Not Gone Yet

I realise that it has been sometime since I put anything substantial on this page,

Nothing earthshattering has occurred  like; winning the Euro Millions, being killed to death by artwork  or losing both arms in a freak sex game gone wrong. 

The main reason is that my area of operation  (or AO as my manager likes to call it , git)  has moved on,  SE London is virtually complete and we have moved on to  SW London and all parts Croydon

So what was once a  leisurely commute on the train  or a 45 min drive, has turned into  at best an  1 1/2 hour slog around the South Circular  or on the M25  through the ‘managed’ road works.  ( I worked out my average speed for last week, it was 15 mph )  For readers from foreign climes like ‘The North’ There is no easy way to go from SE London to SW London by public transport , you have to go into town and then back out again.  Then once home there are reports to write, incidents to log,  product updates to read. 

Quite frankly I have not had the inclination to blog about anything at all . Do I foresee a return to blogging, yes I would hope so,  just need to give myself a kick up the arse at some point.  Or like with POETS Day or Picture of the Week (which got curtailed as RL got in the way) , find a hook to get me interested again .

However  I do still read all my chums on the right sidebar assiduously (through a reader so won’t show on your stats sorry) I make the odd comment here and there. 

So much props to  James Higham , Mark Wadsworth and Julia M  to name but three for turning out cogent articles on a daily basis , I don’t know how you do it.  Keep up the good work.

See you soon

Mr Pavlov’s Cat

I Don’t Want Anybody Else

Divinyls singer Chrissy Amphlett dies aged 53

Very sad, writer and singer of possibly the filthiest, sexist pop song ever.

I’m still surprised when it’s played on the radiophone. 

Hyperbole Du Jour 'It was like something from Apocalypse Now'

 

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But on March 15 - just two weeks later - huge JCBs moved onto the site and demolished the house that had been there since the 1970s.

Powerless neighbours watched in shock as the machines tore the house down, in a scene they compared to the helicopter attack in cult film 'Apocalypse Now'.

Now I’ve seen the film many times,  once even sitting through the extended ‘Directors Redux’  [There’s 49 minutes I’ll never get back. Ed]

I recall helicopters , machine guns , napalm ,  but I can’t recall any of the GI’s having a rolled up copy of The Sun in their back pocket ,

Perhaps the digger drivers were blasting ‘Ride of The Valkyries’ from their cabs rather than Magic FM or perhaps the foreman said something like “ I love the smell of diesel and Old Holborn in the morning” I guess we’ll never know .

But ‘like something from Apocalypse Now’ No, no it wasn’t . 

In fact it’s a non-story , family took too good to be true offer for house ,  legal owner does what perfectly entitled to do with their property and knock it down , to rebuild the house as they want.

I’m sure Mark Wadsworth will correct me if I’m wrong , but this is happening frequently now ,  land with planning permission is so scarce and over valued , it is often cheaper ( for a rich persons definition of cheaper )  to buy an existing property , knock it down and build your own house to your specification. 

The only complaint I can see coming is if it has been bought to put  more than one dwelling on the land say 4 Barrett boxes  or one of those hideous low rise blocks of 1 bed flats.  That then becomes a matter for the Planning Authority.    

One Up From ‘Handbags’

But just short of a ‘Fight’

I don’t know about you but I find the use of the word ‘scrap’ delightful.

The Devil’s Tail

The Daily Fail is making a big fuss about the translator on the BBC making a hash of translating The Lords Prayer  (and the Hail Mary)  Well it could well be that the man is not a religious person , if he’s under probably 30 he never learned it at assembly , so was trying to translate on the fly, he never had to recite it each morning ( note I did not go to a ‘faith school’ just a normal  English Primary & Junior school and assembly finished with The Lords Prayer (we even sung a ‘Calypso’ version  which was fun.)  This was back in the day when Christian values were seen as something to aspire to (and general to all) , but the past is a foreign country they did things differently then and we must move with the times and embrace other cultures, religions and life styles. How backward we were then and how much we have benefited from all the changes and vibrancy it has brought. 

Of course being the BBC, he was probably raised by Guardian readers on a diet of sutras and hadiths. If the Pope had been quoting Siddhartha or Mohammed he’d have got it spot on.

However I recall being from a Catholic family going to instruction for my First Holy Communion and the priest asking us to recite The Lords Prayer and then being chastised when after all the others had finished carrying on with;

“And Thine Is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory
For Ever and Ever

Amen”

“Did you not know?” He said  “That’s the Devil’s Tail , it’s part of the Devil trying to corrupt the word of Our Lord, Our Lord did not say this as part of his prayer it is plot on behalf of the Protestants” He may have been slightly deranged but I have never yet heard it in a Catholic church .

So being the Capo di Left Footers I doubt very much that  Pope Francis  said it also  and yet The Daily Mail compound the error with.

Now amended but this is the original

So

Dear Daily Mail

From a book that probably none of you have ever read  (But I have)

Judge not, that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

Yours

Pavlov's Cat

Addendum : It has been amended , but to paraphrase Gowron  The internet never forgives or forgets  

Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Part 100000……)

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This actually happened at a company I worked for. The company provided decent instant coffee and tea plus milk. Then it started , the boxes of ‘Special K’ and ‘Crunchy Nut’ began to appear in the cupboards.

Until it reached the point that all you could hear from 9.00-9.30 was slurping and the clink of spoon on bowl,  I’m sorry in the first instance you’re paid to work at work , not spend the first half hour having breakfast which you were supposed to do at home.

It got so that you couldn’t get a cup of tea with milk after midday because of course all the breakfast munchers still wanted their teas and coffees.

It all blew up when the MD offered some important clients a hot beverage only to be told that it would be a while as someone had to go to the Qwik-E-Mart to get some milk. 

That was it , no more tea , no more coffee, no more milk ,

Instead we got a vending machine with all the horribleness that entails which produces “a cup of tea . not quite, entirely unlike tea"

It was I admit subsidised by the company so it was only 10p a cup  and there was no bar on bringing in your own milk , tea or coffee.

But the moaning went on for weeks, yet  nobody could understand when I pointed out “You took the piss, this is what happens”  

So that was when I got used to drinking black coffee when needed (made form a jar I kept in my [Locked] drawer.

As an addendum, I’d like to add that approximately 90% of the staff lived within 15-30 minutes of the office, so the  “oooooh I leave so early I don’t have time for breakfast” was no defence.

Actually to me it is no defence ,” Get up earlier “  don’t like it , change jobs ,

A Yum Yum Treat

OK they are 90p  for approximately one Yum Yum , which compared to  the normal 4 full sized Yum Yums for  £1.00 is a tad expensive.

But it was still a nice little treat to have with my coffee at lunch today.