Ordinary People Are Extraordinary

You think you know someone and yet, in fact you probably don't know them as well as you think you do.

I was recounting a story about someone I knew, not very well but I'd been out drinking and socializing with him many times and as much as you can I knew that he was an Actor but  in between jobs, as many actors do, he was a scaffolder.  I was regaling the story about how we travelled on the train up to London and just after the train departed on its way, he pulled out a big flask of whisky which we took nips out of on the way up so that we would be warmed up when we got there.

It often happened on the way to London or back that the flask would make an appearance, so much so that a few of us also brought our Hip Flasks too.  There was lots of banter and much jolliment all in good humour and amongst ourselves none of this upsetting other passengers and so on.

He died after a short illness one of those where they operated and stopped and then explained that they could go no further.  

At his funeral we heard about his work and then we heard about his younger days when he swum the channel and that he was indeed quite the sportsman.  a 22 mile swim is extraordinary but you'd never have know as he never mentioned it in all the times that we were friends.

Then there was another funeral that I went to when it was disclosed that another friend was a 17 year old in charge of a landing craft at D-Day.  Seventeen delivering men and materials to the beaches.  There were others and once again you just don't know of the extraordinary things they did. One shot in Italy and injured in North Africa.  

But it doesn't have to be anywhere near these to be extraordinary.  Last night this gentleman gave a wonderful piece of ritual, word perfectly and it was done brilliantly.  Considering that this poor chap has a huge disability being severely dyslexic you would never have guessed but he persevered and his friends all went and supported him as he can't see what words are in front of him in the book, this was all done without and again, a huge brave commitment by him and his friends.

If you look around at every day life all of us, everyone, do extraordinary things day in day out and we just don't realise it.  Bless us all! 

BUT.... Keeps Their Job!

 Right in your face, all the time.  Somebody heads up a department or business etc and screws up massively.  They lose huge amounts of money sometimes billions (since how did we get to billions in the past 10 years or so?) and ineptitude and stupidity surely show up huge wastes of money, loss or losing track of people and money, plant and equipment and yes, nothing happens.

If I'd have made mistakes as big as these I'd have been fired on the spot.  It's insane that they let people get away with bad decisions that appear taken on a whim rather than in a properly risk managed way.  I used to tell people that I made my living on other people's misfortune for I was always rescuing a programme or project, Code Red team assembling and effectively fire fighting projects, shutting stuff down that had run out of control and were burning through cash or losing huge amounts and you see none of that now.  Hundreds of billions of pounds of overrun - oh no problems lets give you double the contract values and extend the time for twice the number of years you assured me it will take. 

Where did we get these serial failures from and why are we rewarding them with huge bonuses and seats on the board of another company when they are eventually paid off and reluctantly moved out of their jobs. A big golden handshake followed shortly afterwards by an equally massive golden welcome so they can screw up their next employer!

The Three Year Men we used to call them.  Brought in, rapidly rising through the ranks based on the opposite of merit all of them and then despite us all warning management as the 2 1/2 years approached things would suddenly start to be exposed and they'd get found out.  Not willing to show their stupidity in employing them in the first place they get to leave with an impeccable and impressive CV and glittering and glowing recommendations!

Watching From The Sidelines As The World Crashes Around You

 It's a mess out there but perhaps some are getting their just deserts as their past catches up with them.  It's amazing how most of us already knew but those who make the decisions blink rabbit frozen in the approaching headlights of doom. 

Defending their sordid actions to the greater public the pathetic excuses roll off their tongues without a hint of irony or even humility.  Do they not realise that we see through them?  Some of us have seen through them for years.  Now evidence is there and still they shrug their shoulders and continue to lie digging their swallowing hole ever larger as the lies become less believable.

In the meantime no one appears to know that an inquiry is being undertaken on some of the heinous crimes imaginable affecting millions of children by gangs across the UK and that's about as much as I can say due to the algorithms and destruction of free speech in the country.  So something that affects those millions and has been covered up and hidden will remain hidden as it is not reported by the MSM at all.  However, go and dig down in Facebook, X etc and you will find the inquiry and read for yourself the horrors perpetrated under our very noses. 

When did it become acceptable practice to hide news from the public or bend the truth and punish anyone who says different?  There's not a word about such things, it goes against the narrative, the bias and the "world view" of our public service broadcasters and they think we don't know or don't care but it will come out and when it does, woe betide those who decided and censored us.

Anyway, popcorn is at the ready and the luvvies will soon start losing their shit when it all comes crashing down around their ears.  They will probably have to move to the bunker soon as the lies unravel and there the GREAT OZ will be found behind the curtain of shame and perhaps then we will find our way again for we have strayed from the righteous path and it's time for the series of corrections to begin.  Maybe not now but soon.  In the interim, if you can stomach it, watch the attempts in vain for those who are guilty as they speak lies and swivel their heads and eyes to find somewhere to escape too.  The modern day Antediluvians attempting to escape the flood sent by God but having no escape from those overwhelming waters.  

By that action, Mankind was saved and let's hope that when all this evil is shaken out of our society we may, once again, return to a peaceful and harmonious life without our "Elders and betters" lording it over us.  

The Ugly World

 Yuk, the world can be an ugly place and our political class are displaying their "class" once again.  What with their reaction to the Peter Mandleson and Epstein stuff going on but also their awful attack dog approach to anything.  We see them but they seem hardly to know we exist and the majority of us look on with utter contempt at these hapless low life failed human beings and wonder how did they get where they are and how do they not have any sense of humanity or self awareness about their actions and their behaviour?

The very people baying for blood when they were in opposition have behaved far worse but see no reason they should resign over their failings and failures and yet only a few years ago were looking for resignations over cake eating.  Make it make sense someone.

But that is what people wanted and voted in.  How long it has to go on for who knows?  It's just increased our distrust of politicians and the MSM.  The MSM don't appear to be reporting anything they don't think we should be allowed to know.  Shame on them.  They wonder why their viewing / listening figures are plummeting all the while feeding us lies and non reporting on important stuff that is going on.   They all need to "Read the room" as they say, Smell the coffee but they see nothing wrong in their own behaviour and actions, nothing to see here they say.  Two tier reporting to go with two tier law and order and two tier governance - laws for thee but not for me.  

It's a mess, we all knew it would be just not how long and deep it went though.  I hope it all comes out and those responsible are disgraced and pilloried. 

Naturally Cautious

 I am that.  It maybe perhaps that I have been fire fighting for most of my career sorting out other people's business problems and trying to get my customers and my own people to understand risk and manage it.  

I am normally risk averse and so watching money go out of the business on advertising and whilst getting some responses, not getting sales is setting off alarm bells everywhere.  It's no where near a problem at the moment and whilst I have committed to put some cash into the business it still sets my spidery senses off.  By that I mean that I can see the outcomes clearly and the expected outcome in my mind is to close the business (pessimistic view) and start trading in earnest (the optimistic view).  The good old plan for the best, prepare for the worst scenario.

So that's where I am now.  I've a month or thereabouts to see where it is going.  The iterative process on the marketing and advertising is taking a little longer than I expected but you have to go through logically and patiently wait for each small change to work its way through.  The algorithm needs to work out what you are doing and how it presents to users.  So I think I have three more weeks to experiment before I have tried everything possible to make a go of it or decide to close it down.  That then fits my 6 month trial of the business and I've given it every chance to succeed.  

My view is still that it needs these few weeks or trial and error although that's not fair as it isn't an error if the sales action just isn't there.  That would mean that the market doesn't exist for the App and whilst it may be amazing and all that.  If the public aren't buying it, then it is market driven.

Sentiment says it should do well but reality shows potentially that it may not be so.  

Slowly Slowly Catchy Monkey

 Patience my dear boy, patience.  It hasn't even been a month since I set out on this exercise to see if I have an App that's any good or is pants!  January has been about 6 months long and in reality I only set off on this business exercise three weeks ago yesterday. So expecting results to magically appear is a bit optimistic.  

It's been an iterative process and so you have to make a change based on the data you have and then wait 24 hours.  Then make a tweak here and there.  The early results were encouraging but not scientific.  The last two days have been much better in terms of hits.

It's a numbers game and I still haven't sold anything but I am getting the downloads.  It's a far different world than I thought it would be and I'm learning loads about Apple App Store.  I am also documenting each step so I know why something has been done and the rationale behind it.  

It just takes time and patience and I am not the best at that even though this is a logical progression built on data and following a plan!  It should be right up my street but, of course, it's just me wanting to get somewhere too fast! 

Clear - No Problems

 So the Dentist checked this morning and all is clear and the mark they saw is no longer there.  A big relief and so that was pleasing I must say.

I thanked her for checking it and find it in the first place it was appreciated I have to say.  The thing is I have always found is to show your appreciation and thank people for doing whatever service it is they do for you.  Thank You and Please are very powerful I find and I hope that in saying that to them,  they had a good day.  I was very pleased as you can imagine.

Getting Going - Maybe I Ought To Just Forget About It?

 I promised myself that I would set to and get these accounts done.  Have I?  No, of course not.  I've done some other accounts but not the ones I should have and I've then been distracted my my Ad campaign on the App and then Facebook stole my attention and now I'm feeling a little guilty about not having even gotten started and it's half way through the afternoon and I really cannot be arsed to do anything.

I think that I will not even attempt it right now - I can perhaps go for it tomorrow but I must first get this dentist visit over and done with.  Perhaps that is distracting me but I'm not sure quite why unless it is in the back of my mind stuff.  They noticed a white mark  on my gum where a tooth was pulled many years ago now.  Tomorrow I need to go back and see if it is still there.  If it is, then I'll need a biopsy on it.  That won't happen tomorrow and may not happen at all of course but having been bitten once by cancer, you find that everything is cancer and everything is terminal!  

That's the legacy of my cancer diagnosis and treatment.  Every ache or pain, every strange noise or the fibrillating of your heart, cough, sore throat and so on is, until proven otherwise, cancer and will kill you.  That doesn't go away and such things bring home regularly that mindset.  Of course you can rationalise that it cannot be, that you look after yourself and so on but there is always that niggle and little voice to remind you.  Even if they do see the mark on my gums, they will have to refer me and then biopsy it and diagnose it.  I think it isn't likely to be anything like that although my mind thinks differently.  

It was a crazy extraction as the tooth splintered as it was being removed and I had some bone and/or tooth fragments for a while afterwards. It was probably 14 or 15 years ago and I recall it being after it had snowed heavily and it was knee deep and I walked there after checking they were open.  I had to wrap my face and cheek because of the wind and snow flurries and walk home it took about 30 minutes when it was really a 10 minute walk.  

Oh well, let's see.  At least the Dentist spotted it and we are following up but it does churn away inside of you.  

Audience Participation

 I hate participation especially if I have paid good money to go and see something.  Pantomime is different of course.  No I mean concerts particularly.  I saw an artist complaining that their audience didn't sing along and I've never been a fan of this.  You pay a huge amount of money to hear a band play and the lead singer sing and they can't be arsed to do the chorus sticking the microphone towards the audience and I hate it.

I came to listen to them sing, end of.  The number of times someone behind me or to the side of me sings flat, doesn't know the words or is just making some sort of fill in noise is dreadful.  It spoils the whole thing and at one venue I had to ask that one person who sang loud and flat and wanted to talk their way through the rest of the performance be removed or let me be seated elsewhere.  It was atrocious and in the quiet bits where a sole was happening etc you could hear this drunken idiot above the music.

So that's my rant.  If you want me to help you sing your song, pay me!  I've paid to hear you and the band perform it isn't for me to provide your backing band or help you when you've forgotten the words to the chorus!  They charge a small fortune these days to attend a convert and you wouldn't do it during a classical concert! Rant over LOL! 

There's None So Blind

 I hate to say it but I despair at the "Blinkered Philistine Pig Ignorance" (Monty Python Architect Sketch) of the people you see on the TV, YouTube, Podcasts etc.  In complete denial even when faced with facts presented to them that are their very own facts! 

Last night they were all getting irate that someone had the temerity to point out acknowledged facts so much so that they were huffing and puffing and trying to interrupt the chaps who's turn it was to speak and not just one of them either.  Presented with facts gets these people angry and they then twist and weasel their way and think that we cannot see them or hear them or see their body language. I hope they are running scared but I doubt it.  I don't think they realise what is coming for them.  People are rightly fed up and the vast majority see through all of this and are demanding change.

It still, however, surprises me (perhaps it shouldn't) that people I thought were a bit brighter don't see it either.  Defending the indefensible and prattling on about stuff that a child would realise isn't true or even partly true.  I think because it doesn't happen to them (yet) they cannot see the societal change that has happened certainly in the past ten years but arguably longer and as it hasn't really affected them they continue on their socialist liberal value system.  We are poorer now than we were in the 90s and it perhaps is that boil the Frog approach, they just don't see or perhaps are not affected by these changes.

Locally we have had massive failures in our Water infrastructure depriving some areas for days on end and weeks of problems.  As a consumer we have seen around 30% increase in the past few years.  Food has almost doubled by my estimation in 5 or 6 years looking at my monthly expenditure,  Power bills probably doubled or tripled and people are silent or consider it OK.  It isn't sustainable and yet these smug arse politicians, regulators and businesses just spit in our faces and we don't do anything about it.  The reckoning will come I am sure, it needs to come quickly though and things need to be resolved.   

International Joke Festival

 I happened to catch the news this morning and beloved leader was commenting on how his meeting with China had gone.  I was expecting him to come out with something tangible given that China just about produce everything these days and talk about some huge trade deals but it sounded like our great leader had swapped his sweets with a lad in the playground only to find that the bag had broken and he'd lost the contents.  It was, to coin one of my oft used phrases "Utter Bollocks!"  He sounds pathetic and totally out of his depth in situations like this but I guess he will be flying home to some pretty heavy stuff.

Everywhere you look the sheer incompetence and fish out of water politicians are just screwing things up on a massive scale.  They have ideas that a twelve year old would find difficult to comprehend.  A five year old would make more sense too.  The level of stupidity is off the scale and the ideas factory is straight out of the Marxist play book with nothing thought through, no impact assessment and every time they turn around or come up with a policy it destroys people's livelihoods and businesses.  Where we need brave, strong leadership we have a rabble blown off course by every breeze.

A once great country is actually leaderless, rudderless and taking on water faster than it can be bailed out.  The economy is a Janet & John story and ideology out trumps proper fiscal management.  The way out to tackle our huge deficit appears to be to borrow more money until its paid off?  The only people who cannot appear to see all these problems are the very people nose diving us into third world status.  

Of course, it's not going to be easy to get out of the problems that successive governments have gotten us into - it's going to be horrendously tough as we look back at the wholesale destruction of our businesses and the wastelands caused through infantile dogma and rank stupidity.  Most people know that you cannot tax your way out of these problems and saying you are going for growth whilst punishing anyone who attempts to actually grow their business, better themselves etc is a disgusting stupid and pathetic.  How blind do you have to be to be told the serious impact that you are having on the economy only to double down and make it worse.  They hadn't even considered that their actions would have the massive impact they did because they hadn't thought about it.

A pox on all their houses! 

Right In Your Face - Do You Think We Don't Know?

 Today, The Labour Party published a clip of A Reform Candidate that was edited to the point of looking as if he was slating the very people he is a candidate for.  The very people who complained about how the BBC had done the same to President Trump I'd suggest.  The trend these days to use AI or to edit and put words into people's mouths has got to stop.

We all knew the pathological liar at school or work and no one took it seriously because they lied all the time but this IS serious.  These are allegedly our betters and they represent the country our current government and yet they stoop to lying and gas-lighting us and they, frankly, are not very good at it at all.  But no one will get sacked or lose their job over it and the BBC only had to fall on their swords after they were made to agree how unpleasant and thoroughly unprofessional it was and even then they sort of blamed us!  

What is it with people these days where lying and cheating are part of everything they say and everything they do.  I used to work with people of  similar attitude who when things started going wrong, instead of facing it head on and tackling the problem started a campaign of lying that dug them deeper and deeper into the sh1t.  I recall, being the Project Manager of a job that had taken a sudden and quite catastrophic turn for the worst I called the customer, told him there was a problem and that I would like to come and meet them.  I had to go into a big room with a AAA rated business, meet the sponsors and tell them that a major problem which no one could have foreseen had arisen and explain exactly what I was going to do about it.  I asked for a few days so I could work out a plan and get back to them "You've got 24 hours to solve this ...." well not quite LOL.

Unbeknown to me the salesman had picked up the problem and went into the customer without asking me (it was my job responsibility not his) and I got a call from the customer who told me that this imbecile had gone into the customer and promised him all sorts of actions (none of which were possible) and lied his socks off.  He incurred the customer's wrath, was reported to his boss and me.  We then had to read him the riot act as he just went off and unilaterally did this when we were already in a bad situation so I had to fight on two fronts.  All because he lied and I don't do that, never have, never will, no matter how difficult it gets.  

So why do people think it is acceptable for the people in high power to lie and cheat?  They already know they are in deep trouble but to hit the bottom and keep digging and make it obvious to everyone that they are propagating lies is shocking.  

I also had to have a laugh at the Green Party who had all their posters and flyers and these portable stands printed with the incorrect spelling of the constituency name that they hope will vote for them.  Probably not a good start. In trying to correct this they put out a tweet (sorry, a X) which managed to spell it wrongly again! :-)  Such is the calibre of the people wanting the locals to vote for them. 

It All Take Time And I Have Never Been Good With That

 I tend to want everything to be done "Right now!" but it never happens like that.  Things take time and during all my treatments it always took what time it took no matter if I wanted it to end sooner.  Today it is like that as Apple are implementing some changes and so my Ads aren't working properly.  So I have to wait until their servers sort themselves out and awake from their slumbers.

It's an interesting problem for me as I want to get sufficient data to make decisions about the business and so it's like an egg timer as the sands are running out - let's call it the money in the business for now and they aren't being replenished quickly enough to make it viable but without having undertaken this exercise to run the Ads I won't know what is the right area to target and if the audience will purchase the App.  It's moving slowly but you have to test each iteration out and see what the results are so you can logically dismiss or improve each part of the campaign. 

I just have to be patient and wait and it's generally a day or two at a time.  It means extending this trial and hoping the money doesn't run out in the interim!  

Breaking The Work Habits

Everyday, there's this feeling that I should be "doing something" it is strange and it only really crossed my mind yesterday that it's missing the habit of getting up and going to work.  That ritual of waking up, getting ready and then heading off to work whether walking to the station (in all weathers) or jumping in the car and travelling to a customer's location or wherever I was working at the time.

More than that is the ritual of work itself all planned out and laid out in front of you and I, for one, normally knew what I was doing weeks in advance.  Train travel meant a switch off reading a book or a newspaper, grabbing some breakfast on the way in.  Only on a very few occasions was I bored and twiddling my thumbs.

So there's this feeling of being beholden to someone and I get the inner feeling that I should be doing something.  Currently I am working on this business App and I feel that I have to do my best to get a result one way or the other.  It's more that I have attempted everything possible to get it to work.  If it works great, if it fails well I've given it a try and can shut it down.  

Getting this out of the way would actually give me the break I feel I need and then there are only a few demands on my time and so I wouldn't feel this ghostly obligation to do things that no longer exist.  I need to claim my time back.