Andy. RAF left 'em in a terrible state. Grass were that long. I had it cut right back."

 

Now one response might have been to mention the long grass was deliberate to reduce bird populations....but I'd got a bit (hell) of a hangover and it would be fair to say the gentleman new his mind. 

 

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

Sunny here this morning..still chilly though.

 

Her indoors has decided to do the food shopping a day early. Lordy may! Will the world stop spinning?

 

I need to go tothe pharmacist today as my medications have all but run out. But..like the Q hayfever has struck. It must be the trees as a lot of them (particularly around here) are in full "blossom".

 

I was salaried staff and spent a lot of time travelling at one point. My company allowed me to keep my air miles which were used for family holidays. It helped a lot.

 

Oh dear, her indoors says her battery is flat...which means I get to take her to the shops. Frabjoy!

TTFN

 

Baz

[tigerburnie]

Morning, bright but chilly start, the gardening forum I help moderate has had a major upgrade, that could consume a lot of my time for a few days...…….oh well it has improved the forum. Take care and stay safe all.

[TheQ]

30 minutes ago, pH said:

 

No need to worry, Chris. He thought about it long ago.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/jul/01/stand-up-for-ryanair

Saudi air on long distance flights has already removed rows of seats from the back of the aircraft, though not to stand.... 

 

But to kneel... They have a prayer room complete with compass pointing to mecca in the back.. 

 

[Ozexpatriate]

2 minutes ago, TheQ said:

They have a prayer room complete with compass pointing to mecca in the back.. 

Were there directional prayer mats too?

 

How many people were able to gather to pray at once?

[roundhouse]

Favourite airport (I am sure I have said his before) is PDX, even have the T shirt, mouse mat and had the beer brewed by Rogue to celebrate the carpet that was renewed a few years ago.

Worst airport Luton.

 

Leeds Bradford was fine when we used it some years ago but wouldn't fly with Jet2 again in any rush with their horrible plastic bucket like seats cramming in more seat rows, so more passengers trying to get bags into lockers then having to be taken to the hold instead, delayed the flight by half hour. Easyjet one of my preferred short haul airline for comfort but horrible for late evening flights as they are virtually always very late when we use them so avoid them of recent. No t that any flying is now going to be anytime soon. 

 

And this mornings news that one of the lead scientists has broken his own advise on social distancing- yet another case of 'do as I say not as I do' again at the top. That winds me up so much when at work when the to people would be very late to their own meetings with the rest of us in trouble if we were just a few minutes late so everyone in the company would get there early and end up wasting work time waiting. these days I can be as late as I like to my own meetings and then tell my self off as long as no one else is around just incase they think I am talking to myself.

 

Anyway back to this morning, been in the shed and brought the water container back for a clean and refill. This morning I will go for a bit of exercise via my favourite footbridge then back via my next favourite footbridge hopefully timing when freight is due to pass by .

 

 

[The Lurker]

14 hours ago, roundhouse said:

coming back form Mums I past a bin lorry with four in the front seat. they couldn't have been social distancing by even 2mm!! I guess they have been self isolating together ( I hope for their  and families sake).

 

Talking of which the draft proposal for returning to work to only be 1m apart in the work place seems odd if outside work we have to be 2M apart. Double standards me thinks. my other half is hopeful to not be returning to the office anytime soon due to the 800 + people all queuing for the lifts for all multiple floors in the building. It had queues in the 'old days'.

 

 

i have read previously that there is nothing magical about the 2m figure. Apparently the "safe" distance is around 1m, but they felt that if they said 2m, then they would achieve at least 1m in this country. Some other places have gone for 1m. I think that it was Sir Patrick Vallance saying this but I could be wrong. If I get time (and there are 3 1/2 more pages of ERs to read) I will try to see if I can find the quote.

[leopardml2341]

Mornin all.

 

Been awake since 02:00 - after 3 hrs of trying to go back to sleep I decided to give up and get up.

 

Been 'at work' since 05:00, so I'm due a tea break and probably in another couple of hours, a kip.

 

Sorry haven't caught up on posts, but take it as read that my thoughts and support are there for all.

 

Stay safe, stay well and hopefully in my case stay asleep for longer......

[iL Dottore]

2 hours ago, AndyID said:

If I had my way "airline miles" would be completely illegal. For years I watched as so called "executives" proudly manipulated travel arrangements that were neither in the interests of their employers or their customers to maximize their personal "kick-backs"....

Well that certainly wasn’t the case where I worked, some trips were fixed calendar events (such as a medical congress), but otherwise ALL travel was business driven and had to be justified, in writing, and approved. The company did indeed have deep pockets and a very large travel budget (cumulative and by department), but I think that because it did spend so much, travel was very tightly controlled.

Whilst we could choose our routing, flights had to be on one of the 6 airlines with which the company had a contract. I could fly BA (which was on the list) because - at the time - flying BSL-LHR-SFO was both better and cheaper than flying Swiss/Delta ZRH-ATL-SFO (a truly loathsome routing: customs and immigration at Atlanta, then [eventually] an internal Delta flight of quite a few hours). The only “manipulation” we could “get away with” was to go out earlier or come back later, paying the difference in accommodation costs out of our own pockets.

Whilst teleconferences and videoconferences have, thankfully, replaced face-to-face meetings for routine updates and the like, face-to-face meetings will continue to be held for critical items (and, for what it’s worth, I’ve found that the real decision making and “horse trading” at critical meetings tends to occur in the “social moments” [tea breaks, lunches and the like], not in the official meeting - which is why F2F meetings will always be with us).

 

Edited May 6, 2020 by iL Dottore

[45156]

Morning All

 

Quick check in but I will revisit later and catch up as I stll have to read and rate this page and will also have to read and rate the pages which have yet to arrive.

 

Today should be fun (not) as the oven was treated with Oven Pride last night, and will need finishing off this morning.

 

Regards to All

Stewart

[The Lurker]

Greetings all from Sidcup where it is sunny with blue skies. There is a bit of a chill in the air but we are promised it will warm up later.

 

Work yesterday finished with a long call to the US, which went round and round and round on various sidetracks. When got to the stage where I could smell the food that Mrs Lurker was preparing for tea, I pointed out that the latest iteration was not actually relevant to the main point, at which stage we went round and round again until someone promised to write up the various iterations of fact pattern, so that we could present them to our advisors. I think if I had not made that point the tea would have been dried up in the oven....!

 

I have not had too many experiences of flying business, but I thought Delta LHR-Atlanta was pretty good. When we have done recent flights for pleasure across the pond,we have gone for premium economy type arrangements (with Air Canada and BA) both of which made the long flight slightly better. As for airports, being delayed in Palermo was not much fun (red hot and no seats and no announcements), whereas being delayed in Calgary was very boring but at least comfortable.

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

Michael O'Leary has heard of your plight, Chris. Ryanair abolished the reclining seat some years ago.

A number of our “leading business figures” (such as the beardy one) have turned out to be truly loathsome individuals - the pandemic has certainly opened many people’s eye as to their “lack of moral fibre” (to put it one way).

Michael O’Leary is another: worth millions, he treats both customers and staff with undisguised contempt, but what is hard to swallow is how many people use his airline. It’s shocking to realise how many people voluntarily sign up For this treatment all for the illusory benefit of a £10 plane ticket (and it never is just £10, add all the supplementary charges and the cost of getting to the obscure airfields used, and the £10 is no more).

 

In a way, his business acumen is astounding, who could have guessed that you could treat your customers with contempt, fleece them like sheep at a shearing and they would still come back for more.....

 

I suppose the moral of the story is that people will buy anything, no matter how poor the quality, if it is perceived as “cheap”

[Joseph_Pestell]

8 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

A number of our “leading business figures” (such as the beardy one) have turned out to be truly loathsome individuals - the pandemic has certainly opened many people’s eye as to their “lack of moral fibre” (to put it one way).

Michael O’Leary is another: worth millions, he treats both customers and staff with undisguised contempt, but what is hard to swallow is how many people use his airline. It’s shocking to realise how many people voluntarily sign up For this treatment all for the illusory benefit of a £10 plane ticket (and it never is just £10, add all the supplementary charges and the cost of getting to the obscure airfields used, and the £10 is no more).

 

In a way, his business acumen is astounding, who could have guessed that you could treat your customers with contempt, fleece them like sheep at a shearing and they would still come back for more.....

 

I suppose the moral of the story is that people will buy anything, no matter how poor the quality, if it is perceived as “cheap”

 

I am one of those who is quite happy to travel with Ryanair. Yes, it's basic but it does what I need it to do. I think of it as being a bit like a bus journey. I don't buy any of the add-ons so it is still very good value.

I would prefer to travel by train when visiting Southern France. But the cost is about 6 times more than Ryanair on average.

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

More sunshine and it should stay fine with less wind and will be a bit warmer.

Sounds like I'm in the minority here as I don't like flying and being cooped up in a tin tube.  I've only done a few flights and not very far. The last one we did back from Majorca a large party had obviously eaten something that disagreed with them and there were queues for the toilets most of the flight. That certainly put me off.  Don't think I could stand long haul and don't intend to try.

Today we'll start with a walk (didn't get get a round tuit yesterday)

After that once again I will visit The Shed and do some more track testing playing.

Have a good one,

Bob.

 

[Shedman5]

Morning, The sun is shining and not a cloud in the sky which helps in these troublesome days. Just looked on line at our local newspaper and it says a lot when the main headline story is about the queues  that have formed because a KFC drive through has reopened!

 

As for flying according to my BA account I have flown around the world five times and thats just with them which was in the main for work purposes and thus business class though I have experienced first class on a couple of occasions due to upgrade.

Living in the north we now avoid LHR as much as we can and on venturing across the pond we go Manchester to Dublin then onwards which has the advantage of being able to clear US customs etc in Dublin thus able to just get off the plane as if its a domestic US flight on arrival.

Heading east its a flight to Frankfurt or Helsinki and the onwards to Singapore/Bangkok etc and it works out cheaper.

After my flying experinces if the flight is longer than four hours then I won't bother unless I fly business class which means I have to dig around to get a good deal, but they can be found.

Airports I tend to think they are much of the same though Atlanta I tend to avoid if at all possible. Flying from Manchester used to be a good experience but I think sadly now its gone down and its a grit my teeth experience when using!

 

Anyway doubt that I will be flying anywhere soon certainly not in what remains of 2020, a coffee is needed before I get out in the garden and tackle various jobs that I have been given.

 

Take care and enjoy your day

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AndrewC]

Moaning all from the boring borough. I'm dealing with a rather put out cat this morning as he has been locked in the office with a "special" litter tray to capture his urine. Still attempting with no luck so far. Meh. 

 

I used to really enjoy flying but the airports have taken every bit of enjoyment out of it and made it more of an event to be dreaded. I've had good and bad experiences like most people. Worst: Canada 3000 from LGW to YYC in 99. Pump failure meant only 1 working toilet for the whole 9 hour flight. It was late, cold, uncomfortable, and just a miserable experience. Worst airport YVR. It may have improved over the years but arriving at 05:00 and not even a coffee available while having to wait over 90 mins to get luggage. Despite us being the only bloody flight in the terminal at the time. Missed our connecting bus to the ferry. Worst inflight staff is a toss up between Thomas Cook and Air Canada. 

 

Nicest airports, YYC, Bahrain, and believe it or not Gatwick. I like Gatwick. Easy in and easy out. Especially the north terminal. Also it is 1/3 of the trip to LHR.

Best flight ever: Gulf Air to Bahrain. Had 5 seats and 3 rows to myself as we were flying during Ramadan. I think there were about 20 people on the flight. At the time they had a full kitchen and onboard chefs. They kept feeding and feeding and feeding. The monitors would show the direction to Mecca every few minutes. 

Delta = Divert Everybody's Luggage To Atlanta. 

Most missed airline: Wardair. Pure class. 

 

In other news this furry b*stard was caught taking liberties in the night. 

 

That's about all from here. Coffee at the ready. Enjoy the day. 

[Kingzance]

Until I joined the Merchant Navy in ‘66, I had never flown anywhere (even if my younger sister and Mum had). My first flight was LHR to JFK and I was surprised how much the wings flapped! Since then, I have clocked up a lot of air miles with numerous carriers to a wide variety of airports. I don’t like flying now. I find the service carp, the treatment you receive at airports is disgraceful, the outright robbery for anything a disgrace and don’t get me started on “tax free” shops! As for being stuck in an aluminium tube, far closer to your “fellow” passengers than was the case half a century ago, who needs it? As a sometimes business flier when on long haul we could upgrade and that made the business bearable. Having experienc3d that only deters me from wishing to fly these days in non-elevated class seats.

 

Although still aching, I will bury myself under the Flats of KZ and conclude the wiring matters today. I will walk again whilst distancing from anyone else. More seeds of herbs will be planted to create later crops. Pork chops need to be removed from the freezer for this evening’s main meal and a low-carb brunch will shortly be prepared. We will be socially interacting via Zoom with a number of friends on a weekly call-up so alcohol will be consumed. We have finally agreed to online shopping order from the Rose of Waits, due tomorrow. I made muggerteas for us ages ago and now feel the urge for a nice cupaJava. I wonder what the next piece of hypocrisy to be exposed by journalists who, heaven forbid, are absolutely never hypocrites themselves will be? That said, the arrogance that some attached to the Whitehall Bubble continue to display to “the plebs” is beyond belief, and is not restricted to one political party either!

 

Now I have depressed myself and you, I shall away to brew a decent Italian blend of coffee and start grilling some quality back bacon before cooking a pre-chicken or two in the rendered bacon fat. Be careful out there, it’s hopefully going to be warm and Swallows might get Betty if you are too exuberant.

[81C]

Morning All 

Sunny

Work to do Pah .

Laters Mr. P!sstoff 

[New Haven Neil]

Morning, a chilly start here has improved to 16c, but shopping intervenes before any toys get to be played with.

 

Flying any distance for business for me is ancient history now, since I left the Merch many moons ago, but have flown to Kiwi three times for holidays with with NZAir - excellent, but last time was 18 years ago.  Flying recently has been for medical reasons (fancy hip surgery done at Wrightington) only to Liverpool, longer sitting around than in the air.  Flybe Q400's, not a great aircraft as passengers were often asked to move to balance the CofG better - long and thin plane!  Flybe now gone also of course.

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

Another sunny start to the day, now breakfast has been consumed I will continue working on the arbor construction, hopefully I’ll get the 2 sides and the 2 roof panels finished today, maybe even have done a test assembly of the arbor. 

 

Stay safe, stay sane, back later