Jump to content
Euro 2024 Coverage ×
Just visiting?

chrisp65

Established Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    30,035

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    150

 Content Type 

Posts posted by chrisp65

    • Popular Post
    • Popular Post

    General Chat

    in Off Topic

    Posted

    We have a couple of schemes here which are under scrutiny, pilot schemes where you basically get a life coach. Someone that will make sure you are up and out of bed, fix a proper meal, deal with the mail, get down the post office and generally function.

    Early days but for the ones it works on it's like a mini miracle. The cost of a month of intense one to one is thousands. The results potentially save literally hundreds of thousands where it works.

    One thing I will say, until recently I had presumed that a hard man 22 year old that can name ever drug and its price and get hold of bad people on their mobile phine would be able to operate a washing machine and organise beans on toast. I was wrong. There are people, adults, that need to be shown how to make beans on toast. When they can do that, when they first cook their own lunch, well bloody hell it is emotional.

    It will not work in a lot of cases. Just like prison doesn't. Just like no one fix ever will. It's finding the block to match the hole.

    • Like 5

    The banker loving, baby-eating Tory party thread (regenerated)

    in Off Topic

    Posted

    :snip:

    On the whole, the majority of good people agreed Corbyn was a breath of fresh air, had some interesting ideas worthy of discussion,

     

     The majority of Insane inbred users of Twitter maybe  but in the real world good people vote Tory , that's apparent by the fact Tory supporters didn't trash McDonalds and vandalise war memorials when Blair won in 97 

    anyhows Darth Vadar was the good guy destroying Endor to kill Isis  and the Jedi's were clearly on a power trip with their police state

     

    Well that's your take on the previous thread. It could be true. But then we'd have to ask why the establishment had it taken down wouldn't we.

     

     

    • Popular Post
    • Popular Post

    The banker loving, baby-eating Tory party thread (regenerated)

    in Off Topic

    Posted

    Looks like it is dead, so probably worth a neutral precis of the old thread.

    Long, long ago, in a galaxy far away there was your basic fight between good and evil. Many battles were won and lost, many people were lost along the way. Whilst Darth Thatcher was long dead the Death Star was still spewing out clones. One such clone, an apparently inoffensive posh boy that wasn't bothered whether he got the job or not managed to become PM. It later transpired that to try and fit in with his rich tory chums he had once (at least once) **** a dead pig in the mouth. He wasn't depraved, it's just what you do at tory dining clubs. It's a bit like when normal people go to a Harvester and pile up on cold potatoes and croutons at the salad bar, totally ignoring the leaves and beetroot. It's a bit rude, but everyone does it.

    Anyway, after some shenanigans a new jedi emerges. Not the finished article, he often wears an oatmeal coloured jacket with a brown tie, some say his top button wasn't done up in church. Some say he refused to show the Queen his tonsils. Some say he is the anti-christ and should be taken out by drone attack to prevent further treason.

    On the whole, the majority of good people agreed Corbyn was a breath of fresh air, had some interesting ideas worthy of discussion, but would be crushed by the screaming media. With the lickspittle reactionary BBC running articles daily about how he was a nutjob terrorist shagger that had once had sex out of wedlock his days were numbered. Like a piglet at a tory fundraiser, he knew life at the top would be bright, brief, and end with sausage. Amongst Jedi Corbyn's crimes, he suggested public ownership of utilities, fair and equal rules for all schools, more housing, less QE straight to banks and a promise to discuss increased safety for women on public transport if that was what people wanted. This radical agenda was generally accepted to be worse than illegal wars, economic and moral bankruptcy, pig **** and stopping school meals for poor children whilst paying the Chinese to design nuclear power station software for us.

    Beige, was briefly, the new black.

    CO2qorGWoAAdbtv.jpg

    • Like 10

    Your three favorite books since 1970 ...

    in Off Topic

    Posted

    Off the top of my head (the list would probably change daily)

    The Age of Capital - Eric Hobsbawn - one of a very small number I will read and read again and go to as a sort of reference book

    He Kills Coppers - Jake Arnott - just a good old retro pulp 60's stylee british gangster caper (see also The Long Firm)

    Perfume- Patrick Suskind - just really enjoyed it

    I have no discernible taste when it comes to books, other than a love of disposable brit pulp (Colin MacInnes - absolute hero) I like to keep it varied. Don't really do much horror, war or sci fi. Though having said that, I have had flings with Sven Hassel and Isaac Asimov. I guess they were an easy entry into books for someone that started a bit late.  

    Next weekend we are having one of 'our' paperback culls.

    General Chat

    in Off Topic

    Posted · Edited by chrisp65

    You have to keep on keeping on. It's corny but it's true. As Mooney says, you have to try and persuade some away from their peers. Pick off the periphery or pay off the ring leaders.

    You have to celebrate little victories, because one little victory is potentially a whole family put on a different course. On the case of the hub that was torched, that particular group was knocked back by lack of funds for a while - volunteers and staff were disbursed elsewhere. But I've since seen that they are back and have taken over a closed pub and have grafitti all over the outside advertising that they are a yoof club with recording rooms and stuff . It's in a part of Cardiff I rarely visit anymore.

    But every time your wages are converted to tax and spent teaching noisy kids how to edit rap music some of them become interested enough not to get in to trouble and go to prison and cost you £40,000 a year in accommodation. It makes their kids less likely to go to prison. It makes their grand kids less likely...

    SureStart and FlyingStart do similar work. Using your tax to employ women (mostly women) to explain to new young mums how to feed a baby properly and how to spot a paedo.

    A long hard slog, but well worth it.

    The annoying little bastards.

     

    What do you drive?

    in Off Topic

    Posted

    Tony,

    Yeah, I've probably given a few versions of that story before, it's a fave! Be interesting to find the old ones and see how much the facts have changed!

    It's etched in to my brain, it was my first 'big' problem thing I had to deal with as a grown up. New family, no money and a car company trying to dick me for a few thousand pound. I'd have been happy to buy Golfs for the rest of my life rather than have to think about it. I told them that and their attitude was 'whatever'. Having been to lots of years of VW events and the like over the years it was a sickener for a while.

    Obviously I'm completely over it now and at peace with the world once again!

     

    What do you drive?

    in Off Topic

    Posted

    Many years ago I bought a Beetle from a VW main dealer, not a new one but a decent one. Then I bought a nearly new Golf. Then I bought a new Golf.

    I'd always queried that the engine didn't sound right, but had always been told it was fine. I'd had the good sense to go in to print from the start.

    Anyway, first service after 3 year warranty was up and the main dealer phones to say the engine is knackered. A month of arguing between me, the dealer and VW and it's agreed that my having put my concerns in writing at every service since new is a bit of a killer. So VW instruct the main dealer that they have to give me a new engine at their expense. In a bizarre piece of revenge, the main dealer then gives me a file of letters and e-mails between him and the VW head office and engineers. Basically, VW told the dealer (before they knew what I had in writing) that the engine had a flaw in it from the get go, it was a defect they'd seen in other cars - but there was no way they were telling me and to try and get me to pay for all of it, or as much as I could be convinced to pay without going legal.

    Anyway, in the end VW and the dealer went halves, I paid nothing. I never bought a VW product again.

    I appreciate somebody somewhere could most likely tell the same story for any other manufacturer. That much will be true. But if you're happy to keep buying from proven conmen, that's great, best of luck to you.

    Birmingham New Street

    in Off Topic

    Posted

    This 'Grand Central' thing. I've done a very quick dig around, no more than a few wiki pages. New Street or it's predecessors on the same site were in operation from 1852 and formally named and opened in 1854. At the time it was like nothing previously seen, 40 trains per hour and the world's largest single span roof. A record it kept for 14 years, not bad going in the white heat of industrial expansion across the globe.

    It was initially known as 'The Grand Central Station at Birmingham' a slightly grandiose title for a station in a town (wouldn't be a city for another 30 years). But that was how it was referred to, prior to the building of the New York version.

    New Street is the largest and busiest station in the UK outside of central London.

    I wouldn't worry too much about looking small time. It's more about knowing your history and being a bit more on the front foot against upstarts like mouthy Manchester.

    • Like 4

    What do you drive?

    in Off Topic

    Posted

    It'll be interesting with VW to see if they are allowed to fail. The share price is down by over a third and they've confessed that test cheating software has been installed in millions of cars worldwide. Not an error or a design fault or something poorly designed, something deliberately installed to cheat the emissions tests that are supposed to protect or their customers and the public.

    The USA are talking about $24,000 dollar fines for every one of the 480,000 cars sold by deception. France, Italy and the UK now calling for a full EU investigation. So the company is potentially looking at billions of dollars of fines, a change of leadership, a totally different share position and a much reduced image with the car buying public. 

    I'd have thought that the German government can't allow a company the size of VW Audi to fail or get bought by China. 

     

    Birmingham New Street

    in Off Topic

    Posted

    as a main contractor i love it when you finish a project, in this case 5 years and £700m, sit there all proud of yourself and then see criticisms such as "patchy wifi"

    im working with Mace elsewhere, heard some snippets of info about it, will try and find out how the opening has gone

    planners that think they are designers

    local councillors that think good design is brown pvc tudor trimmings

    project managers that think the thinking time in design is the obvious place to make up some time

    clients that want the absolute bottom price, the absolute best trades people, the absolute minimum time on site, and a design award

    • Like 1
×
×
  • Create New...
Â