the christmas pudding vodka is prepared and steepingand I've got 3 different work xmas do's this week, with the liver transplant service on standby
how's your dark and damp decembers?
We've had some interesting weather of lateBeen hot and muggy, but really fucking windy, which is weird for Welly and for this time of year. And then we had several bouts of frankly apocalyptic thunderstorms. Especially between about 4-7 am yesterday. Then all the rain, with lots of localised flooding/fucked roads. Still, at least we're not on fucking fire, like much of NSW/QLD.
Or course, now that it's Monday morning, blue skies and calm once more prevail!
I see bits of NZ
are exploding
Indeed
Just a burp, but sadly not looking good
ok ta.
New neighbour next door has moved here from Taunton. He fancied living up north and Wigan was cheap so here he is. His wife and their three kids will be joining him soon. He got a job with vodafone up here, didn't like it so ditched it after a few days and got another job. I admire his spirit of adventure.
had an excellent afternoon/evening
of drinking with people from around these parts in that london yesterday.
And now I feel a little delicate?
HOW'S THE HEAD
FEELING?
Fucking frustrating, with said
frustration broken by two very fun days over the weekend in Cambridge and Londinium yesterday with Al for some bloke called Dave's birthday.
TIL that the boiler in my 'new' house wasn't registered with the local authority when it was installed so said installation isn't legal even though a GasSafe engineer serviced it last year. I can't proceed with buying the place unless the sellers buy indemnity insurance or I waive that requirement and buy the fucking insurance myself. My solicitor goes on holiday in 11 days' time.
*pulls hair out*
Any progress?
Sounds like fun.
Yes, ish. The seller has said
she'll happily pay for indemnity insurance but unfortunately this revolves around my solicitors talking to hers. Today the roofing company rang asking if they could replace the garage roof today.....grrr...fingers crossed for next week even if I have to pay my solicitors 'exchange and complete on the same day' tax which is a fucking joke.
*breathes*
Lovely to see you and the bloke, that was a very excellent afternoon out :D
*crosses available appendages*
Can be a right royal pain in the arsebadgers this house buying lark!
It is when one of the parties
are clearly fibbing to me.
After an utterly stonking birthday weekend...
...it's back to the grind for the last tweo weeks of chaos before christmas.
Goose ordered though...
We ordered our turkey yesterday
We haven't started a Christmas spreadsheet.. but we are hosting my parents and our mates so it's a close run thing.
getting there. getting there.
.
Would it help if I said that it'll be 25° today?
And more importantly after the last few weeks, calm and sunny. Had my first post-run dip in the harbour last night too. Still chilly (always is) but quite refreshing
it's all gone a bit wild and windy here
electric blanket has been sent to work early
at a point
of wishing actual physical harm against the fucking arsehole and all the other senior tories, possibly spreading to anyone who votes for the fuckers.
One of the reasons I'm glad I'm not there
I'm getting angry enough from 19000 km away. I'd probably asplode if I was actually present
This.
A massive row broke out in the kitchen at work this morning between two Tories and three Corbynites.The latter defeated the former by the lowdown trick of using facts to defeat lies and hyperbole.
And one of the Toriest of Tories in another part of the office has announced he will not be voting Tory this time. I asked him who he was going to vote for, and he said "I don't know, I might just draw a massive cock".
there were actually 3 tories
one was hiding in the fridge
Was he the massive cock?
...
Erstwhile Toriest of Tories
has voted Lib Dem, the first time ever he didn't vote Tory. And he's given up his party membership too.
I met some colleague of yours yesterday at some do
Maybe called nick or Rick? Don't worry our secret is still safe.
Don't think we've got any other Ni(c)ks in London,
but we have three Ricks, Baptista, Sequeria and Candel, all engineers.
Edit: Ah, yes we do indeed have a Nick, Mr St John, good bloke him, and a very good engineer. We worked on KGX1 together, though I'm with a different team now. He's just stopped by my desk to tell me he ran into you.
And the square is circled
I also met someone who lives around the corner from me and worked at price and Myers with loads of people I know.
I was there many years ago.
Many at AKT were.
I wonder if locking yourself out of your house
When going to the polling station across the street should make your vote count for less.
Mind that would be hard I think we are in one of the safest labour seats in the country
So are we...
Still turned out to vote though. Turnout matters, even if it doesn't change anything in your particular constituency.
I'm popping into Brewdog Shoreditch on the way home... Brewdog are giving away a free pint in their bars if you show them a selfie of yourself at the polling station.
that would involved
going across town to Brodog. Went into my local, almost as close to the house as Al's polling staton is to his house, on the way home. They weren't giving away free booze but did have a nice wiezen on.
Leigh went conservative after being Labour for nearly 100 years.
Makerfield was close, tory + brexit got more votes than Labour so it was a bit too close for comfort.
I didn't even read the tory propaganda that came through the door.
So it was all Brexit related?
Just out of curiosity
Likely so, yes.
For people who aren't paying attention "get brexit done" was enough to win their vote.
Still trying to digest that
a genocidal wannabe dictator was in Cambridge today because Cat Stevens (as was) invited him here.
Reality is broken
I just read that
him and Billy Bragg in the same week, you can't tell me that's coincidence.
It's utterly
bonkers. It's like people here don't read the news that doesn't involve their local area.
and it's an awful message
for the senior members of the mosque to be sending to Kurdish muslims living in Cambridge (turns out there's quite a few)
But the mosque is eco friendly.
So that's all right.
I was confused and wondered why trump would go to a mosque.
...
In other fake news, what's the deal with this site, it's content seems to be entirely scraped / lifted from other news sites, but all seems pretty inane stuff.. is it just for the ad revenue? but that must be tiny for a site nobody knows?
https://thewashingtont...if it is a fake news site.. why is the logo so bad?
To catch mis-types?
presumably.... maybe its more of a domain squatting thing
...
what telly did you get?
we want one about the same size/price and I can't be arsed doing my own research
this
jvc lt-40c890 40" smart 4k ultra hd
seems decent but if i had teh space i'd probably go for teh 43 inch LG one.
They're all on clearance at about 220 now (in curry's)
with the Fire TV version replacing it (currently £299)
tell 'em jammers sent you
and you get another fiver off.
do you do a five-finger
discount?
Last day in my 40s...
And off to somewhere secret for a surprise mini-trip tomorrow. All I know is that I have to get an early flight to Geneva...
The are going to put you in the large hadron collider
and you'll emerge in your true form and discover your super-power*
*a slight nagging pain in your right hip just before it rains.
Maybe I AM dark matter
...
or a higgs bozo
.
Or the even rarer
Higg's 90nz0!
Shows up clearly in the data though.
Very reflective...
Welcome to the Old Git Club.
Though I suspect you'll have been practicing for membership for some years. I know I did.
dignitas?
-guilty laugh-
That’s Zürich. Unless they have a French-speaking branch now.
Christ. I’m worried now.
I was hoping for a visit to CERN!
I've been in Zurich for most of this week
They need it more
And here I am at fucking CERN!!!!
Geekiest present ever!!!!!
he's got a hadron
..
I said that on the twitters
yesterday and got exactly one (1) like. Very poor.
That’s a “large hadron”, if you want to be accurate.
Now off to birthday surprises part 2... Lyon for the fete de Lumieres. Once we manage to get a train since the striking French are fucking everything up...
4rf!
Excellent - the best thing about Switzerland?
Well, the flag's a big plus...
That never gets old
On a serious note... Switzerland is a beautiful, amazing country. Unfortunately, it's got the Swiss in it.
^^^^^^
fortunately it has swiss dogs in it too
Hash Brown - the new MFC?
It's funnier
when it happens to someone else.
He'd only been there four days.
i want to know what their real name was
it does seem a bit hash
erm harsh
Mrs Witchy works there
but hasn't mentioned it. I'll ask her.
well then
48, years old
blimmy.
epo and monkey glands
very good for maintaining a youthful outlook
Mmmm
spicy monkey glands!
it's not natural
literally, in this case
Due to inability to tell you about it on their webnanny,
you'll be unaware that my previous employer/least invoiced client sponsored a half decent cycling team:
https://canyondhb.co.u...They used to take the fitter land directors and some consultants out for a ride/heart attack every autumn after the season ended.
I had noticed that and meant to ask about that
...
Our parent company's
UK distributor of things that carry the parent company's branding (so not our products) in the UK is headed up by a cycling but who seems to spend basically all his marketing budget on sponsoring races, teams (this year two one men's and two women's) and individual riders.
Sadly we have nothing to do with any of that.
Our MD was a cycling nut also, and there are several in his management tree
However, he was fired by his dad earlier this year, that management tree is being extensively pruned, and I don't expect they'll be doing the sponsorship deal again.
hah
announced this morning that their new sponsor is Soreen, Replaced by Malt Loaf.
Replaced by Malt Loaf
was a decent album, let down by they poor lyrics though.
I take it we've all seen the butt-sunning nonsense?
Anyone want to join me in starting an anal sun salon in Shoreditch? I reckon we could clear up in 6 months then do a runner.
the what now?
I must go back in Twitter
This is afairly good summary of where we are now...
can't imagine what the neighbours will say
if I start doing that
A couple of decades ago
me and some mates came up with a concept production company called BURNT RING PRODUCTIONS, largely because of our love of spicy food. We could resurrect that and bring it into the twenties.
Can I just say that I am exceedingly freaked out by the fact
that in less than five weeks, we will be in the 2020s?
Fuck's sake!
and me & Mrs Witchy will still
think the mid-90s was only 10 years ago.
Well to be fair, they were!
It most certainly can't be 20 years since I finished my Ph.D.
Screw you time!
next year will be 25 years
since I graduated university.
I almost had heart failure when I worked it out as 35. So that's how long it takes to forget basic maths apparently.
Last my group of uni mates went on hols to celebrate our 40th's.
We were shocked to realise one progeny was 10 already.
I only realised the other day that when we turn 50, he'll turn TWENTY.
Fuck that.
*shuffles past, smelling of wee*
Aha, y'ould codger ya!
Hahahaha :)
I danced for hours last night
at an XR fancy dress 90s rave party. My knees are absolutely fucked today.
is it going to be quicker riches
than selling boxes of dirt to audiophiles
one of my friends
was on the university picket line that Billy Bragg joined today
He loves a good picket, Billy does.
....
Wilson?
Flying?
Fence?
apparently he was back in Cambridge today
joining the kids, mainly.
Maybe I should try it
I'm feeling poorly. I'm in work though because I was told that taking a sick day during my probationary period would result in the company dropping me.
Thankfully it's not busy and I intend going home and sleeping when my shift is finished.
a) that's ridiculous
and b) still, it's nice to spread it around
Surely that has to break all sorts of employment laws?
That is massively fucked up. Or has the UK become even more wold west Murican since I left?
nothing new, 20 years ago I was hauled into a disciplinary review
for taking a sick day during my probation at BT
only difference between then and now is that you don't get to lodge a claim of unfair dismissal until you've been employed for 2 years, it used to be 1.
That's shocking
So for two years, they have carte blanche to do whatever the fuck they like? That ain't right! Some things certainly are better here in NZ
well they do have to go through a full disciplinary procedure
so you can't really fire someone for a sick day, but the reality is that most people in such jobs are either on zero hours or agency contracts, so it's not being sacked, it's just not being given hours. And a tribunal isn't going to even look at your case as a short-timer, unless actual discrimination is involved.
You seem to know a suspicious amount
about this.
nope
in the first two years you can just be handed your notice without reason, no disciplinary required. Which is why employees of less than two years don't get statutory redundancy in the case of job losses.
However if you have evidence that the underlying reason is discrimination you can take them to tribunal.
If it's in your probation period
they can basically dump you for pretty much any reason with little come back.*
(* though if you can prove discrimination all bets are off)
Probation period is standard and legal.
Also, some staff started today without 12h off shift since yesterday and we were told that we may have to take our breaks in two 15 minute chunks.
A couple of us had to do the less-than-12h thing last year
and were given an extra day Annual Leave in compensation.
Is that a thing now?
I wonder if it includes travel? If so my boss owes me a ton of time off....
Oh hang on, he knows exactly how much time I spend arsing about on the internet..
I don't think it's an official thing.
But my place is pretty good about that sort of stuff. They also gave us taxi expenses, because we didn't leave the office till 1am.
We've discussed this before
Your boss is a lunatic, I wouldn't dare broach the subject with him!
Mine's a total cunt too
The fucker doesn't even seem to pay me, from what I can tell
Man, what a cunt
Sorry mate!