Early Risers.

[polybear]

17 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

Its now cashless paid via an App which I suppose does away with the getting bullied for your dinner money. Sadly you will get bullied for something else

 

They nick your mobile instead.  That's progress for you.

 

[simontaylor484]

Aah yes the BBC statue, the Police just seemed to be watching. An interesting situation that one it's not the sculpture or the subject that is the problem its the Sculptor Eric Gill that is. A thoroughly reprehensible being, not only by his own admission sexually abuse his own Daughters but the family dog too.

 

It must be a thorny subject for the BBC too with what has come to light regarding some of the "entertainers" they employed and who knew what was actually happening.

I assume Broadcasting House is a listed building so removal is not possible .

It seems almost Puritanical to me to attack works of art just because you don't like the subject or artist.

 

 

.

[PhilJ W]

Thanks everyone for the condolences. I'm not looking forward to the funeral but I will probably have to go to support my brother. She was my brothers second wife, he divorced his first wife, the mother of his kids to marry her so its unlikely that my niece will attend and my nephew will almost certainly not attend. My sister might attend but she lives some distance away and it depends on what she's doing on the day. 

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

If I was truly as ruthless, merciless and wealthy as my alter-ego, I would put a £500,000 bounty on the head of every puppy farmer and animal abuser I could find - payment upon proof of termination with extreme prejudice (and with an up to a 25% bonus for creatively painful disposal).

 

Back in the real world: realistically, I’d settle for serious prison time and mammoth fines…

 

IIRC there was a mediaeval lord who used to throw his enemies into a pit  of ferocious dogs to be torn apart. Poetic justice?

1 hour ago, Gwiwer said:

Suspended from the 25kV overheads at ........ Barking?   

I was going to say thats to quick but Poly Bear beat me to it. However it reminded me of an incident not far from Barking back in the mid 80's. Fords used to import complete cars from Europe via Dagenham Dock and put them on car carriers for distribution by rail. The cars were usually top level models (Granada and Crapi). It didn't take long for the scrotes to realise that the train travelled slowly and at night through Barking and on to the North London Line. They used to board the train, break into the cars to steal the radios. One of the scrotes came in contact with the 25Kv overhead, flash, bang and dead. It came up for discussion in the MRC I was in at the time and someone asked "Was he black?" to which there was an answer from several others "He is now." The scrotes family claimed that he wasn't in the habit of stealing car radios but things went quiet when it was revealed that a radio, or what was left of it was welded to his chest.

15 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

I recall when I got my first Saturday job and got a pound for the wage, I could buy 4, 45 rpm single records, but a year later the prices rocketed and I could only get 3 for a pound. Sneaking into one of the pubs in the village with 2/6, it got you a pint of Bison brown ale, 5 Park Drive cigarettes and 6 pence change.1964 I think it was.

My first wage was £6 per week, and that was working in the City of London. Some of the lads from my class at school were getting half of that.

[The Lurker]

Condolences to Phil

[The Lurker]

1 hour ago, tigerburnie said:

I do remember that nice Mrs Thatcher taking our morning bottle of milk off us and kids chanting Thatcher the milk snatcher.

I recall when I got my first Saturday job and got a pound for the wage, I could buy 4, 45 rpm single records, but a year later the prices rocketed and I could only get 3 for a pound. Sneaking into one of the pubs in the village with 2/6, it got you a pint of Bison brown ale, 5 Park Drive cigarettes and 6 pence change.1964 I think it was.

Crikey, how old were you were sneaking into the pub? Mrs Thatcher took the milk away from primary school kids in around 1972. A previous Labour government had taken it away from secondary school kids.

 

I certainly remember school milk and I started primary school in September 72. It had gone by the time I returned to the same primary school after time in Singapore in 1975 - at least for juniors.

 

I can't remember how much school meals cost but I do remember we took the money in to school in an empty matchbox (maybe that was just me...) and I do remember various things - how children were regularly sick and it always smelled of banana custard (probably the free school milk they had had earlier that morning), being forced to eat it all before you go out to play, liver with worms, grinding the semolina in to the side of the dish to make it look eaten, dogs dollop (that brown custard) gypsy tart (makes you fart), overcooked cabbage. On the plus side, I liked spam fritters, and that coconut dusted jam covered sponge (shame I had to have custard with it). By the time I was 9 or so, I was taking packed lunch instead.

[iL Dottore]

Oh yes, the era of £sd and the days when "the pound in your pocket goes farther.." (my Great Aunt bought her London suburb bungalow and very large garden - now worth squillions - for £250 before WWII)

 

I've always maintained that in the UK salaries are far too low - especially when compared to Europe or in certain areas of employment in the States and Asia.

 

As we are talking historical numbers I can say that - at the beginning of my career when I was in the UK - in 1986 I was earning £12,000 p.a. (average wage then was about £9,000) - I then moved to Switzerland in 1988 and my salary tripled to about £36,000 (back when £1 bought SFr 2.50). A friend of mine who moved to Germany shortly before I moved to Switzerland doubled his income.

 

Certainly my cost of living went up -  but not so much that I was back to where I started (CoL basically doubled). It was undoubtedly a good move on my part.

 

When I first moved to Switzerland, I met quite a few "oldtimer" ex-pats who had moved from the UK to Switzerland in the 60s and 70s. They told me that as engineers, technicians, scientists, doctors and chemists not only were they much, much better paid than anything they could hope for in the UK, equally - if not more - importantly they were (and still are) respected, appreciated and recognized as skilled professionals. Not looked down upon by some "manager" or other.

 

I think it's the latter - the respect and recognition -  not just the salary and quality of life, that has also made Germany and Switzerland such desirable destinations for the working ex-pat.

[polybear]

4 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Just received a phone call, my SiL died this morning. Not entirely unexpected considering her health problems and age (nearly 80). I hope to get down to see my brother on Sunday, I'll sort that out when I call him later.

 

VSBT's to Phil and Family....

[TheQ]

just looked at an identical house, in the same road, as we bought our first house in... it was then 3X my wages +1 of SWMBO...

it's now 7X our combined income.... and our current house is somewhere about 15X our income..

[jamie92208]

58 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

 

I was going to say thats to quick but Poly Bear beat me to it. However it reminded me of an incident not far from Barking back in the mid 80's. Fords used to import complete cars from Europe via Dagenham Dock and put them on car carriers for distribution by rail. The cars were usually top level models (Granada and Crapi). It didn't take long for the scrotes to realise that the train travelled slowly and at night through Barking and on to the North London Line. They used to board the train, break into the cars to steal the radios. One of the scrotes came in contact with the 25Kv overhead, flash, bang and dead. It came up for discussion in the MRC I was in at the time and someone asked "Was he black?" to which there was an answer from several others "He is now." The scrotes family claimed that he wasn't in the habit of stealing car radios but things went quiet when it was revealed that a radio, or what was left of it was welded to his chest.

ISTR that one such thief was found when his remains were spotted hanging off the back of a car carrier at Peterborough. His family tried to protest his innocence but the stack of radios near his body was the giveaway. I just feel sorry for a) the railway people who had to clear up and b) the poor police officer who had to inform the family.

 

Jamie

[polybear]

1 hour ago, simontaylor484 said:

Aah yes the BBC statue, the Police just seemed to be watching. An interesting situation that one it's not the sculpture or the subject that is the problem its the Sculptor Eric Gill that is. A thoroughly reprehensible being, not only by his own admission sexually abuse his own Daughters but the family dog too.

 

 

I suspect the Police were just watching cos' they rightly weren't going to risk injury to themselves (B0llox to him....) by attempting an arrest at height; ISTR the Fire Brigade got him down - and then they arrested him.  Me?  He got up there - he can get himself down again.  Or squirt a fire hose at him and wash him down.

 

"....but the family dog too."  

Jeez, that is one seriously sick b'stard. 

I'd reserve my very very best, very very slow, VIP treatment for him......

 

35 minutes ago, The Lurker said:

.......and I do remember various things - how children were regularly sick and it always smelled of banana custard (probably the free school milk they had had earlier that morning), being forced to eat it all before you go out to play......

 

Er, you might want to re-word that sentence.  I hope.....

As for banana, we used to mix the milk  with various flavours of Nesquick powder (can you still get that?) - one of which was banana....

 

19 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

I then moved to Switzerland in 1988 and my salary tripled to about £36,000......

 

Bear (and I'm sure Puppers) are feeling exceedingly jealous at that little nugget, being "lowly" Engineers (at least the salaries suggested it) in a certain Company....

[PupCam]

1 hour ago, simontaylor484 said:

It seems almost Puritanical to me to attack works of art just because you don't like the subject or artist.

 

Absolutely!  To destroy inanimate objects (fine or otherwise) because of the actions and/or beliefs of the creator is IMHO stupidity in the extreme.       The fact that an apparently "one seriously sick b ...." created it (as Poly put it so succinctly) does not make it inherently poor, objectionable, evil or anything else.    It should be viewed simply on it's  own merits, particularly if, as in this case, it is a work of art.   Perhaps there's a far deeper philosophical discussion to be had on what's the point of any form of art at all?   I'm sure there are some misguided individuals that would happily ditch all forms of art for some ideal or other.   Me?  I'd rather have that statue than Tracey Emin's bed any day of the week irrespective of the antics of Mr Gill.    To destroy obliterate all of his work is a very slippery slope that runs almost parallel to that other very slippery slope of destroying statues of benefactors of large numbers of people because of the way the money was acquired in times when the moral compass pointed in a very different direction.      That isn't of course to attempt to excuse blatant wrong doing but things are never as clear cut as they may appear to particularly to a different dogma.

 

Perhaps all works of art created by individuals having mental difficulties at the time of their creation should or must be destroyed?   No of course not, that would be absurd!

 

Remember, those who frequent this forum who have a penchant for mobile steam kettles painted in glorious apple green and the railways on which they ran (including myself) will be right up the creek  if the Gill Sans font is obliterated from the record because of the antics of its creator!

 

11 minutes ago, polybear said:

As for banana, we used to mix the milk  with various flavours of Nesquick powder (can you still get that?) - one of which was banana....

 

 

I can confirm that Chocolate Nesquick is still available.  I don't know about the others.     Bring back Banana Crusha that's what I say!

 

11 minutes ago, polybear said:

Bear (and I'm sure Puppers) are feeling exceedingly jealous at that little nugget, being "lowly" Engineers (at least the salaries suggested it) in a certain Company....

 

"You tell kids of today the value of our starting wages and the joy of checking that the contents were correct  before opening through the little transparent window in the pay packet and they'll not believe you"  ..... spoken with the finest Yorkshire accent of course!

 

In other news:

 

1) Spent a bit of time turning up Collimating Cap for the telescope.    Simply a plastic cap that fits in the eyepiece mount that has a concentric pinhole in the centre.

 

2) Tried collimating the telescope - it was slightly out as delivered.     Now it's slightly different, not certain it's any better. Time will tell!

 

3) Tried to get a coin that was stuck under the flap of the coin box in the Mondog out.  The coin box is also the location of the cigarette lighter socket.  This has a plastic cap to prevent the ingress of foreign objects but the ca[ was obscuring the coin so had to be removed.    I'm sure you can guess the rest ....

 

4) Replaced the 15A cigarette lighter fuse in the Mondog.     This of course involves removing the glove box to get to the fuse box.   You then need to open the bonnet to open the other fuse box to remove the little "Fuse Removal Tweezers" so that you can, with a struggle and the tweezers, remove the blown fuse.

 

5) Looks like another fine evening may be on the cards.    I might have to venture into the garden again with the big black tubey thing with mirrors.     It suddenly dawned on me why I'm having so much trouble locating and seeing stars through the telescope.    I'll remove the Moon Filter next time!

 

Alan

 

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Had a talk with my brother this afternoon. SiL's death was not unexpected, more a case of when not if. Unfortunately it was at 09:30 this morning when my brother was in dialysis so he couldn't be at her bedside, not that it made a lot of difference as she was unconscious anyway. My brother is trying to contact her siblings, IIRC there was about four of them when they married about fifteen years ago but a couple have already gone. Time to get ready for a SEERS evening tonight, be back later. 

[zarniwhoop]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

"....but the family dog too."  

Jeez, that is one seriously sick b'stard. 

I'd reserve my very very best, very very slow, VIP treatment for him......

Rather late for that, although the treatment would have been appropriate. He died before almost everyone here was born.

[zarniwhoop]

Almost managed to get blood oranges at Waitrose - they'd got a ticket on the empty space on the shelf for 'blush' oranges. Bought some 'Ippolito' (the pricey over-large variant of Tarocco) but don't expect those will have any colour this early in the season.

 

Almost managed to replace my avatar - removed the image from my signature, removed the tiny jpeg, uploaded larger version, saved it, edited profile to reword the text about my interests, saved that, still a plain 'Z'.

 

Definitely a first-world problem, but I'll go back to sulking ;-)

[Gwiwer]

3 hours ago, tigerburnie said:

Sneaking into one of the pubs in the village with 2/6, it got you a pint of Bison brown ale, 5 Park Drive cigarettes and 6 pence change.1964 I think it was.

When I began (legally ) drinking in pubs there were usually four of us in the group.  £1 got you four pints and change.  Charrington's IPA was 23p / pint.  No-one drank cold fizzy yellow stuff no matter how forceful the marketing.  

 

Shortly after that it went up to 25p / pint in one hike which we thought was pretty steep and of course we no longer got change from £1.  Since then history has taken its course and it's now over £4 a pint* not four pints to the £   

 

I seldom experimented with the dreaded bonfire weed so never really knew what those things cost.  

 

* A very broad-brush average.  'spoons is much cheaper; many other pubs rather more.  If I drink around here it's normally £5.60 a pint or thereabouts.  London Pride or Doom Bar usually.  

[Compound2632]

11 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

When I began (legally ) drinking in pubs there were usually four of us in the group.  £1 got you four pints and change.  Charrington's IPA was 23p / pint.  No-one drank cold fizzy yellow stuff no matter how forceful the marketing.  

 

Shortly after that it went up to 25p / pint in one hike which we thought was pretty steep and of course we no longer got change from £1.  Since then history has taken its course and it's now over £4 a pint* not four pints to the £   

 

Since you're quoting prices in pee, I presume this was no earlier than 1971. Assuming it wasn't significantly later, a quick check with an inflation calculator shows that your £4 per pint now is not significantly above the overall rate of inflation. But the real question is how does that 92 p between four 18 year olds then compare with £16 between four 18 year olds now, in terms of their overall spending power? I'm inclined to suspect that it's chicken feed compared to then. In other words, viewed proportionately to total spending, beer is almost certainly cheaper than 40 years ago. 

Edited January 13, 2022 by Compound2632

[Erichill16]

Condolences to Phil and the family. 
Robert

[laurenceb]

Condolences Phil

[tigerburnie]

4 hours ago, The Lurker said:

Crikey, how old were you were sneaking into the pub? Mrs Thatcher took the milk away from primary school kids in around 1972. A previous Labour government had taken it away from secondary school kids.

 

I think it would be around 1964 when the milk went from grammar school, I was 15 when went to the Bakers Arms, got caught by four of the teachers, who made 6 of us buy them a pint..................................rats.

[simontaylor484]

4 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

ISTR that one such thief was found when his remains were spotted hanging off the back of a car carrier at Peterborough. His family tried to protest his innocence but the stack of radios near his body was the giveaway. I just feel sorry for a) the railway people who had to clear up and b) the poor police officer who had to inform the family.

 

Jamie

Going slightly off on a tangent (as usual) when my Brother was a wet behind the ears Bobby in Louth he had to go and deliver the Death message for a young lad who had been killed in an industrial accident, (he had his head crushed in some printing machinery cleaning it not turned off) The family refused to accept anything like that could have happened because he worked in a box factory.

( it may have been shock obviously but they didn't seem to equate it with a dangerous environment)

[tigerburnie]

My first wage for a 40 hour week as an apprentice in 1965 was £2. 18 shillings and it cost more than that to get to work on the bus as it needed two different ones, on my 16th birthday I got a Yamaha YDS2 250cc motor bike, a gallon of 2 stroke was 6/8d and that would get to work and back all week, so my spending increased even though wages didn't move much.

I still have a lot of pre decimal coins, I can remember farthings, I think I told you before that the local sweet shop had farthing chews, but you had to buy 2 of them around 1955 when the coins ceased to be legal tender.

[grandadbob]

I can remember my Dad telling me that when he had a pub in the 50s he had to increase the price of a pint of bitter from 11½d to one shilling.  His customers thought  this was bang out of order and was something akin to the end of the world! 

When I started driving in 1965 ISTR petrol was 5/- a gallon.

I left grammar school in '66 and I'm fairly sure we were still getting milk then.  Left on a Friday and had a "gap year weekend" so started work on the following Monday for the princely sum of £7 a week.  No four or five weeks paid holiday in those days.  In your first year you got a day for each month worked and once a full year was completed you could have 2 weeks holiday.

 

[simontaylor484]

When I started drinking Whitbread Trophy was £1.24 Boddingtons was £1.36 a pint, bottles of Stella were a similar price.

 

 

My rent when I lived in Abingdon over 20 years ago was more than I am paying on the Mortgage here 

[New Haven Neil]

GP working overtime - just had a text!  Potassium down but still over spec.  Rats. Do it all again in a fortnight.

[Coombe Barton]

... is a fridge involved? ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2022/01/13/different-increase-factors/