Opticians Why So Expensive?

 Well apart from the delay to my appointment meaning I had to extend my car parking it all went rather well.  Getting old and failing eye sight and hearing and general health - it's not fun is it?

But, as it goes, one of my eyes has improved slightly and there's no major problems excepting the start of a cataract forming slowly in one eye - not please about that but it is what it is I guess.

My prescription has hardly changed but my glasses are 4 years old now and I have a small crack where I dropped them on Christmas Day - the oven surprised me with a huge gust of vapour as I opened it and my glasses fell to the floor and a small hairline crack by the lens screw has appeared. So I saw a couple of frames I liked and we quickly put together the cost for them.  Little change out of £600.  So I went to my previous online supplier and got them for £150!  Yes - why are the shops so expensive?  

Our PM has been on TV "addressing the nation" luckily I didn't watch the Dalek and of course, he just spouts lies and deflects the criticisms back at us "far right bigoted voters"  - The car crash is still happening in slow motion and these cretinous politicians have nowhere to hide now.  Their true colours are coming into view and maybe the rest of the population might wake up and smell the coffee.

I doubt it sometimes though judging by the adverts on Facebook this week someone is selling LPs and asking a lot for them.  Of course, these aren't rare LPs but some of the most well known of all time - the ones that were at the top of the charts for a year or more and sold multiple millions of copies in this country alone let alone the millions around the world.  So in reality they aren't worth that mush as there is no rarity value or scarcity about them, things that would command high prices.

We had the water tank replaced yesterday a mains water pressurised tank and it really has made a difference to the pressure of the water both hot and cold and the hot water now flows properly and isn't a dribble out of the taps and better than that - it's hot all the time.  It was a bit of a shock paying the bill this morning but it should last 25 years they say so fingers crossed it does that.

We Were Beautiful Weren't we?

 An old friend posted a photo of us when we were at school about 50 years ago.  We were the first sixth form to be mixed from the boys and girls schools and we are standing outside of our form room on our last day.  Excited to be leaving school and for our lives ahead and as I looked on the images I realised that we were all beautiful.  We were young adults just growing up fast and there were the girls that I successfully and unsuccessfully courted back in those days and how shy we were and not quite worldly wise at all.  

We weren't cynical, we all enjoyed ourselves and we had no real worries other than would we pass our exams, get the jobs we wanted and have enough money to go down the pub next week.

But oh God, we were beautiful and we didn't realise it at all did we?  With the wisdom of age comes the appreciation of our youth and it is a shame we didn't realise it back then.  There's photos of us all skinny as rakes, healthy bodies, on trips to the coast, camping, having fun and they were great times and memories were made and that photo brought it all back to me. 

We are beautiful now of course but in subtly different ways I'd say.  The only thing I tend to concern myself with is that the utter corruption of our political system has made me a big cynic but I do need to work on getting back to being present, in the now, appreciate and enjoy what is there to be enjoyed and to ignore the killjoys and hypocritical tyrants we now have here.   Let's hope Trump releases a small earthquake here for our Muppet politicians.  

I'd never have thought, when I was 16 or 17 that I could describe my school friends as beautiful but the photo just made me feel and think that way.  

Incompetence Levels On The Rise

 You see it everywhere but strikingly in public services and government too.  SO bad are they at their job that they regularly screw up and then (if found out) have to get out of it.  All the while a 5 minute job goes out to 5 days, an inquiry takes decades, guaranteed positions get reversed, people work from home or in some cases from other countries and whinge about having to work in an office.  This could have all been foreseen but no one did anything about it and now it is too late because failure is the norm, laziness is tolerated and seemingly encouraged.

I was chatting with my partner about this and how people disliked me at work because I wouldn't tolerate lazy or incompetent people in my team.  Managers would try and provide team members from their pool and if they were late, lazy, incompetent, disrespectful, not team players and so on were dispatched back from whence they came.  They may not have liked it but it meant I didn't have to molly coddle them to "get the best out of them" or deal with them because they were "special" or any other nonsense that came with them from their bosses.  That., after all, was their job, not mine. 

I'd got to that point in my career where no one being a bully or trying to impose their will or team members by "you will do it!" or levering their importance in the organisation would make any influence on me except, perhaps, to harden my stance.  People cannot normally argue against "No" or a well worked argument.  The best part was that you just turned their arguments against them and proved they weren't doing their job properly.  Eventually they learned that I didn't take any waifs or strays from their pool and they also realised that other people would so I'd only get good people.  All the while, they still didn't do their job of getting their team members project and customer facing ready.  Anyway another example of the sort of problems I had to deal with.  

These days we hear about the over reach of the state, now wanting to check your bank balance and take money out of it directly or theft as I like to call it.  It may well lead back to people dealing in cash like the old days and giving them the run around.  Socialists don't like you having your own money, your own life or making your own decisions.  These incompetent, never had a real job, pond life want to control every aspect of your life and for what?  I'd be surprised if they'd have much fun controlling me.

I am still amazed that people tolerate all of this, perhaps they won't when things start to turn into the financial and societal wreckage that's coming down the line at us.  I said to a local councillor that had they correlated the demise in the High Street with the big increase in car parking charges and the length of time those charges applied now?  Had they realised in addition that the bus services only run for a few hours a day and that getting home at night is not possible for the vast majority if you'd like us to use public services.  I could go on about this but it just seems that people make decisions that don't make financial sense.  Like our multi million pound high street that was made narrower for pedestrians but there were no provisions for bicycles or for bus stops so after a few years disruption and then traffic jams and so on they then made the bus pull ins so care could continue rather than wait behind the busses.  If you meet a cyclist there's still no space to overtake them.

Given that they had another scheme that made the pavement larger and incorporated cycle path and pedestrian path and  again narrowed the road.  Cyclists don't like the cycle path which costs a lot of money so cycle on the road that's now narrowed and once again you can't overtake easily.  Another road has an obstacle to slow you down in a 20 mph area so you are slow anyway.   Genius thing pushes you out into the path of oncoming traffic and if you don't know it is there could seriously prang your wheel.

If it ain't broke don't fix it surely, stop interfering FFS but no, they need to get in and tinker with things.  Then they'll tell you they haven't got enough money!  There's plenty to do these harebrained schemes and put them back the way they were.  Incompetence abounds yet again.  Now they are talking about Unitary Councils you can only guess what an awful mess they are going to create! 

I suppose I just need to sit back and watch it all crash and burn but the majority of these people will be on big salaries, huge pensions and they will have messed up their whole working life.  It is no longer a meritocracy it's a box ticking exercise devised by people who failed in the very basics of how things work.  Whenever you see failure and you see a lot of it these days, scratch the surface and you'll see that people were employed to meet a set of targets that are not based on the best person for the job.  The people running these organisations and the people in them don't see it but failure is burnt into the system.  It comes as a complete surprise that their general level if incompetence and ignorance is why that failure happens.  

Who Are These People?

 The news seems to have a lot of people of notoriety (mislabelled celebrities) in some sort of scrape, separation, spat etc.  I don't recognise them, the show they're meant to have come from or why anyone would be interested whatsoever.   They all appear to be vacuous short of a brain cell types and I wouldn't p1ss on them if they were on fire sorts.

Just who are these people, why do they all look as if they've been to the same hairdresser and manicurist?  What have they done with their eyebrows and why do they always look as if they are pouting? 

Nobody cares!  Well I don't that's for sure.  I'm sure that if you rounded them all up and stuck them in a room together you might get some sort of combined brain activity.  How they remember to breathe is beyond me.  What the hell did we do to deserve such a depressing waste of Oxygen?  

Finally Someone Actually Does What They Said They Were Going To Do

 Say what you do, do what you say were my work mantras and so I was pretty annoyed that for most of this week someone who said they'd be coming on Tuesday didn't, nor Wednesday and by Friday I was fed up that they could see my messages but wouldn't even have th courtesy to say that they weren't going to come along.  It was refreshing that I contacted someone on Friday who called, said they'd be along around a certain time, turned up, cleared some stuff for me and all was well with the world.

Why is it so difficult these days.  The number of people who just never get back to you is astounding.  The number advertising for work just don't call.  It's bad manners in my book.  I'd always keep an appointment and if I couldn't for some obscure reason then a phone call and an apology and a rearranged meeting were how you dealt with it. 

I guess that's the way people operate these days. 

Never Interrupt Your Enemy Whilst They Are Making A Mistake

 Often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte and I think I remember it from The Art of War by Sun Tzu, a very good book to have a read of especially in the highly politicized office environments I worked in.  

You can try and help people out but often they choose a course that looks very dodgy and will lead to failure or disaster.  Many people don't want to know and find it hard to take advice or perhaps enter into a conversation about it.  You learn your lessons when you are young and you learn to deal with these things.  Cover your arse in writing used to be the other thing and confirm all instructions in a memo.  Now of course, email is more prevalent and probably easier to cover your actions when you can see the disaster unfolding.

I found out the hard way that you have no friends (or very few) in business and so after a very quick baptism of fire, I used the tactic on never interrupting anyone when I could see that they neither solicited or wanted my help.  There is a malicious side to me that takes a sort of "told you so" glee at the downfall of a peer or better still a more senior manager or director.  It's really a lot better when they realise that you did warn them but they carried on regardless.

Those who knew me well, employed me because I was a planner and thinker, a specialist in programme management and risk mitigation / management as well as being someone who was technically switched on.   So my job would throw up commercial and technical risks as well as things around planning too.  I had a rule that said if I had tried three times and no one listened, then they'd be cast adrift if you like.  By that I mean that if I need to tell you more than three times you weren't listening to me in the first place, you were head strong and didn't need my advice or were just plainly ignoring me and not engaging. So that sort of meant they didn't need my advice and I would then go into a different mode of distancing myself from what would be happening 6 months to a year down the line.  I would just go about my part of the work covering the warnings in a "told you so" series of reports and memos that no one took any notice of until the postmortem.

It was at those reviews I would take my file of memos or list of emails or whatever and present my side of the story to the horror of some, the bemusement of others and the anger of those made to appear stupid (dear reader they didn't need to appear for they were).  I could appear all innocent and present the advice I have provided, the risks, the mitigation plans etc that had all been ignored.  ON many occasions I could show with uncanny accuracy what the future of the project held if my advice wasn't heeded.

It sounds a bit "big headed" but it was just me trying to do my job and if I was ignored, it was me covering my position.  Of course, I took great inside joy in the accuracy of my predictions but anyone who had any common sense would have seen these disasters coming.

Silly things like overusing overtime to complete a part of the project - you pay one and a half times to double times more for the same level of production.  If you'd managed it properly and got the right resources in then that wouldn't have happened and the huge losses were caused by paying up to double for the same amount of work.  Other things included not making everyone productive, not covering the costs of all the changes and so on.  It's basic, basic stuff and so obvious.  Lots of other things but a few common ones there.  

So, it's actually a problem (in myself) in that there's a duty to point these things out but it isn't worth making enemies doing so and it is actually quite fun to watch these people have their car crash moments in full view and in some way you subtly letting them know that you warned them enough times but you let them have the car crash anyway.  Today's car crashes are going to happen with our current government and the inept politicians we have now and for the past 20 years really.

There's all sorts of rubbish coming our way and you can see with every policy decision and twist and turn that the crash is about to happen.  The MSM are bigging up the economy today saying that the interest rates will come down and the stock market is up and blah blah blah.  I really don't see it at all, not from what I've seen and heard and certainly not from industry if half the rumours are to become reality.  The tinkering and adjusting are all ideologically driven but have no real slowing down of the speed of the car crash we are going to be in, in fact, it looks as if they've stepped on the gas pedal.  There's no room for growth in terms of energy costs, taxes and if inflation is really running at two and a half percent then I'm a Dutch Man's Uncle.  It's probably around double that, more if you look at energy prices and the price of groceries at the local shops.  

With close to three trillion pounds of debt, our feckless politicians are p1ssing around with minutiae of a million here and a million there when they truly need to be taking a holistic view of this.  All of our services don't work, the bloat of public services is ridiculous and there is just a part of the problem.  Then by making it difficult for the real wealth generators to operate without being hit for more taxes and overheads the problem collapses in on itself.  

Anyway, join me with a bag of popcorn and watch the car crash happen.  It won't be the first time they've painted us into a corner but woe-betides us if the IMF get involved again.  Maybe they were looking to write their book "How to destroy an economy in six months"  I think we just let them have the crash and watch how stupid they'll look.  Incompetence at its finest on full display.  

No One Does What They Say They Will Anymore!

 Why is it that you get connected, arrange something and then people disappear (even though you can see they read your messages)?  

Scrap Metal - guy advertises in all the local groups.  I tell him what I've got and he says "I'll be over this afternoon"  No show, next day I remind him, he sees the message, no show, next day when can I expect to see you, he sees the message, not a word! So I go to the next guy who's verified - not a word back but can see he has seen it too.  Another one, formal contact form on website - nothing once again!  It's enough to drive you nuts!

Brickwork - guy gives me a price, I accept and say go ahead timing to suit yourself - hasn't got back to me.  Been here and put in a price and everything too.

Another one in the local group looking for work, send him the details - nothing.  

Do people actually want the work and/or why would you just not get back and say I can't do it now or I'm too busy or something, any bloody thing really?

It's discourteous I believe to do this and I'd always get back even if I couldn't actually do anything so that people would know.

In other news - I see politicians are voting to end civilization by cutting us off from all use of fossil fuels (as they call them).  Turkeys voting for Christmas. So stupid are these people who do not appear to realise quite how deeply in the mire we are through policies already in place that they want to double down and completely destroy what's left of our industries.  I don't get how these people cannot see that their policies have led us to the highest energy costs in the world (maybe apart from California) and that no one can invest in a country who's energy costs are that high, who's labour costs and productivity costs are skewed and who's taxes are ridiculously high too.  As we hit the skids in this country our people have completely lost sight of the industrial revolutions in the BRICS countries and the lead they have now in just about everything except aerospace and they are catching up very fast.

I was amused to see that our idiot PM thinks AI is going to get us out of our problems.  HELLOOOOOO PM, guess what AI needs?  Lots of reliable and cheap energy.  Google, Apple, Microsoft and the big boys know where to put these data centres and it isn't here.  I like that the Government are going to build these which implies that they will be late, expensive and when they are finally built won't actually be up to date enough.  As always.  

It's laughable (if it wasn't so serious) that these f**kwits really think that by saying something it is going to happen.  Where on earth do they think that growth comes from (apart from between their toes LOL) they haven't got a clue that if you want investment, growth, increased GDP, investment into the country that there needs to incentives and not the opposite.  No one can run a business in this current climate.  My start up will now not employ anyone as it isn't worth doing.  If I need someone I will outsource to Eastern Europe or elsewhere.  The new employment laws, minimum wages, national insurance and other business costs are too much for my business to make it in the UK.  It's cloud based so doesn't really need to be based anywhere.

Existing businesses must be pushing the button now on their strategies to limit their exposure to these draconian rules and regulations.  If they are to survive and deliver profits and dividends to their shareholders they will need to enact various measures which would curtail recruitment and possibly shed some jobs.  Cut back on expenditure (i.e. retract investment), work on ways of mitigating tax and other charges imposed and generally contract their businesses but in order to maintain margin etc., put up the prices to the consumers.  It all boils down to that - the people that pay will be the voters and they n turn will buy less, I know that I am hunkering down and limiting outgoings to essentials as we will be facing difficulties this coming year and the thieving bastards have already taken my winter fuel payment and will clout me with taxes this year on my pension through fiscal drag.  It's the law of unintended consequences and the crippling of the economy not freeing it up like they should have done.

It's nice that our PM went of the Ukraine to sign a 100 year accord.  Also nice to see a lone drone in the sky just in time for the cameras to capture it and for it to allegedly be shot down. As if the communists would take out one of their own?  Yea, right.

So - that's today's rant almost done with.  One day I might get back on track about Bladder Cancer.  The best thing to say though about Bladder Cancer is that I am very pleased to be here still.  It will be 20 years next year.  A third of my life roughly was taken up with that in the background - I never thought it would have been so but it is.  Catch it early and there's a good chance you can be treated and survive.  

Lacking Courage

 Our cowardly politicians are the modern version of Roman Nero in my humble opinion.  They do not tackle the problems we have far less understand them and they lack the basic skills and the courage to actually do anything about the societal problems we face.  So long have they ignored either willingly, by design or they just don't have the wit to truly comprehend the trouble we face that we are now painted into a corner of woke ideology and the sort of problems that abounded prior to the second world war, that of appeasement.  The trouble is it is appeasement to the minority at the detriment of the majority.  Like Nero they p1ss off the vast majority of the population appealing to a small minority mainly by giving our hard earned money to those who don't deserve it and squander it. 

They show no leadership skills, certainly no backbone, no shame, no cognitive understanding and no ability to work out right from wrong!  

Such is the shower of sh1t we have been dealt in the last 20 or so years, very few, if any, statesmen like politicians, poor decision making, no real understanding of risk and reward, investment opportunities are black money holes and they speak big and act small.  The latest "triumph" for our Chancellor in her visit to China was to come back with a "deal" that's a few hundred million a year.  the Chinese must have laughed themselves silly.  She returns in triumph with something that won't even make a dent in the balance of trade and is the sort of pocket money her paymasters give away on a daily basis to causes which have no benefit to society whatsoever. 

And here's the thing, she cannot see this.  She's meant to be in charge of the world's 6th largest economy (not for much longer on her or the economy either) and yet she entirely misses the whole point.  Running away from the problem and showing that you've written the first paragraph of your 10,000 word homework doesn't bloody well cut it.  The economy is going down the toilet, the public are realising that they are being screwed for every penny and no one cares.  The tax burden and the other "going for growth"  policies have had the diametrically opposite effect.  They cannot seem to grasp the damage they've done in that area.

In social cohesion they need to work out fast something to equal up the various problems they and their predecessors have caused.  Immigration where there is integration was always within our grasp but they never understood the people.  Generally we are a tolerant people but what cannot be tolerated is minorities imposing medieval backward practices in this country.  How we have fallen and how the populace is growing daily more angry isn't measured because these politicians are not in touch with the people.  They are the worst type of managers (and we've all worked with them) who don't listen and don't believe what they are told by the workers at the work-face! 

They lack any ability to be brave, to be leaders, to govern for the people.  I liked to think that I was a brave manager and didn't step away from a problem.  I may have planned a little longer than most so I understood the whole thing before acting.  If I had to do something unpleasant that I disliked I still had to do it but I wouldn't fudge it or not do it, misrepresent it or anything like that.  We have cowards, thick, stupid, arrogant, low life, evil non caring parasites as politicians.  Watching the car crash is a little masochistic as it's going to hurt us all but watching their performance and expecting us to be impressed with their eternal failures makes me wonder if they have any shame or understanding of their jobs let alone their fatally flawed decision making!  

Why Bother?

 I think you should bother but these days, why?  You can generally spot a scam a mile off and Facebook is full of them.  Recently there is a spate of settees and sofas as well as beds and mattresses for sale in the various groups.  They al follow the same pattern, the seller has a strange name and they "work" for strange places.  Some are just obviously wrong and where the were educated, where they love and the location of the goods are quite different.  Many have the same item for sale as the others with identical photos and prices.

Now, when you then see that the vast majority have only been members for a week (or less) and that the advert provides free delivery and cash on collection (only) then I start to wonder how they can do this.  So a Sofa about 350 miles from me will set me back £300.  So that's anywhere in the country they'll "deliver" this.  You just know that it is a scam and they'll relieve some poor person who's saved up for a Sofa of the £300 and perhaps a bit more and they'll either get nothing or perhaps something that's been recycled and is not fit for purpose.

Apparently when I reported a whole bact of these scammers they "Don't break our community standards" or as I read it how low can you go.  The problem is that these damn adverts are shoved into your timeline all the time it was obvious there was something going on but their AI didn't pick it up and when the users send in a report they don't pick it up either.

So is it worth it?  I just block these people on sight now and have done with it.  From what it was meant to be to what it is now, Facebook and the others are shadows of their original intention.  So in many ways, I just use it sparingly now.  It's not worth spending time on making it a community or to help it understand the rubbish thrown at the users.

A bit like Instagram who want more content and I spend quite some time presenting a little more content and nic graphics only to get them on three occasions in three months decide that it is not the sort of content they want and they think it is Spam!  Recovering your account is a nuisance for sure so now I have actually posted up various tins of Spam to see what they think of that!  They can't have it both ways can they.  If you need the content and the users, why p1ss the off with your AI trolling of my content?  Ho hum.  It's best not to worry about or use these things other than to gain the SEO from it! 

Sixteen Years Ago

 I just saw a not on Facebook that it was 16 years ago when I lost my hearing and when this tinnitus started.  I was so ill - I roused myself to do a talk about the history of the Lodge and we had all sorts of things going on including a Banner re dedication and I managed to drug myself up for that day.  I ended up seeing my Doctor who was very worried saying that my ear drums were swollen and he gave me the highest antibiotics he could which actually did the trick.  I was so ill though that I missed a couple of assignments on my University Course and had to drop out which was sad but inevitably, whilst I loved my course, to try and catch up when I was that ill wouldn't have been possible.

I was doing so well and my assignments were all attracting good marks too.  Oh well, it probably wan't meant to be was it?

Today I am about to go and get some work done in the garden and remove a fallen tree that's landed on my oil tank!  That needs to be out of the way as it will be inspected as part of the work next week when we get the MegaFlow tank changed.  This is a main pressure water tank and I didn't think it looked good when I called the Heating guys in to maintain the boiler.  It needs a new one, it's expensive but should last 25 years if properly maintained.  These guys are good and so I'm confident that they'll do a good job and they always check the tank and lines as part of their job!

Interesting times in UK finances.  I recall the 1970s as I started work just after the 3 day week and remember the blackouts and all sorts of nonsense going on, strikes, rubbish piling up in London and so on.  I certainly hope that those days don't come back but the way this lit are going I'd be surprised if we don't have some serious problems coming down the line at us.  I'm not sure where they think that taxing us to the point of our own bankruptcy is the way out of their self inflicted own goal but I often said to my bank "How can I been overdrawn when I've still got cheques in my cheque book!"

The Tail Wagging The Dog

 It has always been a pet peeve of mine that minority groups get preference and special treatment over and above the majority.  The whole purpose of living in a democracy and somewhere that upholds equal rights is that, well, call me old fashioned, that everyone is treated equally.  It should not really matter what you are, who you think you are, what you consider yourself to be etc., you should have all the advantages that equality should bring but, no, they don't want that, they want preferential treatment to my detriment.

Equality is exactly that.  It is not forcing the vast majority to agree with whatever difference you have, I don't have to agree or like anything you stand for but don't you dare force me to do so.  Here again, I don't care if you colour your hair, wear clothes that I wouldn't be seen dead in or practice some medieval witch thing.  It doesn't matter you do what you want in the confines of your own home or tribal meetings or whatever just don't force me to have my life changed because you want some sort of overt recognition or to change the law so that I have to change my way of life.  Go about your own life in equality and peace and leave me the f**k alone.

That's all I really ask.  I don't care what you are or what you say you are, I don't care for your way of life, your religion or any such thing, what I care about is you interfering in my life.  I don't impose my ideals on to you so don't you think that you can impose yours on to me.  If you want equality or your lifestyle imposed on others be prepared to be savagely repulsed.  How about those posing as environmental groups?  If you want to protest then do so but don't stop me doing what I want to do, don't block roads, smash up petrol stations and put your generally unwashed bodies in my way.  Stop telling me what to do, I don't tell you what to do other than to f**k off out of my way or similar.  

What makes these tiny minority's brains think that they are right, that they have some moral superiority and therefore can lord it over the rest of us?  I've found that ignorant people tend to have some moral high ground that they've found that makes them dictate to their fellow citizens that their tiny, pea in whistle minds have something to add to society but as they are unable to properly scientifically communicate this in open discussion (without losing their tiny minds and yelling stupid words) they feel that actions designed to p1ss off their fellow citizens and generally making a nuisance of themselves is justified because two or three of their grey cells aligned more in an act of gravity rather than logical argument! 

Leave me the f**k alone whoever you are.  Go and do what the rest of society would do and argue your case properly.  So many problems are caused because activists and pressure groups and let's face it, weirdos, actually get to run things these days not on a meritorious basis but on some strange selection process based on a spreadsheet of ensuring that they employ one of each from the tick box.  It doesn't work, it has NEVER worked and it cannot in the future be relied on to work.  We are seeing the stupidity of employing unsuitable people into organisations and the stupidity of doing so.  I suppose as they go on destroying the fabric of society and the places in which they work must be poisonous in the extreme.  You see some unbelievable stuff going on and hopefully it will utterly destroy these businesses and organisations who in their dying throes might, albeit I doubt it, realise what has led them to this place.

I never had to deal with spreadsheet hires apart from those our customer's made.  I was employed to do a particular job and I has to upset people or rescue businesses.  The worst ones to tackle and turn around were public sector ones and those being brought out of nationalisation and being made private.  This is where these people hide.  Many don't appear to have any practical experience in doing things properly and all seemed to be directly, in your face, sometimes aggressively, resistant to change.  Change was what was needed in all cases and there was a culture of laziness and push-back to any initiative.  Yet they were the ones who complained loudest and for whom the work I was doing would have benefited.  Very few had the wit to realise this.  It wasn't up to me to manage these people (it would have been interesting if I had) but I would deliver the solution to the Directors and Managers and they would have to work out how to make the changes.

On the occasions when I was allowed to do some managing and was accorded the proper delegation powers I could generally pull the majority of the team out of their malaise (for this is generally true of these organisations) and get whole departments moving as an interim director or manager.  An anecdote if I may here.  I was generally there to provide a shock and awe type assignment (not always) and I generally tried to get everyone to come on the journey with me.  So they called me in asked for some "strong" project management and I gained the relevant authority and went to work.  Generally after talking to each of the staff and the managers and so on, within a few days you'd be able to work out what was wrong.  Get people in to discuss figures and performance data and then come to a conclusion and plan.  

Once you've got a picture of this there are a few courses of action that probably need to be taken.  Sacking three or four of the big problems being one of them.  I'd go to HR, explain what I wanted to do and that I wanted these people out of the department but if they wanted to retain them elsewhere in the business that was their prerogative.  Generally they were told to clear their desk and would be escorted off of the premises and many of the problems would disappear overnight.  Why am I saying this?  Well these were generally the sort of people who were put up with for years and weren't doing their jobs, they should have been dealt with years ago and they held the whole organisation back.  Find a few good workers from what remained, put them into management positions, train them to be managers and within a few months you had a new enthused department.  Make decisions, tell them what you were going to do, keep your word and so on.  It's not that difficult.  

It looks these days as if management are held to ransom by those who hide behind other excuses for laziness and ineptitude.  It's fashionable to be different and part of a minority if you don't have to perform your duties - but of course - I sure that not everyone is like that.

I wonder when we will wake up to this tail wagging the dog fallacy and grow a pair and fight back.  Business are held to ransom by it and now government are too.  Look at the current crop of politicians and the front bench are made up of people who've never really held a proper job down and who seem totally lost.  The trouble is they have strange overblown confidence in their "abilities" whereas we can all see they are totally incompetent and leading the country into some pretty bad times.  Their only answer is to punish the very people they are meant to represent whilst spending our money like its going out of fashion on vanity projects with no possible return on investment.  

Another Rant Incoming

 Why are so many people still actually alive?  Or why aren't more people dead perhaps?

So what am I ranting on about now?  Well, it's social media init!  I mean, what ever happened to looking stuff up and having a few books to hand or just old fashioned common sense?

It's the pointless postings.  Today "Oh I bought some joint of meat as it was on special. How do I cook it?"  In an oven maybe?  What's wrong with people, they ask a random question like this is a Facebook Group and you have to wonder why they couldn't do what I'd do and at the least that is to Google it FFS!  It doesn't end there, random people asking how to do electrical or plumbing work and once again, as a trained engineer I'd be screaming for them to STEP AWAY NOW!  It's lethal if you don't know what you are doing or how to do it or the inherent dangers this stuff poses.  

It worries me that these people are just too think to realise that they need to breathe in and out to live - do they know? Has someone told them?  Just what is happening to people's brains.  Brains are amazing things and we barely use their capabilities yet it appears that these people are only using one or at best two cells to live their lives with!

What did cheer me up was Lee Anderson's speech yesterday about David Lammy.  He said something along the lines of there are 6,000 villages in England and if they took the village idiot from each and moved them all to Tottenham then David Lammy would still be the local village idiot! I felt the burn from here :-)

Anyway, how come all these people are still alive and p1ssing me off, that's what I want to know?

Will I Ever Get Used To Hearing Aids?

 I was out at a meeting yesterday and wore my hearing aids - not sure that I am ever going to get used to them in fact I struggled to hear anyone in the bar.  I tried different settings and I tried to change the volume too and gradually I was able to work with them but I decided to take them out half way through the meal.  They are great at listening to the people sitting behind you though  I could hear them as clear as day!

I guess it is practice and adjustment that will get it right but it was not easy and whilst it worked some of the time I guess I just need to work out how to switch between modes and keep persevering.

I don't know if it is linked but my tinnitus is bad again this morning and I need to try and sort that out.  My GP surgery has excelled themselves sending me a request to take a BP reading and then a few moments later to take some sort of questionnaire.  I realised I needed to go online for it and the next day I went to check it out but the link had expired! 

It was cold yesterday or as the BBC would say, hottest day eva! Driving home there were either overly cautious or completely bonkers drivers not driving to the conditions.  Where we live there's a dip in the road that is like a small skating rink.  That WAS interesting coming hole late last night.  I've driven many times in ice and snow and so it I approached the problem knowing it was going to be there.  With an AWD car it is sort of OK to drive over it, I wouldn't have liked to be driving a two wheel drive though and this is what our politicians in London don't understand, out here we need cars like mine, it's a necessity not a luxury.  My car is permanently covered in mud and probably animal poo from driving up our road and locally.  It isn't a city car as we don't live anywhere near the city.  Anyway, that's another argument no doubt I'll have to pay the ULEZ charge as I went into London - well the very outskirts!

This morning, no hot water.  I hope I have fixed that - it looks like it - the second two port valve has failed which is "interesting" as I replaced both of these around 5 years ago and both have now failed!  Built in obsolescence?  Anyway, the Heating man is coming soon to put in a new system and I hope that we will have a much better heating and hot water system.  We have a new boiler (well 3 years old) and we now have to get the tank and controls re-done.  It's never ending and thank goodness I know how to do these things!  With a bit of luck that when it is changed it will be the last time I have to repair and maintain the system myself I'll get the heating guys in once a year to do it! 

What? Really? Are You Sure?

 For my sins I saw BBC news last night (small n) and was once again surprised by the "information" I was given about the California Fires.  Dreadful thing and apparently it wasn't caused by wild fires it was caused by Climate Change because it's 1.5 degrees warmer in 2024!  Yep, that's why folks.  I'm a cynic as you probably know and sceptical about what we are being told and more importantly, how we are told.

If you told me wildfires are quite common in the Western USA I'd agree with you and right up that Pacific coast too.  Generally it doesn't much matter if it is 1.5 degrees warmer when these things start and they don't start through a small rise in temperature there are factors involved like out of date infrastructure, electricity and water being two problems especially if you have overhead distribution that is many years out of date trying to run modern high energy things like electric cars, air conditioners and so on. If you don't implement fire breaks and you leave combustible materials lying around like scrub and autumn leaves in an area where wildfires are natural then you are providing fuel for fires.  Sure you have the high winds and they are also well known and so what else could be the issue?   It happens regularly not so bad as we have seen recently for sure but have we learned nothing?  Is it beyond our ingenuity to tackle this or have we once more bent our knee to the great woke-ism of climate change, environmental pressure groups and other non scientific nonsense that passes as fact today? 

So this chap shows us how 2024 has been the hottest year 'evar' in the last millennia or some such bollocks.  So to demonstrate this post-industrial warming they changed the dates now to around 1850 from whatever it was a thousand or ten thousand years previous. So when the graph came up it didn't start in 1850 or indeed a thousand years ago because if it did it would show the Roman and Medieval warm periods both around 4 Degrees C more than now and the Little Ice Age too.  The new graph didn't start until 1940 and guess what?  The 1930s were the warmest period of the last 100 years and that would be inconvenient.  It's all total bollocks and it just goes on and f*****g on and it's right in your face lying.

So another advert this morning talks about 10,000 tons of carbon saved this year. So is that Diamonds, Coal, Graphite or what?  They probably mean CO2 but it could equally be CO1 I suppose.  Ask Google about the different types of Carbon and it gives you a list of greenhouse gasses and not much about carbon at all?

I was watching how pathetic these people are in terms of their hubris, not only thinking that they can control the weather but that they actually think throwing trillions (yes trillions) at the problem and coming up with some sort of human scale solution is going to affect the planet somehow with all its built in self control mechanisms.  It did a pretty good job without us and will probably continue to do so.  No one is saying that we don't have an impact but you do really need to understand and comprehend the scale of things.  Man has survived by adaption and that is the best way to approach any possible weather or climate Armageddon that we are being led to believe (for the past 50 or more years) that is coming down our way.  Last night it was minus 17 degrees in the UK.  Shouldn't that not ever happen at all with all this climate change nonsense?  Surely we should be enjoying balmy winters, Mediterranean style summers and so on?  That's the sort of weather we had in the Roman period and in the Medieval warm period. When they grew grapes as far north as Newcastle!  

If you see this stuff, ask yourself why are they lying to you?  Just go do some research and don't trust the search engines or similar, actually go and find scientific papers that explain what it is we are seeing.  Look at Earth's passage through the Universe and around the sun and the affect of planetary gravity and wonder if these odd wobbles and elliptical anomalies taking you nearer or further from the sun (where the warmth actually comes from). Do these make any difference?  Do clouds make any difference? They can't model these and why do we need models when we have data (manipulated as it is).

The last thing is that we are gambling on these computer spreadsheets being right.  It's an all-in bet that we need to spend all this money to save the planet.  Not even the models agree with each other and we used to have a saying about such models that if you put sh1t data in you'd get sh1t data out.  I've seen hundreds of optimistic sales forecasts showing we're all going to be millionaires and not one of them, not one, has been right.  You can only go with what you know and most things are a gamble but they are generally a calculated risk.  We have career politicians who've never had a real job, have no scientific background and certainly no real management ability making decisions on shaky data affecting us all.  So far it is costing every household £300 per year to GO GREEN.  That cost is going up and there are no benefits, no one did a CBA at all on it.  There's no ROI planned in and the first bunch of renewables can't be renewed just dumped into landfill.  Very environmentally friendly.

When the adults return and take charge I hope they destroy these people who have just ruined our economy and lied to the populace for what?  If they've lined their own pockest at our expense then they need to face charges too.  

How To Destroy Society

 Well our County Council have taken their 30 pieces of Silver and applied for the whole county to become a Unitary one!  That would give us a Mayor (and we've all seen how successful that is in London where crime rates are sky high, costs to commuters are through the roof,, preference is given to certain members of the public and not others and he's now about to charge for use of access routes into London too (tunnels) ) that's just London, look at other cities and you see the same problems.

Businesses are closing down, footfall is down, crime is up etc etc.  Our Council have suggested delays to our elections by two years!  Two years and that's a loss of democracy and I'd suggest it isn't lawful, I wasn't happy they did it for Covid let alone on some Labour Government policy that wasn't even in their Manifesto but then again neither was punishing Old Aged Pensioners, Farmers, Women and Children and eroding our savings and putting us in harms way financially.  

The latest figures look dire and they don't seem to be able to grasp that if there isn't an economy you can't collect taxes if we don't have jobs and the ridiculous green agendas, the rush to the bottom of the world's economies is happening.  There's soon going to be the death spiral of fighting the economic firestorm with the fuel of taxes.  Pathetic the lot of them.

They really don't know how to communicate with people or talk to anyone, they are as corrupt as their predecessors and don't even hide it.  The ineptitude of senior ministers and their inability to even gauge the mood of the country or the damage they are inflicting is one of the curious things.  The open their mouths and spout some bullsh1t and immediately you can see there is a problem with whatever it is, the impact, the social injustice, the protection of one part of the population to the exclusion of the other.  It fair takes you breath away that anyone would think let alone say such things but they do.  I can see the issues and the problems this new excremental policy will take and the costs, the impacts, the risks and the doomed to failure outcomes.  They cannot see this.  Why????? 

Anyway, let the train wreck and car crash unfold, it's already coming apart at the seams and it requires them to take away democratic process and to paint over the cracks and not deal with the root causes of the problems we face through cr@p government of the last 20 or more years.  There's an unwillingness to deal with it and we have perhaps the worst batch of shameless corrupt incompetent witless low life "politicians" to throw at it.  Not one of them is fit to hold great office and we now see through them to their Whitehall controllers who also don't appear to have a clue or a plan unless that has been paid for and provided by big business. 

I really am p1ssed off about losing my vote for me local councillors and whilst I've done my bit in writing and complaining, those who are set to gain the most benefit from it are obviously right behind it.  I see you and I am watching you.  So surely if this happens there is no taxation without representation?  Perhaps the withdrawal of our council taxes until we get our votes back will make a difference?  I doubt it, courage to fight these sh1t bags has also disappeared.  I doubt many people are bothered that they've lost their vote or of the consequences of these massive changes.  They'll be pretty p1ssed off when someone from 70 or 80 miles away decides that an estate can be built in their road without any local consultation!     

I'm Sort Of Glad That I'm Retired (Almost)

 I had occasion yesterday to write to my local councillors who are attending a meeting tonight on whether to suspend elections that are due this May.  Yes, delay these by two years whilst this new pathetic, incompetent bunch of amateurs decide whether to have huge Unitarian councils replace our local system.  Now, whilst I dislike councils and have come up against their pig-headed stupidity before, they may need review and shaking down to get rid of some of the utter waste that goes with them but to suspend the constitutional right of citizens to choose who their councillors are goes beyond what they should do.  But, I forget this is the dogmatic ideology of these people who've never really had a proper job.

Councils are obstinate and rules based and I recall my local council wanting to give me a role in contractual and commercial negotiations but couldn't because I didn't have a Degree in ***ology or whatever!  They'd employ someone from Uni who hadn't done the job before but an old crusty Poacher who could have turned Game Keeper - no.  Another problem is that councils litigate way too much.  They do not think like normal people.  Surely the best way not to spaff away money is to "Love, Honour and Negotiate" it's simple to work on a compromise to a problem but they've got solicitors and lawyers on the books so they use the heavy blunt instrument to do something that a cup of coffee and a biscuit and a chat would sort out.

 I went to a Council in "special measures" who denied they were in special measures and didn't need us to help them sort the mess they'd got themselves into.

Both my councillors wrote back and agreed and were also stating that an extra two years would mean that those standing down would have to serve years they were not planning to.  Hence I'm glad I'm retired.  I couldn't actually live with these people having watched them on the portal at meetings they really are a Dinosaur breed, driven by their allegiance to their party not to looking after us, their constituents.

The country looks to be heading for financial distress and the Bond market and the GBP took hits.  The measures they took to promote growth have actually done the opposite as anyone with a bank account and credit card could have explained to them.  You can't go for growth by imposing huge taxes on the people you want to work hard to make that growth nor can you punish the risk takers, us business people, by making it difficult to employ anyone, expensive to use any sort of energy or indeed to put power into the workers the way they want to.  It isn't the public sector and we aren't charities.  

I think that there will be some interesting times ahead.  I think they need to rename to role from Chancellor to Chancer.  They are in complete denial about any of this and it's going to come as a hammer blow to them.  You see them sneering and being actually aggressive in the spotlight of scrutiny and yet if they were to have a little humility and the good grace to reverse the damage done they might yet still snatch victory from the jaws of defeat but I fear it is the opposite of this we will receive. 

If You Can't Dazzle 'Em With Brilliance....

Baffle them with bullsh1t was the old phrase used and practised by many I knew too.

The Government are just a mess at the moment and there's something not quite right with the PM and indeed some of the Cabinet too.  They seem almost as if they are AI generated and not quite real at all.  Perhaps they are under alien thought control?  Whatever they are though, it's just pathetic to try and watch them.  I squirm the moment any of their nasal high adenoid type voices start speaking.  They spout a monotonous load of old tripe and repeat it often as if the old adage that a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth.  Apparently, I'm now "Far Right" for having an opinion,. for asking difficult questions and for demanding the truth.  

It's really makes my skin creep when they come on and just lie to your face.  It's this deceitfulness that gets me, they say they are doing good for various members of the public when their actions have the diametrically opposite effect! 

They are absolutely pathetic, disgraceful, lying, corrupt (it wouldn't surprise me) low life human scumbags.  They think more of their own selves than the safety and security of the very people they have sworn to protect and look after.  Let's hope heads roll soon though.  How they can keep this level of lies and deceit up without showing any embarrassment at all is beyond me.  I'd not be able to live with myself if I had done this to millions of my fellow citizens!