My out of office email reply

[jenkinsbrynmair]

On the way to work this morning (half way over the mountain) the clutch went on the jeep, i managed to get to work and arrange recovery (local man came to pich up the jeep and take me home (quicker and cheaper than the AA!)

Due to the jeep having the clutch replaced I shall be working from home for the rest of the day.

I've checked my personal emails, been on ebay and the forum and I've bought a kindle book on Amazon. I shall shortly be making a cup of tea and eating a sandwich . After my lunch break I shall do a bit of online banking, make a cup of tea check ebay then stare out of the window for an hour, conduct some fishing business of national importance and write to the First Minister of Wales, before staring out of the window for a further 40 minutes and brewing another cup of tea. I think that will then be enough work for one day so I shall then sign off, go and look at the bees and relax for a few hours - just another normal day at the office really (at least no tiring commute home over the mountain).

 

[VEG]

you sure thats not your face book status lol

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Just remembered, it's Thursday - busiest day of the week - so I shall have to read two chapers of my book before my afternoon teabreak as well

 

[itma]

Its always nice to hear of someone finding a job that really uses their talents.

 

[rachann]

What, no biscuits

 

[pargyle]

What, no biscuits

It's JBM ... he'll have some cake hidden away somewhere ... just not letting us know in case it causes a rush !!

 

[Margaret Elisabeth]

It's JBM ... he'll have some cake hidden away somewhere ... just not letting us know in case it causes a rush !!

Why is it impossible to make a comment without a quote just now.
Is it raining as hard in Wales as it is here in Sheffield ?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Why is it impossible to make a comment without a quote just now.
Is it raining as hard in Wales as it is here in Sheffield ?

Off and on all afternoon (I noticed during my staring out of the window break) - it's not too bad, and the bees don't seem to mind

 

[Margaret Elisabeth]

Off and on all afternoon (I noticed during my staring out of the window break) - it's not too bad, and the bees don't seem to mind

Mine were about this morning and it is still warm but raining too much for me to bother checking if the girls are taking a shower.

 

[REDWOOD]

I wouldn't make a habit of it SWMBO will have her little list out, Better to say I've had a hard day at the office

 

[Hachi]

Earn or learn said Mr Cameron. Looks like your living his dream by doing both Jenks

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Earn or learn said Mr Cameron. Looks like your living his dream by doing both Jenks

yerrrs - I would say that the only good tory is a d..... but unfortunately that would bring Maggie out of the satanic pantheon and contaminate the list of genuine good people.
I wonder what damage they'll do to the country this time there being no mines left to close? This man hasn't even got the cojones to give the argies another well deserved thrashing.

Anyway, back in the office (as you can see) to a brimming official email inbox (well, two departemntal spam type mails and one announcing that we are on the verge of getting our annual pay increase of 0.5%!!)
Already awash with tea and as per civil service guidelines, not allowed to stare out of the window until gone mid-day (something to look forward to at least) and not much activity on here either: maybeIi'll have to upset someone to get a good thread going - any volunteers!! I wish they'd hurry up and find me something worthwhile to do.

 

[pargyle]

I wonder what damage they'll do to the country this time there being no mines left to close?

As a Yorkshireman and from the heartlands of the Yorkshire coalfield I hate to disagree with you JBM but, if you research the history of the coal mining industry in the UK, I think you will find that the decline in mining was well under way before Maggie tried to close only 20 pits that were wholly uneconomic and being heavily subsidised by the Government. King Arthur, forcing a strike for what history will show as a lost cause, did more damage to the mining industry than Maggie or Major. It had little chance of recovery after the floodgates to imported coal were opened and the CEGB (as it was) decided that coal was no longer the best option for power generation.

Lets face it ... how many houses by the late 1970's were being heated solely by coal fires ...

When I was a kid in Yorkshire (in the 50's & 60's) central heating was almost non-existent. We cooked on a coal fired range, coal fires heated the house and virtually everyone I knew had a coal delivery every month ...the miners (all pit workers actually) got their coal allowance - 4 tons a year from memory - free, that alone must have accounted for a million tons

There's a very interesting and unbiased wiki entry here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_miners'_strike_(1984–1985)#Pit_closures_announced

There's been a lot wrong with British Industry over the period after WWII. Complacency, lack of investment, government subsidies ... the feeling amongst British Industry that they could simply keep going in the same old way.

I remember someone saying to me when the first Honda 50 motorcyle hit McDonalds Motorcycle dealership in Mexborough in the early 60's .. Plastic rubbish - they will never catch on, people want proper motorcycles ... and so they did - but not the pre-war engineered Triumph/BSA/Norton/Velocette/Ariel/Francis Barnett etc. etc. The Japanese took the best of our engineering, updated it and sold it back to us at half the price - and with reliablility and no OIL LEAKS !!

British Industry stood still for nearly three decades ... whilst the rest of the world caught up and passed us ... coal industry included. Change or die ... hindsight is a very clear science !

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

The majority of homes were still coal fired around here in the '70's and 80's - we have proper hard coal not that tarry stuff you get further East and if you ask locally (and this was corroborated by a BBC programme on the strike a few years ago) The strike was killed off by the Northeners (they'd obviously decided to give up before the fight was being won)
remember Scargill and his mob stabbed the South Wales lads in the back by refusing to support them a little before in the other big strike in that decade - one that was wholly justified BTW.
I agree that some pits were unviable - Abernant near me being one of them. but the others: Tower and Ammanford No3 (the new Betws colliery) were strong mines, Betws, like tower were taken over by the workers and was prifitable. it only closed a few years ago due to a faulty piece of machinery catching fire a few years ago and the insurers using that as an excuse to put the premiums sky high pricing them out of the market and meaning the whole site was worth a lot more as real estate (house builders were screaming for development land in the area.)
But there we are - whole communities and families blown apart, businesses still feeling the shockwaves now, no work no prospects and thanks to the new bunch another kick in the crutch. but still, Maggie, salt of the earth - was a saint really. in fact the local old boys have dug deep into their pensions and as a token of their esteem there's a hundred tons of best South West Wales anthracite awaiting delivery to the gates of hell to really get the fires going

 

[pargyle]

The majority of homes were still coal fired around here in the '70's and 80's - we have proper hard coal not that tarry stuff you get further East - Yes -probably some of the best coal in the world ! Welsh Steam Coal was a byword for the best there was !!

and if you ask locally (and this was corroborated by a BBC programme on the strike a few years ago) The strike was killed off by the Northeners (they'd obviously decided to give up before the fight was being won)

The Lancashire coal miners did not even want to strike, and were forced into it by their leaders, Nottinghamshire didn't and broke away ... But, I don't think there was ever a chance of winning ... the strike lacked public support except in the areas of the coalfields and Scargill was tarnished by a lot of both true and untrue smears. A vile winter hit, preparation had been put in by the power stations with huge stocks of coal in place - Scargill was warned that it was a bad time, that it was a lost cause for the 20 pits (and these were mainly Northern, totally uneconimic mines) with only 12,000 jobs out of an industry total of 400,000 forecast to go and that the NUM only had funds to support a short term strike. He mistakenly believed that other unions such as the Railworkers and the TGWU would come out in support and they never did - in the end, the biggest losers were probably the welsh miners and their associated communities. You are right about that ...there are almost ghost towns up the valleys these days.

remember Scargill and his mob stabbed the South Wales lads in the back by refusing to support them a little before in the other big strike in that decade - one that was wholly justified BTW.

Totally true ... and in many respects the Welsh coal industry was in a much better position to be continued than a lot of the Northern pits.

I agree that some pits were unviable - Abernant near me being one of them. but the others: Tower and Ammanford No3 (the new Betws colliery) were strong mines, Betws, like tower were taken over by the workers and was prifitable. it only closed a few years ago due to a faulty piece of machinery catching fire a few years ago and the insurers using that as an excuse to put the premiums sky high pricing them out of the market and meaning the whole site was worth a lot more as real estate (house builders were screaming for development land in the area.)

Sad, but nothing new there ... we see it everywhere ... when land becomes more valuable than what is built on it ... it goes. Madness in some respects.

But there we are - whole communities and families blown apart, businesses still feeling the shockwaves now, no work no prospects and compounded by 13 years of a labour govenrment who also did nothing of any note to create any alternative jobs - it's a sad fact that we have lost much of our manufacturing and I fear that we are destined to become a country of pen pushers, mobile phone salesmen and estate agents D

I'm pretty much apolitical .. I don't think there's a government in my lifetime that have ever done anything for me .. they all seem to blunder along looking after their own particular cronies and lining their own pockets, always looking for the 'new big idea' in the hope that it will keep them in office ... come the revolution, Brother, come the revolution !!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

"compounded by 13 years of a labour govenrment who also did nothing of any note to create any alternative jobs "

Ah well, Blair was never 'labour' he was just a very sly tory who realised there was no chance of power for years to come so pretended to be a socialist to get in through the back door.
As for Brown, well, as much as I hate Clarkson i wholehaertedly agree with his comment, although I would have added 'methodist' to the sentence

 

[pargyle]

"compounded by 13 years of a labour govenrment who also did nothing of any note to create any alternative jobs "

Ah well, Blair was never 'labour' he was just a very sly tory who realised there was no chance of power for years to come so pretended to be a socialist to get in through the back door.
As for Brown, well, as much as I hate Clarkson i wholehaertedly agree with his comment, although I would have added 'methodist' to the sentence

Well that's something we can TOTALLY agree on ....

 

[Dishmop]

I remember someone saying to me when the first Honda 50 motorcyle hit McDonalds Motorcycle dealership in Mexborough in the early 60's .. Plastic rubbish - they will never catch on, people want proper motorcycles ... and so they did - but not the pre-war engineered Triumph/BSA/Norton/Velocette/Ariel/Francis Barnett etc. etc. The Japanese took the best of our engineering, updated it and sold it back to us at half the price - and with reliablility and no OIL LEAKS !!

So very true.

and look at VW.... Who kept that going after WW2........so why doesnt it belong to the UK?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

So very true.

and look at VW.... Who kept that going after WW2........so why doesnt it belong to the UK?

Well they brought British specialists in, put it back on its feet and made it a world successful product - then gave it back to the Germans - the reasoning I think was a lesson learnt from the Great war when the french decided to totally humiliate the losing Germans, bankrupt them and leave them starving thus paving the way for natziism, Hitler, hatred of the Jews and the second world war. (still leaves a bad taste in the mouth now though to see the losers now looking down on the rest of us)

And as an aside doid you know that one of the biggest supporters of fascism and hitler in the 1930's was................ wait for it..............

THE DAILY MAIL​

 

[REDWOOD]

We flatened Germany and then rebuilt it with the latest machines and we still plodded along with out of date stuff

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