Early Risers.

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[andyram]

Evening all. I have only had chance to skim read through the posts. My generic good wishes to you all. Today was a case of from the sublime to the ridiculous in the shop. After a very busy Sunday to end a very busy Christmas week, today was extremely quiet. I don’t usually open on a Monday, but felt that today would be different because it forms part of the holiday weekend. I certainly got that wrong! 
 At least the quietness allowed me to crack on with the online marking. This year the level of work has been heavier than I have ever known it. More and more people have taken online courses and we seem to have less staff. On top of which the powers that be have insisted we all should complete 12 online courses between the 18th November and the 30th December. All contain multiple modules with a test at the end which must be passed. I still have three to do. I would not mind if they are useful but please tell me what manual handling, bribery and corruption, British values and slavery have to with an online assessors role?

 

Stay safe everyone.

 

Andy

[The Stationmaster]

8 hours ago, Sidecar Racer said:

 

 Okay , I know I'm not a regular , but you can go off people .    

OOh heck - terribly sorry Mike.  I plead advancing years and an inability to remember things in stereo.

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[Gwiwer]

Well good morning all. Here’s irony. 
 

I have slept and dozed so much these past ten days or so that I am now wide awake at stupid o’clock   

 

Not to worry. There’s plenty of tea (Yorkshire, for those interested) and toast available and I have the internet all to myself

[chrisf]

Greetings one and all

 

Yesterday I spent a little time,  and not much money, in my local Tesco.  I had hoped to bring home a copy of the Radio Times effective 2nd January but there were so many copies of the double issue piled up and available that it wil be a couple of days yet before there is anywhere to put the new one.  In normal times, whatever they may be, I ask a friend to buy one on my behalf and push it through my letter box.  He has been lucky enough to have somewhere to go over the festive season, being blessed with one brother and family near Bridgwater and another at Bishops Stortford.  He has managed to spend time with both.  I have no close family and a worrying tendency to be envious.

 

The number of empty bottles that I took to the bottle bank yesterday may have suggested otherwise but I have found it very difficult to feel festive over the season designated for that purpose.  It helps, I suppose, if  one has someone with whom to be festive.  The street where I live is quiet at the best of times but it is not unusual to see no-one when I open the front door and take the few steps to the pavement.  Anyone trying to write a soap opera set in my street would really have their work cut out and the result would not make much impression on the ratings.  Back in the real world, I was inspired to do something with the left-over bacon joint.  I cut it into cubes and introduced the pieces to a jar of tikka masala sauce.  With a carrot peeled, sliced and boiled the result should last me four days, which is not quite long enough to become fed up with it.  I hope.

 

Thank goodness 2020 is nearly at its end.  Best wishes to all

 

Chris  

[jamie92208]

Morning all, I can't hear the wind so maybe the remnants of Bella have departed. We are due some rain though.  The builder came yesterday and is due back today. Hopefully he will finish today. Beth has had her diabetes  medication changed by the consultant and her bllod sugar readings have gonechaywire and headed skywards. Her GP cannot do much due to the system. As a result the building work is getting on her nerves so I hope that it does get finished.

 

Shopping this morning then a meal at some friends tonight before curfew. Not a lot else to report.

 

Jamie

[polybear]

6 hours ago, andyram said:

All contain multiple modules with a test at the end which must be passed. I still have three to do. I would not mind if they are useful but please tell me what manual handling, bribery and corruption, British values and slavery have to with an online assessors role?

 

 

 

Bear will have a stab at that one:

Manual Handling:  Carrying and lifting all those heavy exam papers.

Bribery and Corruption:  Taking back-handers for passing someone  (chance would be a fine thing )

British Values:  Does such a thing even exist anymore?

Slavery:  Ordering the OH to do the work for you whilst you watch the footie.  Good luck.....

[Barry O]

Ey up! White sttuff falling from sky and piling up on the ground here this morning...and I have to go to the post Office.. PAH!

 

Good to catch up with some friends via Zoom last night..including two Leeds MRS CIO early risers in Oz. This will be repeated

 

After my trip to the Post Office I have one or two domestucs to do then..some "free" time. Now, what should I do???

 

Not sure her indoors would go for a gammon tikka masala. @chrisf  but it does sound good...

 

stay safe, positive thoughts to all ERs.

 

baz

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

No frost, ice or snow available here at the moment but I have another yellow warning on my weather app for snow and ice effective from 10.00am today until 6.00am tomorrow.  I suppose if they give enough warnings eventually one will be right.

Financial juggling dealt with successfully yesterday.  I'd received two cheques in the past couple of weeks and I must admit I rather like being able to pay them in with my phone and not have to bother going to the bank especially as they've closed the branch I used to go to so I now have to pay to park.

We didn't get out for a walk yesterday as The Boss was too busy doing domestic stuff so provided the weather stays dry we will go for one this morning.  I suspect it won't be more than  a short one for about half an hour as The Hip and The Knee are both playing up a bit.

Have a good one,

Bob.

 

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. The sore foot woke me up in the early hours so I've come down for some Nurofen. GDB, make sure your bank is open when you get there. I went to my bank just after the lock down started only to find that due to the crisis they were shutting two hours earlier. 

[grandadbob]

Phil, I'm not visiting the  bank. All done online now.  The only times I need to visit are to pay in cash (extremely rare) or to obtain cash if I want a lot more than the £50 cashback available at the supermarket. Also rare especially as there are no railway shows to attend.  I don't use cash machines as the two local to me have been fiddled with on multiple occasions and another one swallowed my card once for no reason whatsoever.

Edited December 29, 2020 by grandadbob

[leopardml2341]

Morning all!

 

No snow in S Derbyshire, well not this bit. I'm a bit ambivalent about it tbh, it looks pretty but it makes travel difficult because of the c@ckwombles who don't know what driving technique s to employ; a 4x4 simply becomes a bigger & heavier sledge. Providing no one's hurt, there is a certain perverse  smugness when driving past a bright shiny one in a ditch in the snow  as long as it isn't pride before a fall

 

On that note, breakfast.

 

Enjoy your day, whatever you're (planning to be) doing.

Edited December 29, 2020 by leopardml2341
Effin predictive text!

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl, Inner Temple hare,

7.75hours solid sleep yippeeeeee.

This was helped by a loooooong hot soak in the bath to easy my back and two pink pills with the required drugs.

 

Slept in so long Ben the alarm Clock Collie came upstairs, most concerned as to why I hadn't appeared.

 

I use my nearest bank as much as possible, if you don't use it you lose it. Already one of our bank accounts required a 50 mile round trip to sort something out they wouldn't do on line or on the phone and they'd closed the two nearest branches.

 

In my previous job as a Tesco maintenance man one thing I was supposed to do each morning was to go look at the cash machines and check they hadn't been played with. Adding a scanner to the front is obvious if you know the machine.

 

No frost this morning, but still fairly chilly, Ben's been out but not for long as something spooked him, he's hiding in his cage at the moment.

 

Dull overcast and damp out there at the moment.

 

Plans for today, shelving assembly, sanding keel..

 

Time to..get muggacoffee no2

 

 

 

Edited December 29, 2020 by TheQ

[leopardml2341]

2 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Mooring Awl, Inner Temple hare,

 

2 minutes ago, TheQ said:

I use my nearest bank as much as possible, if you don't use it you lose it. Already one of our bank accounts required a 50 mile round trip to sort something out they wouldn't do on line or on the phone and they'd closed the two nearest branches.

Morning!

 

I do hope they paid your travel expenses..........

 

I suspect I already know the answer to that

[grandadbob]

Deleted

Edited December 29, 2020 by grandadbob

[PhilJ W]

34 minutes ago, grandadbob said:

Phil, I'm not visiting the  bank. All done online now.  The only times I need to visit are to pay in cash (extremely rare) or to obtain cash if I want a lot more than the £50 cashback available at the supermarket. Also rare especially as there are no railway shows to attend.  I don't use cash machines as the two local to me have been fiddled with on multiple occasions and another one swallowed my card once for no reason whatsoever.

I too try to avoid cash machines, if I want more than £50 I use the post office. Our local sub-office has a cash machine outside, one of those that charges a fee and people still use it despite there being the free service available. Now for a bit more eyelid inspection before running a bath.

[AndyB]

From memory...

Anti bribery and corruption training is what you receive when Senior Managers have been caught bribing people. The logic being that if a Senior Manager's moral compass is off, then surely everyone's must be. Questioning this logic would imply all sorts of things...such as Junior employees and Middle Managers might be being led by donkeys which clearly can't be true. Can it?

 

Anti slavery training is to ensure that you don't end up buying goods that will help you meet your project's budget after bribes have been paid out to win the job. You'll need to put plenty of long hours into implementing this policy - so expect to be pulling 18 hour days around 9 days each week. You won't have time to go home and change clothes, so a good anti-slavery policy will have helpful tips, such as buying disposable clothing; fortunately this is very cheap - but we don't know why. 

 

Manual handling is to get you ready to become a Senior Manager. It'll teach you all the skills needed to become a true onanist.

Edited December 29, 2020 by AndyB

[leopardml2341]

If anyone was in any doubt about karma........

 

 

Best make sure I drive carefully

Edited December 29, 2020 by leopardml2341

[Andrew P]

Snowing in Cowplain, I'll send it up country, we don't want it.

Edited December 29, 2020 by Andrew P

[iL Dottore]

11 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

....it was a bit tragic in places, mother nature can be a hard mistress. ...

Quite so! In fact, by human standards, nature is not only unforgivingly cruel but also endlessly, inventively, “evil”:  You have parasitic wasps (the inspiration for the Xenomorph in ALIEN) which inject their eggs into a living caterpillar which is then eaten from the inside out whilst the caterpillar is still alive;  There is a fungus which infects ants and eats away at the ant’s little brain until the ant is controlled by the fungus, the ant goes back into the ant colony now under the control of the fungus and promptly infects the rest of the colony (the inspiration for the plague in the video game The Last of Us I & II)  And then you have Australia’s Box Jellyfish: an animal that preys on small fish and has in its tentacles a venom that is one of the most toxic in the world. Definitely a case of overkill!

10 hours ago, andyram said:

...but please tell me what manual handling, bribery and corruption, British values and slavery have to with an online assessors role?

Absolutely nothing, Andy. They are, however, the ideology du jour which absolutely, totally and inescapably must be addressed in the curriculum. TBH, I am really getting fed up with constant imposition of 21st century “values” on the past (which invariably is excoriatingly negative towards long established European thought, philosophy and credos). 

6 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

...There’s plenty of tea (Yorkshire, for those interested) ...

That’s a misnomer if there ever was one (or did I miss the famous Leeds’ Tea Plantations when I was there last?)

Good bit of marketing though (but why Yorkshire? Why not Lancashire tea or Essex tea?)

4 hours ago, chrisf said:

...I was inspired to do something with the left-over bacon joint.  I cut it into cubes and introduced the pieces to a jar of tikka masala sauce....

I would argue that Tikka Masala is too “soft” to manage gammon. I think that you would need a slightly acidic sauce to cut through the fattiness of the Gammon. The original Vindaloo (adopted in Southern India from the Portuguese) contains vinegar - which balances out the richness of the pork (incidentally, vindaloo doesn’t have to be mouth scorchingly hot. The original. authentic, recipe is relatively mild...).

Edited December 29, 2020 by iL Dottore

[laurenceb]

We dont want it ether!! Andy S has passed his our way!

( Aimed at AndyP! )

Edited December 29, 2020 by laurenceb
addendom

[leopardml2341]

9 minutes ago, Andrew P said:

Snowing in Cowplain, I'll send it up country, we don't want it.

Oi!

 

Just cos you've become a soft southerner.........

[Grizz]

No snow in East Sussex today, just more feckin rain. Part of Hamsey island has flooded and the flood plains are patchy with run off. 
 

Oh for three weeks of dry and very cold whether. Yep three weeks of -5 would suit me just fine. Instead it looks like the age of Ragnarok is upon us and Fenrir has eaten the sun......the git!