Early Risers.

[Barry O]

1 hour ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

To be fair, it was a mite chilly up there, the -7c at the Gornergrat seemed cold, but the -21c at the Kleine Matterhorn was positively Baltic. Or Swiss, even. But it made for a great day, even riding iD's personal railway to his Redoubt.  It was....snowy.

 

 

 

I bet you had to put a ganzy on over the top of your T shirt them....

 

Baz

[Barry O]

Hair has been ...cut.

 

Barbees shop now only takes cash so had to 2alk and get some cash out of a bank. Tried hard not to get my pas number incorrect.

 

We used Amex to organise our travel at Vickees. They were very good and could get good flights and hotels way putside of what we should have been paying for them. Our CEO ended up flying Concorde to New York (Air France from Paris) cheaper than a BA Club class ticket and overnights accomodation costs. Unfortunately I missed out on that one.

 

Amex has its moments but is good if you need to bail out of a country fast. I missed a flight..next flight..no seats available.. flashed the card and my BA member card...bingo!!

 

I now need a lie down as this lack of hair is giving me a head ache...

 

Baz

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

In the blue corner we have.....Colin The Caterpillar   (Twenty quid to you, sir)

....and in the red corner we have....Cuthbert The Caterpillar (£4-99 to you, sir)

 

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/ms-starts-legal-action-against-20391280

 

Ding Ding, Round One....

Meanwhile in Poland it is Residents versus The Alien Croissant

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56757956

[BSW01]

The cupboard and shelving in the cellar is now sheeted up, everything else has been shoved into corners and also sheeted up. Jeez the room looks big when the floor is cleared. Whoo hoo. 

 

 

I'll start pulling the ceiling down on Monday. 

[TheQ]

This is in relation to the stabbings in Norwich this Morning..

the copied and pasted headlines from the EDP24 website..

Murder victim is named as accused under armed guard in hospital

 

Err ?

Edited April 15, 2021 by TheQ

[Erichill16]

56 minutes ago, Barry O said:

 

 

I now need a lie down as this lack of hair is giving me a head ache...

 

Baz

Or is it just light headedness?

[Tony_S]

8 minutes ago, Erichill16 said:

Or is it just light headedness?

I finally got round to applying the clippers yesterday and I did feel lightheaded afterwards. Before Covid, Aditi would have been saying things like “are you going to the hairdresser today?” but had kindly avoided dropping hints now I do my own when it gets too long. I did offer to cut her hair but she has declined saying she thinks she is going to go back to a long hairstyle, like she had in the 1970s. 
Tony

[polybear]

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

Hair has been ...cut.

 

Barbees shop now only takes cash so had to 2alk and get some cash out of a bank.

 

 

The Barber is looking to:

(a) Avoid the CC charges (fair enough), or

(b) Pull a fast one on the tax man.

However,  If he thinks the taxman is gonna believe a "trade has been slow" story from a Barber then I think he's gonna be in for a shock.....

 

1 hour ago, BSW01 said:

I'll start pulling the ceiling down on Monday. 

 

This is where you discover just how much sh1t all the builders and tradesmen have left under the floorboards over the years....

[BSW01]

31 minutes ago, polybear said:

This is where you discover just how much sh1t all the builders and tradesmen have left under the floorboards over the years....

Don’t I know it, a couple of years ago when I did the office area of the cellar, I came across news papers from the mid 30’s, along with empty cigarette boxes etc. I’m guessing that was when the house received its electrical supply, as originally it was all gas! I also found the cabling system for the servings bells too! 

[New Haven Neil]

2 hours ago, Barry O said:

I bet you had to put a ganzy on over the top of your T shirt them....

 

Baz

 

Nah, just long trousers.  No need for the Big Coat.  

[simontaylor484]

When i cut holes in the ceiling for downlighters in our first house i got covered in soot.

 

Colin the caterpillar cake my youngest had one this birthday as a treat seen as he has missed so much this year. I think Aldi do sail close to the wind on some of their "look alikey" products and am suprised it hasnt happened before.

 

Mindst you Palma Nova was home to some dodgy shops like ASBA

[Ian Abel]

BIN day, trucks in full swing since o' crack sparrow...

 

Another quiet one yesterday, ditto for today.
Attempted a walk with Whitney while the Mrs was on a Zoom book club meeting, caught in rain shower so cut short, I'd not anticipated rain and wasn't dressed for it

 

Hotels run the gamut from horrid to excellent, having spent most of my last 20+ years working for companies that required me to travel to many parts of the US. Hard to nail down best or worst, there've been so many <sigh>. May never do that again!

 

On the "stupid corporate decisions" front, my entry is as follows;

Worked for company based in Sillycone Valley for 5 years, living in Minnesota. Requirement was to spend one week a month at HQ.

After 2 years we got a new CIO, who I reported to.

 

His FIRST determination was that I should find a cheaper flight than the Northwest DIRECT flight. He "recommended" Frontier via DEN at a saving of about $150 per trip.

After the first TWO trips, he quickly changed his mind once he had it pointed out to him (by HR!) that the requirement for California employment laws was that workers paid "at will", meaning I was theoretically salaried but FACTUALLY paid an hourly rate, they were required to PAY me for travel time!

 

So instead of the usual about 3-4+ hours each way each month, they were now paying me often almost 8 hours each way, Frontier having a nasty habit of being less on-time than Northwest were, and that was compounded by having to go via DEN with a change of planes!

Was costing them several times the saving in airfare

 

2 and cloudy at BIN time, 9 the expected high.

 

Bon chance...

 

[simontaylor484]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-56754868

 

 

Only in Australia perhaps 

[TheQ]

24 minutes ago, Ian Abel said:

BIN day, trucks in full swing since o' crack sparrow...

 

Another quiet one yesterday, ditto for today.
Attempted a walk with Whitney while the Mrs was on a Zoom book club meeting, caught in rain shower so cut short, I'd not anticipated rain and wasn't dressed for it

 

Hotels run the gamut from horrid to excellent, having spent most of my last 20+ years working for companies that required me to travel to many parts of the US. Hard to nail down best or worst, there've been so many <sigh>. May never do that again!

 

On the "stupid corporate decisions" front, my entry is as follows;

Worked for company based in Sillycone Valley for 5 years, living in Minnesota. Requirement was to spend one week a month at HQ.

After 2 years we got a new CIO, who I reported to.

 

His FIRST determination was that I should find a cheaper flight than the Northwest DIRECT flight. He "recommended" Frontier via DEN at a saving of about $150 per trip.

After the first TWO trips, he quickly changed his mind once he had it pointed out to him (by HR!) that the requirement for California employment laws was that workers paid "at will", meaning I was theoretically salaried but FACTUALLY paid an hourly rate, they were required to PAY me for travel time!

 

So instead of the usual about 3-4+ hours each way each month, they were now paying me often almost 8 hours each way, Frontier having a nasty habit of being less on-time than Northwest were, and that was compounded by having to go via DEN with a change of planes!

Was costing them several times the saving in airfare

 

2 and cloudy at BIN time, 9 the expected high.

 

Bon chance...

 

When I worked for GEC they changed from petrol Sierra's to non turbo diesel estates to save money on fuel bills, so we earnt a lot extra on over time driving back, they were that slow..

They didn't like the overtime, so they said we had to stay overnight, and travel in work hours..

So they got extra hotel bills , which they didn't like either.. Especially when I stayed a whole weekend in Scotland, which happened to be near my parents..

 

Edited April 15, 2021 by TheQ

[Barry O]

I had a new boss once (Sales Director)  who said.."don't take any holiday when travelling for the Company".. I never did I wanted to get home asap.. he always did but then ... he appeared on a BBC News bulleting in a film about the MoD.. he was in Brazil at the time......

 

Baz

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. I too had my hair cut today, by a very attractive young lady named Olivia. Unlike Baz's barber they don't take cash, only cashless payments but you can add a gratuity to the amount on the bill. Very convenient the barbers being in Tess Coes as you can do a bit of shopping before and after your appointment.

48 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

Mindst you Palma Nova was home to some dodgy shops like ASBA

I read that at first as ASBO.

30 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-56754868

 

 

Only in Australia perhaps 

I bet the ordinary sailors didn't complain.

[iL Dottore]

Business travel, what a can of worms that can be!

 

As I have mentioned before, I have been very, very lucky as in every company I worked for they had a fairly sensible approach to expenses and travel costs. As mentioned before, we did serious travelling (for example in the first year BA introduced the frequent flyer card, I went from blue card to gold card in six months!) so to retain highly qualified people in a very competitive industry, terms and conditions had to be good.
 

One thing: at one point, I had a bit of a dingdong with the in-house travel agency. Trying to be clever, the agent asked “well if you were doing this trip privately what would you do?“ I replied, and in total honesty, “I would fly first class and stay in this particular four-star hotel“ which quite took the agent aback (of course, I neglected to mention that a lot of my private business and first class travel was done using my air miles and my frequent stay card gave me great offers at that particular four-star hotel chain). I think the travel agent was expecting me to mumble something along the lines “I would fly cheapo airlines in economy and stay in a travel lodge”

Now, you may have come to the conclusion that Captain Cynical only “does” four star and above and whilst the good Captain does enjoy his luxuries, his criteria for a good hotel room are the following:

1. It must be spotless. Bed linen and bathroom should be almost surgically clean.
2. It must be very quiet with good insulation (so no sound of the next room’s choice of bad popular music or TV filtering through the walls, or worse, the sound of a couple playing “hide the locomotive in the tunnel”)
3. The mattress must be a good quality mattress, not too hard, not too soft.
4. The heating/cooling system should be effective and under my control-so that I can set the temperature to what I want at the time I want it

A good location is a bonus, as is good shopping and good restaurants within reasonable walking distance.

Lately, when I am in London I have been staying in the CitizenM hotels. Nicely located, they are aimed at a much younger customer base than I, but I still feel welcomed and the rooms are small but spotless, functional and comfortable.  And one of the nicest “budget“ hotels I’ve stayed in was a “Courtyard by Marriott“ somewhere in North Carolina. It met my four criteria above and was one of the best budget hotels I have ever stayed in. 
 

Unfortunately, the UK can’t quite manage good quality budget hotels. A couple of times I’ve taken a UK budget hotel for one night before embarking the next day on a canal boat holiday. And always they have been very disappointing (and once or twice, utterly appalling). None of the UK budget hotel chains really come up to scratch. The Ibis at Birmingham Airport was acceptable (booked one year when I couldn’t get into the Novotel next door for the yearly Warley show), but both Ibis and Novotel belong to the French Accor hotel chain.
 

One of the best long weekends stays I’ve ever had was in a UK property: Mrs iD and stayed in a Boutique B&B in York (we went when the NRM was celebrating the 150th anniversary of the railways). But I expect that the budget accommodation aficionados on ER would blanche were they be told the price per night of this boutique B&B, although Mrs ID and I thought it was great value for money.
 

UPDATE
Several hours after the Moderna vaccine I must say that I am feeling pretty okay, I did have a thumping headache for a bit (but no medication was needed) and I did have an absolutely horrendous and uncontrollable attack of the munchies - bad enough for me to consume a chocolate, ham and mayonnaise bap. Perhaps I should write an unsolicited Adverse Event report about this for Swissmedic (the Swiss regulatory agency). Maybe if I write it up and publish it in the Lancet, BMJ or New England Journal of Medicine, I could get this condition named after me (iDphagia – has a nice ring to it). Now I am just tired...

 

And on that medical note, I bid you all a good evening!

[45156]

Evening All

 

Well the new freezer freezes - so a bargain at £75.

 

Generic greetings to all ERs.

 

Lily back at Vet's they're taking no chances now.

 

Regards to All

Stewart

[Tony_S]

14 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

iDphagia

I would, I presume mistakenly, have taken that to mean the chocolate, ham and mayonnaise bap had eaten iD!

[Andrew P]

Talking of Air Kuts.

 

I did the front of mine with the Hair Mower on Tuesday, and the Good Lady did the back.

When I say did the back, takes that as TRIED.

I now have a CHUNK out of one side behind the right ear.

She has the shakes, and also finds the clipper difficult to hold.

 

Edited April 15, 2021 by Andrew P

[The Stationmaster]

Afternoon all,

 

i

An interesting titbit about NHS differences (yet again unfortunately) for Dave and his hospitalised dad (who i hope  is fighting well against the mental anguish).  On the GD's ward - also orthopaedic but elective rather than emergency - visitors have been allowed since last week subject to various sensible sounding restrictions, viz -

1. The visitor must be in a support bubble with the patient they are visiting, 2. Only one visiting person per day is allowed per patient, and 3. The total duration of visiting in any one day must not exceed 1 hour.   The age profile of the patients would seem to have possible similarities as there are usually several nonagenarians on the GD's ward at any one time.  Maybe Dave might like to bring the example of the Nuffield Hospital in the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to the attention of the laggards he is having to deal with in respect of his father's ward and draconian visiting restrictions.  

 

Otherwise a fairly ordinary day here with a bit if sunshine and popping out to collect herself from waitrose after he visit there following her session with the chiropractor.  It seems that range rover disease is also as rampant here as i Norfolk because thrree times today when I had ve drievn a tital of less than 5 miles I have been approached by range rovers travelling in the opposite direction with varying extents of their width on my side of the road.  presumably white line centre markings on roads are invisible if you are drivinga Range Rover or is that only t applicable to the t*ssers round here?

 

Back to expenses.  pictured below is the breakfast I enjoyed (considerably) on my first Sunday morning in Sydney back in 2004.  Now Mr 'Monkeys Are Fun' will perhaps say it served mr  right for going to a caff near the beach in Mosman (a somewhat up market part of the city) but my work colleague sitting i opposite drily informed me that the breakfast I was consuming was only about $AUS 5 less than the one day's living expenses being paid at that time.  Hence my very early (and successful)  representations for an immediate improvement in the expense rate to provide  a sufficiency to avoid starvation while still being able to paying for travel to the office (as i was accommodated where the company had decided to accommodate me).

 

enjoy the rest of your day one and all and do your best to stay safe (even though that now appears to be extremely unfashionable).

 

PS I was interested in Flavio's comment about a hotel in York.  The city has some excellent hotels some of which you might think could be 'boutique' but you try them and find they are more like Primark than a boutique, but on the other hand you can find what at first sight might look like a Dickensian dive but turns out to be excellent at a reasonable price.  However a problem I have found over the years with York's hotels is that some tend to live on their laurels hence one you repeatedly used because it was 'good' suddenly turns out to be way below 'satisfactory' let alone 'good'.  My most recent favourite is 'The Judges Lodging' but beware the stairs if your knees are a bit flaky.

 

Edited April 15, 2021 by The Stationmaster

[polybear]

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

When I worked for GEC they changed from petrol Sierra's to non turbo diesel estates to save money on fuel bills, so we earnt a lot extra on over time driving back, they were that slow..

They didn't like the overtime, so they said we had to stay overnight, and travel in work hours..

So they got extra hotel bills , which they didn't like either.. Especially when I stayed a whole weekend in Scotland, which happened to be near my parents..

 

 

Bear recalls a story told to me many moons ago by someone working at GEC Macaroni Radar; there was a new management type (Project Manager?) out to make a name for himself.  First bright scheme (for a trial somewhere nice n' warm) was to have the boys staying in tents on the beach instead of nearby Hotels.  He got as far as buying the tents apparently, and was mighty p1ssed when the boys told him where to get off.

Second stunt was when he blew his stack after seeing a team go to lunch early - cos' they were needed back early for a trial start time.  He told them in no uncertain terms that lunch was 12 till 1, no exceptions.   A few days later, when a trial was running late to start, just as things started to get interesting the boys switched the kit off.  He blew his stack.  One of the boys pointed out it was now 12 and they were off to lunch.....

His final undoing was when he blew his stack at one of the team on a pre-trial workup day for doing something that was perfectly reasonable.  He ripped the guy to bits in front of the others, and then told him in no uncertain terms that if he didn't tell him to do something then he wasn't to do it.  Big Mistake....

Come the day of the trial (a big one, by all accounts - involving big money assets) the Manager checked that every member of the team was ready to start - they all were.  Trials starts, and went well.  Come the post-trial debrief the manager was checking that everyone had done their bit - all went well until he got to the guy he'd ripped into the day before.....

"Did you get all the data recorded?" he asked

"No" came the reply.

"NO??  What do you mean, NO??"  "Why the F. not??"

"Well, you asked me if I was ready to start, and I said yes.  And the trial started  and I'm sitting there thinking I should be recording all the data, but you told me not to do anything until you told me to do so - and you hadn't...."

 

"That's right, you never told him to start recording" came the chorus from the rest of the team (and they had the voice tapes to prove it.....).

The manager was pulled off the job the next day, strangely......

 

23 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

.....a chocolate, ham and mayonnaise bap.......

 

Chocolate, Ham AND Mayo??  That's WEIRD, even by Bear standards.....

[JohnDMJ]

Good Evening!

 

Fourth day of "normal working" as opposed to double day shifts and wondering how I used to cope with all the things I accomplished during the afternoons during that period before it started!

 

7 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

Oh s0d - thought that was today.

 

 

45 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Now, you may have come to the conclusion that Captain Cynical only “does” four star and above and whilst the good Captain does enjoy his luxuries, his criteria for a good hotel room are the following:

1. It must be spotless. Bed linen and bathroom should be almost surgically clean.
2. It must be very quiet with good insulation (so no sound of the next room’s choice of bad popular music or TV filtering through the walls, or worse, the sound of a couple playing “hide the locomotive in the tunnel”)
3. The mattress must be a good quality mattress, not too hard, not too soft.
4. The heating/cooling system should be effective and under my control-so that I can set the temperature to what I want at the time I want it

A good location is a bonus, as is good shopping and good restaurants within reasonable walking distance.

 

Couldn't agree more!

 

48 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

UPDATE

Several hours after the Moderna vaccine I must say that I am feeling pretty okay, I did have a thumping headache for a bit (but no medication was needed) and I did have an absolutely horrendous and uncontrollable attack of the munchies - bad enough for me to consume a chocolate, ham and mayonnaise bap. Perhaps I should write an unsolicited Adverse Event report about this for Swissmedic (the Swiss regulatory agency). Maybe if I write it up and publish it in the Lancet, BMJ or New England Journal of Medicine, I could get this condition named after me (iDphagia – has a nice ring to it). Now I am just tired...

 

And on that medical note, I bid you all a good evening!

 

Judging by that combination, I hope you're not pregnant! That would be news in The Lancet! "(Phantom?) pregnancy caused by Moderna vaccine"

[simontaylor484]

Back in the 2nd transport company i worked for in around the time of the financial crash they were hit pretty hard work across all sectors seemed to dry up at once. The drivers were instructed to fill up in the yard if possible. One of the drivers rang for advice he was in Scunthorpe and needed Adblue which at the time was only about 50-60p a litre. The fitters put him through to the boss who instructed him to come back to our Sheffield depot for adbluewhich was out of his way burning off loads of diesel at £1.20 a litre.

It was the bosses name on the side of the truck so the driver didnt argue.

[Tony_S]

19 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Back to expenses

Most of my brother’s working abroad as a telecommunication engineer for GEC seemed to involve a lot of time sorting out expenses. Not long after he arrived in Nigeria as a junior commissioning engineer all the other staff were taken ill, not all with the same thing. At one point at age 21 he was senior engineer (acting) for the project. The senior manager’s wife used to help normally by finding the prices of items in the local “shopping basket” to determine the rate of expenses. However she wasn’t able to help so my brother wandered about getting the items. One was Heinz baked beans. This was unavailable. Unavailable wasn’t acceptable to head office back in Coventry so he had to find some. They were probably on an illegal import list so the cost was really high but the shopping list was complete. When he was working in Thailand, the expenses team back home send him a cable ordering him to stop exchanging money at the hotel the company had booked him in and to use a bank in Bangkok. He had to point out that this would require a day away from the project, he had no transport as he was collected daily by soldiers and taken to the work site, and he wasn’t the person who had put him up in a hotel miles from anywhere full of German tour groups. 
Tony