Not sure how to measure these things but for what it's worth I can see a massive drop in my work email and telephone calls so far this week.
Normally I get a fairly constant flow of both. Now either everyone's on holiday or someone's trying to tell me something...
Gizzajob? I can do that....
:-)
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Seems like the whole country is off - roads are busy here three day week this week as well, still waiting for a cheque to clear that I paid in last Wednesday. Bonkers way to do business...
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The world is dead. Although the schools are back the tube is empty.
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>>..still waiting for a cheque to clear that I paid in last Wednesday. Bonkers way to do business...>>
Don't want to upset you, but worth reading this:
tinyurl.com/3v86dhs
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It's appeared on my account details but not usable, at least I'll get the interest on it..!
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I booked the three days off. Eleven days away from work for just three days holiday. I even turned my BlackBerry off, which I never normally do.
Need the break, to be honest.
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Busiest week for ages for me. Interview last Thursday, resulted in job offer in back pocket. Another interview yesterday, went well and hoping to get offer as I think I'd prefer it to the first job. Two more phone interviews tomorrow, and cancelling one too.
After 5 months off work looks like I might have to earn a living again... :-(
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For me last week was dead but this week has been extremely busy.
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It's been very frustrating this week. I've been trying to move money between accounts and make purchasing arrangements, and the short week has made everything very difficult.
I really think that it would have been better for the Royals to have picked a different date for their nuptials - maybe in June/July when we don't normally have any Bank Holidays.
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Well done Smokie ! Congratulations.
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Don't want to upset you, but worth reading this
Cleared today - in fairness a week after I paid it in which included two Bank Holidays last week. It wasn't a major worry.
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It's been quiet in Car4play this week.
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>> It's been quiet in Car4play this week.
>>
See post above re. busier this week ;-)
Rattle's got less free time to worry about having nothing to worry about.
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Right then all you retired types...The work interwebby thing is shut down. The BlackBerry is turned off. 4 days of playing at being idle to follow. Do I need to buy some gin? Is that the thing do you think? Or should I be searching for interesting gardens to visit? :-)
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Step 1
Loose the ToDo list the wife has left you.
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>> Step 1
>>
>> Lose the ToDo list the wife has left you.
>>
> i always suggest suggestions before the dreaded list appears
shes joined the national trust so going to make use of it for the first time this sunday
sounds good as i hate spending £24 on the door of some run down old house with faded curtains and plugs hid behind the scurtings
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The NT have some nice gardens to visit - we're lucky to have a few NT properties near is, e.g. Lyme Park, Dunham Massey... but have to pay the parking at Tatton Park :-(
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I am a member of the NT.
Joined in March, already done Claremont Gardens, Polesdon Lacey, and Hatchlands Park.
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Can't remember a time in my adult life when I've not been a member of the NT, and English Heritage, as it is now. Used to wander around with a card from the Dept of the Environment looking at Ministry of Works buildings originally.
What else would you do on holiday?
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"What else would you do on holiday?"
Drink, fight and screw around.
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>> What else would you do on holiday?
Windsurf, dive, mountain bike, ski, hire a 4x4.... versus look at plants and old houses?
Now, let me think about that...
:-)
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>> >> What else would you do on holiday?
Fly to somewhere warm with cheap food and booze. There is no NT in Italy!
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"There is no NT in Italy!"
Ah, but there is, or at least an organisation with similar aims:
www.fondoambiente.it
And the good news is that your newly acquired NT membership give you reciprocal visiting rights both to this and other overseas organisations.
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-visits-overseas_visitors/w-visits-overseas-countries.htm
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Coo! Ten suggestions in three replies and I've never had any interest in any of them. A record :)
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Very interesting CG, thanks. Some things to investigate there.
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You could visit Mr Darcy's estate at Pemberly. I hear he makes three thousand pounds a year.
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Oi Rattle! - Now then see above...
You want to get that bike out of the shed and an NT card bought. Fair chance of meeting a fit lass who likes fresh air and swinging her leg over. With any luck she's be a Grauniad reader and be impressed with your car too !
Only kidding me old fruit BTW !
:-)
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N.T. membership gives free parking at many N.T. properties.
If we visit Clumber Park at least 14 times a year that's the sub. covered!
After that it's FREE!
YAY!
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Add me to the list of NT members. We'll be visiting some of their places this weekend.
For those of you that don't already know them, Waddesdon Manor, Nymans, Stowe, and Sheffield Park (in Autumn) are lovely places to visit.
And don't forget the pilgrimage to Chartwell.
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Sorry, but I'm a National Trust denier.
Worked as a volunteer at Dunham Massey for many years as deputy park warden co-ordinator. They were totally dominated by making a profit out of the punters.
Rip off shop. A fellow warden's young daughter got a job in the restaurant as a skivvy. She was expected to do everything, on a pittance, while the management held interminable meetings .
We were allowed in the volunteers room in the house for 1 cup of tea per shift and allowed 2 biscuits. In winter, the house was closed and we weren't allowed in. We had a room about 6ft by 4 ft in the mill with no heater and no brew-up means.
We were allowed 1 cuppa on the house in the restaurant and had to sign a book at the till when we got it. The restaurant then invoiced the property monthly !
I organised the guided tours of the park, pond-dipping for local schools, village walks on the estate and some census research. I also recruited some new wardens.
I never claimed a penny in expenses, so I didn't cost them anything.
After having helped to set up the firstwarden service, knowing we had plenty of cover at all the opening times, I told them I wanted to step back for a year and just come in when I wanted...that was fine by them.
They sacked me a fortnight later !
Roger Grey, the last Duke of Stamford, who died in 1976, would have been appalled by the management of the woodland and the estate. There are 21 working farms owned by the estate all providing income. Lots of houses and cottages doing the same and still large chunks of land have been sold off for housing and a supermarket.
Money, money, money !
Never had any of mine since.
Ted
Last edited by: Ted on Thu 28 Apr 11 at 23:08
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...Sorry, but I'm a National Trust denier...
I am a member, but am saddened, although not surprised, by Ted's experience.
In broad terms I support what the trust does, but the politics leave me cold.
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That is sad. In all the years that I have been involved with charities I have never known a volunteer to be sacked. Perhaps the odd one or two have been on the receiving end of a ticking-off and have subsequently resigned, but they were not sacked.
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how can you sack a volunteer?
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>> how can you sack a volunteer?
>>
you could change the locks, I suppose...
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We had a room about 6ft by 4 ft in the mill with no heater and no brew-up means.
Ted surely that should read "t'mill" ! :-)
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I was ' removed frrom my poat ' by letter...not even a phone call. Mentioning t'mill reminded me of something else. The mill was built in 1616, I think.
Pert of our guided walks was to start the waterwheel for a few minutes while we talked about some of the equipment it powered. One season, one of the bearings collapsed and the wheel was put out of use.
One of our volunteers was a very skilled aerospace engineer from Woodford. he volunteered to make and fit a new bearing for the cost of materials...virtually nowt.
This became the subject of many management meetings, ending with the Northern area bigwig arriving from Shrewsbury and telling us that it had to be done by other means.
I recall the cost being in the tens of thousands, with the mill out of use for about 2 years...lots of visitors wanted to see it working.....madness !
The management of the woodland was very poor, culminating in the death of a schoolboy by a falling Beech tree. These trees were planted in 1714 and really were time expired...you only had to look at the stumps of others around them that had fallen in the past
The estate manager and his superior, the property manager, came within a whisker of manslaughter charges.
Ted
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Good God Ted, that's two NT horror stories from you in one day.
Sounds to me as if the NT went Thatcherite at a certain point and hired 'professional managers' (= world-class Onanists) to replace former volunteer managers who would certainly have been better. Same thing happened to the NHS and education system although in the latter case teachers must accept quite a lot of the blame, along with successive governments.
That woman has a hell of a lot to answer for. Pity she's gaga and can't now be held to account.
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thatcher neutered Arthur Scargill, for that you should be thankful.
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>> thatcher neutered Arthur Scargill, for that you should be thankful.
She was right about the unions and she was right about the Falklands. But on management and the economy she was seduced by Chicago school 'economists' who were sort of economic neocons, utterly monstrous crooks.
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>> Sounds to me as if the NT went Thatcherite at a certain point and hired
>> 'professional managers'
>> That woman has a hell of a lot to answer for. Pity she's gaga and
>> can't now be held to account.
>>
That's for sure - I don't vote, partly because of her... being that she was the one who started selling off the UK's family silver.
That ruined the 'fun' of politics for me.
BTW she was ALWAYS gaga....
Anyway, I just upset the local Tories... they came knocking on my door, I answered, and they asked id I have decided who I'm voting for.
I said 'no - Im still thinking' - they said who they were, I just answered 'I'm not thinking of Conservative - bye....'
(what I'm thinking is do I ruin the paper like last time....)
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Bits of Wales are being bought up by them to mixed reviews. The latest bit is the coastline around Aberdaron, some contrary views locally but some seem to think it'll attract jobs. Can't see Nissan building an engine plant there somehow...
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"That woman has a hell of a lot to answer for."
I did some work on The Downing Street Years as a young designer. I got paralytic at the launch party and forced myself on her. Conversationally, not sexually. She told me I'd never amount to anything if I continued to wear jeans for work. And she was right.
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If her power and ferocity hadn't turned you into a castrated wimp BBD she might have treated you with a bit more respect...
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She was impressive, no doubt about it. A few pros (chairman and publishers etc.) gave speeches that night but she wiped the floor with all of them. I had a bet on that I'd give her a peck on the cheek but I bottled out.
I wouldn't now though.
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She probably would, she thinks you're Dennis.
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>> She told
>> me I'd never amount to anything if I continued to wear jeans for work. And
>> she was right.
Oh. So you're not Jeremy Clarkson then, BBD. That's that theory out the window.
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>
>> Sounds to me as if the NT went Thatcherite at a certain point
I've seen Mrs. T blamed for a few things in my time, but this really stretches the point.
I've seen more than a few instances of volunteer organisations being ruined by power-crazed wannabe empire-builders. Ask any driver or fireman at any preserved steam railway.
I too was an NT member for a while, I stopped renewing when they jumped on the anti-bloodsports bandwagon. Proved to me what I'd suspected for some years, the NT is actually run by people who'd faint with horror if you mentioned Mrs. Thatcher's name in front of them; high-minded intelligentsia whose passion in life is to sit on as many pointless committees as humanly possible. Hardly Thatcherite behaviour.
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>> That woman has a hell of a lot to answer for. Pity she's gaga and
>> can't now be held to account.
>>
Shame you can't unwind the clock and give power back to Callaghan and Co. to get you to see what a mess the country would be in now without all the reforms that we have Thatcher to thank for.
I say well done to her. We need another one like her to rid the nation of the few remaining barons such as the leaders of NUR, Unison, and those awful Teachers' unions.
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Harleyman and John H: I did say she was right about the unions. But the 'internal market' malarkey was a total disaster from which we have yet to recover, if we ever can.
Lefties at the time called her a 'super patriot'. Actually she was the opposite, a comprador capitalist like some sort of African or Latino carphound, licking US bum and giving profit to a new class of useless overpaid bureaucrat.
Why don't people understand contradiction? It's a widespread phenomenon. Heigh-ho.
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Nooooooooo !
Just been told I've to go to Cheshire Oaks today. Apparently it's urgent.
:-(((
I could...
- Feign illness
- Remember an important arrangement
- Call a friend and get them to ring back with a request for emergency help
- Disable both cars
- Go, and pretend not be mind crushingly bored
- Go, slope off on the pretext of fetching doughnuts but actually nip round to Cheshire Oaks cycles and drool over the £6k mountain bikes...actually, come to think of it....
:-)
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just tell her your heads fallen off
works every time for me
she gets the picture
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Its an easy choice.
Once you get there, say to her
"you dont want me trailing around with you looking like a suitcase on wheels, I will meet you at < coffee bar of your choice > in one hour where I will buy you a cake"
The you wander off and perv at the electronics/Bikes/Girls and spend some time at the WH Smith reading library.
Works wonders
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Coffee AND a cake ? Starting to sound like a bit of a dear do...
Anyway, got to go now...
:-(
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Back...forged in the very fires of hell that place, in fact it may well be an earthly insight to eternal purgatory. I might take up praying just in case.
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...back...
You had to go at 10.59am.
Not six hours, surely?
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Including travelling time and three doughnuts.
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You'll ruin your tyres doing doughnuts !
Ted
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...or by consuming, gain one.
That's almost Shakespearean y'know.
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Think they are known as muffin tops in the bikers fraternity.
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I once knew a girl who had a nice pair of those, Z.
Ted
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Wow but it's quiet this week! - R.P.
