What Do You Think Today?

[Kizza]

I have been as busy as a blue arsed fly.
Dreadful some of the stuff around working conditions. The purpose of making a rule around lifting and peoples capacity is not as hard as it could be with a bit of effort from everyone involved in the chain. If you have to pick up a box over 20kgs, it should require two people, or a piece of machinery like a tail lift to help you move it. If it was packaged at that weight, cost should be considered to cover the handling as a rule. Cost it to be handled by two people or package it differently!
The people in the supply chain who do not pull their weight in terms of managing their safe part should be scrutinised by the others in the chain.
As for one off safety kicks, that is all about reducing insurance premiums only. Companies with longer term views are committed to safety as well as the well being of their employees.
Rant over.
I wish everyone a safe and merry festive season!

[Skyweir]

Cheers Kizza you too .. a warm and enjoyable Xmas break too.

Totally agree with you .. good business practice is to safeguard the health and wellbeing of employees. Its a cost efficiency .. reduces sick days, people just ducking work coz its so shit they cant face fronting up, reduces negligence suits, minimises employee turnover.

Only Jackass narrow sighted employers do it for insurance premium savings

[Sorus]

You both should walk out and get better fucking jobs .. trust me when I say you will find jobs .. people like you are not going to be satisfied twiddling your thumbs on welfare or whatever you have in your respective countries. Also you are both too smart not to have any savings at all to get you through to your next jobs.

The thought of being unemployed in one of the most expensive cities in the world is absolutely terrifying. I have some savings, but it's for emergencies. Having a sucky job is not an emergency. And I've thrown enough job applications into the abyss that there is no way I am willing to quit without something solid lined up. My mum keeps telling me that I should apply with Amazon because it's basically the same thing I'm doing with a company that has a better future - but she doesn't get that it would be a substantial pay cut. Plus it's all about the chain of command - if your boss and their boss are doinks (thanks, Ali), it's going to suck. If they are decent people who treat you like a person, it's bearable.

[Skyweir]

So its bearable Sorus?

I truly hope so ... and I spose must be good money to keep you hanging in there

[Sorus]

More along the lines of it could be worse.

[Skyweir]

Merry Xmas eve to one and all

[peter]

Merry Christmas Sky!

Family coming tomorrow for dinner, which I am cooking. A duck and blue cheese salad with plum and balsamic dressing, followed by fillet of beef in red wine and shallot sauce. Plum pudding and brandy cream for our and a cheese board to finish. Hope it's better than last year's which was a turkey in the wrong sense of the word!



Happy Christmas to one and all!

[Skyweir]

Aww that sounds awesome Pete ... wonder if I should swing by

Merry Xmas to everyone .. its been a fabulous day so far

[Avatar]

Does sound good. Was thinking of doing some lamb shanks myself, but it's so hot, not sure I feel like slaving over the stove.

--A

[peter]

Hey Sky...... Where were you!

I think it went ok; plates were all clean at the end and lots of satisfied noises coming from the natives. Think there might be a few sore heads today however.......

[Avatar]

Even hotter today...gonna wait on the roasting until later in the week when we're expecting rain. Luckily no relative issues, so free to do whatever we damn well please.

--A

[Skyweir]

Niiice Av

Weve had family and it was wonderful.. had my granbaby whos a little too young to really get into chrissy. But I loved every waking minute with her .. shes such an adorable baby girl and a competent walker now too.

Was a fabulous eve and day .. I did the traditional turk and trimmings .. and I made a pavlova with fresh fruit for dessert.. everything was perfect ... and not that hot here at 31C. Its heating up now with 38C tomorrow

Honestly Pete, I would have dropped by if I knew there was a place at the table but next time definitely

[Lazy Luke]

This innovation is an attempt by the company to find a new ways of funding.

Its rare finding a typo in Wikipedia, methinks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixcloud

[peter]

Can't get the link to work!

(Sigh...)

Oh cruel world to so frustrate me.......!

[peter]

Here's a story; I may have told it before but I think not - anyways it's worth the retelling I hope.

When I was 15 or so I went to Plymouth Guild Hall to see Mot the Hoople, who had just released their single All the Young Dudes and were riding high in the charts. They were supported by a band called Hackensack, but between the two were a few circusy style acts (since the show was billed as Mot the Hoople's Rock and Roll Circus) who in truth no-one was the slightest bit interested in. Amongst these acts was a rather lugubrious looking old vaudeville performer called Max Wall, whose signature stunt was to circle the stage doing silly walks in time to drum acompnyment. He had been famous in the past, and would have a brief revival in the eighties or nineties, but at that stage he was down on his uppers, unknown and we the audience gave him short shrift. To my shame, I have to admit I was among the rest of them cat calling and jeering for the sheer fun of it.

I gave the matter no more thought, and grew up and lived my life. Twenty five years later, one Saturday morning I was lying in the bath relaxing and listening to the radio as I was wont to do on my day off, when the show's presenter, Steve Wright, said that he was starting a new feature on his weekend show and he wanted to hear from anyone who had met a celebrity in an unexpected place. It had only happened to him once he said; he had walked into an empty pub in Plymouth one night many years before and going to the bar, he had turned to the single other patron in the whole place and had been surprised to find it was minor TV celebrity and ex vaudevillian Max Wall. Wall was staring into a glass of whiskey resting in his hand on the bar, and, thinking he looked in rather low spirits Wright had introduced himself and asked what Wall was doing in Plymouth. Wall explained he had been performing a small slot between two rock bands and was candid that the show had not been well received. Wright, feeling a bit sorry for the entertainer, commiserated with him and asked if he would like a top up. Wall shrugged his shoulders. "No, not at all," he said indifferently. "It goes with the territory. Some you win, some you loose. Tonight I died like a louse in a Russian's beard", and so saying, he straightened up, swallowed his drink and walked out of the bar.

[Skyweir]

And that chance meeting would never have happened if not for you and the rest of the crowd jeering him off the stage.

Now I truly doubt that could be seen as evidence of the fates and the furies .. but sometimes there IS a silver lining. Walls was a free top up, Wrights was the chance meeting, and yours was manyfold plus material for a good story, and ours today is in its reading

I have an ex mariner friend, who like you has many a fun story to share.

mmm.. Ive got a swath myself .. but most people dont want their stomachs churned or their ire igniting. But I might have some stories that would pass muster

Thanks Pete for sharing. One of the highlights of my day xox

[peter]

I think Wall was inured to the ups and downs of show business Sky; he'd seen them all by that stage of his career. Yes, I've got a million little tales like this one; such stories should be soft, you are right. The terrible ones, though they must also never be forgotten, are not the stuff to bring a smile to a reader's face, a small ray of sunshine into a grey day with, and must be placed accordingly. But I'd love to hear your lighter tales if ever you get the chance to share - I have a great love for the small stuff of life that shows the warmth of our existence rather than the moving and shaking.

[Skyweir]

Ill think on a palatable story

[peter]

There was an old sei-humerous saying "it doesn't matter who you vote for, the government always wins" (I first saw it scrawled on the wall of a public toilet in the seventies) - but in actual fact there is another way it can be phrased that is much more pertinent than the play on words we have here.

It doesn't matter who you vote for, the establishment always wins.

One of the major criticisms of the communist system was that, sure - elections are held every whip and flip, but all the candidates are communists! It doesn't matter who you vote for, a communist always wins and I'm beginning to wonder if in reality anything is really very different here. Is it not the case that irrespective of who we vote for, no matter which party takes up the reins of government and in what combination, above it all, safe and secure in their entrenched positions of power and influence, sits a tier of 'untouchables' to whom the flavour of the government of the day is of minor significance.
I used to joke that I had no interest in the monarchy other than as a tourist draw, and that "as long as the queen doesn't interfere with my life I won't interfere with her's!" Now I am no longer so sure about this. History shows us that nothing is ever really going to change; that our societies will ever be run for the benefit of the few rather than the many - and that such improvements in our lot as we are granted will be given as matters of expedience - occasional salves to keep us plodding along like donkeys on the treadmill ever reaching for the just out of reach carrot. And central to this system of 'trickle down' is surely the hierarchy that culminates in the aristocracy; the spider at the centre of the establishment web. Vested interest and power, entrenched in situ over decades and indeed centuries, riding out the storms in the bad times and reaping the fruits in the good; but never - never - relinquishing it's hold, never cutting an inch of slack that it does not draw back in at some later point. And is the keystone of this 'arch of power' not the very monarchy itself? Can government of the people, by the people, for the people ever be anything other than a pipe dream while this tier of vested interest, supported in situ by the monarchy, remains in place.

Why of a sudden at this late stage in the day, begin pondering these radical and revolutionary questions Peter (you may well ask). We'll the reason is (of course) Brexit. That we have all, remainers and leavers alike, been stiffed from start to finish in this ugly process is pretty well acknowledged. What's also apparent is that in all likelihood we are in for a rough ride. But be absolutely sure on one thing; the roughness of the ride will be born by those at the bottom of the pile: Those with least to spare will be the ones who pay the most. In the internecine battle of the establishment that was Brexit - a battle that in all likelihood stretches right back to the original fight to get us into Europe in the first place - the ones with vested interest in the outcome of the fight, the ones who have orchestrated it, will be the ones who as always, emerge least bruised from the conflict. The hard work to be done, the spare times of recovery ahead will be little felt from behind the cushion of offshore wealth and internationally spread assets as once again with brexit - it doesn't matter what you voted, the establishment will always win.

Perhaps it is time for things to change. Perhaps now is the aposite time for it to happen. Cometh the hour.......

[Avatar]

Pretty sure the monarchy won't make a difference. Removing them will not change the fundamentals of your actual functioning government / system.

(Did you ever read The Queen & I by Sue Townsend? A bit dated now to be sure, but probably still amusing.)

--A