Supposed to be in a pub now but i am stuck at home instead. My backs now hurting because of carrying plaster on my arm.
I have an idea for a simple game but i have forgoton how to prgarm :(
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Look at the money and headaches you'll save yourself Rattle....
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... It's officially Christmas now...
Christmas, before 2pm on the 24th?
I can tell you now work for a company, Humph.
Time was you'd have been charging around late into the afternoon to get that last order.
Welcome to the comfort zone. :)
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Have a pleasant one, everyone. Presents all wrapped by 12 noon, rather than 12 midnight, afternoon glass with both sons (first leagl one) and a racous party tea as youngest relative now 13, and Grandma in London with another branch of the family! Roll on tomorrow...
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Hope you all have a good one - thanks for your support during the year - you know who you are.
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" Remember to cook the goose, not goose the cook" !
Merry Christmas to all, and safe motoring over the next week.
Tony.
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Same here, Have a good break, may your God go with you and have a peaceful and prosperous New Year.
And don't forget to wear the support at all times, Pug. Thanks for everything you do for us.
Ted
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Merry Christmas, thanks to all who make this place what it is.
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I am dreaming of a dry Christmas
Where people don't fall in the ice
May your days be merry and dry
And may all your christmasses be dry
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Merry Christmas to all Backroomers!
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Merry Christmas to all and thanks for everyones help over the last year.
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Merry Christmas to all, and thanks for another year of great banter and fantastic help and support. Eat, drink, and be merry! :-)
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Same here :) both motoring and none motoring :)
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Hello
I think you all know me. My names Ginger and I thought I should give you all an update..
My new Mum & Dad thought they were going to send me home but I like it where I am, so I?ve had to behave myself just a little bit. It is hard not to bite when I feel grumpy and it?s not easy to stop swearing either, but apparently bad language isn?t allowed in this house????..I can live with that ( most of the time)
Trouble is those other two cats that live here, they think they own the place.
Gus, he?s the one who thinks he?s a tomcat but he isn?t really, not like me.
He?s not so bad really and he nearly played with my tail the other night when I was asleep, at least he thought I was, until I looked at him and he soon sat down again.
We haven?t got around to sharing the same sofa yet but we do have a sofa each in the same room.
But that Katie, she?s the limit, she really is.
She?s only tiny and has loads of fur, she?s a right old Bossy Boots too. She still swears at me now and Mum lets her get away with it , it?s not fair. She sleeps on top of the radiator and I want to get up there but she just puffs up all that long hair and she looks ginormous. She scares me when she does that, so I have to walk away and pretend that I meant to go on Dad?s knee instead. A roughty tufty cat like me has a reputation to keep, don?t you know.
The foods not very good here, I have to keep popping back to my old home to get a decent meal, but they always know when I?ve been there, because my fur smells of my old Mums posh perfume.
That?s why I moved out you know, how can a big tough tomcat walk round smelling of Anais Anais? How undignified is that?
Now I get to smell of good things like diesel and Castrol R if I can get in Dads garage and sit on his bike.
Even worse though, just because I?m orange they?ve started calling me Hi Viz Cat, what sort of a name is that to give a handsome fella like me?
Anyway, I?ve got a bit of a problem because I think there?s an advert going in Doddingtons Doings in January to finally decide who ?owns? me.
Don?t they know I?m a free spirit? I?ll go where I want to.
I?ve been so good that Father Christmas knew where to find me last night and he left me a Christmas present here, so this is my proper home now. I?ve never had a toy to play with before, I gave Mum a big hug and managed to keep my claws in, and not bite, wasn?t I good?
I really made an effort to look handsome and play with my pressie, so Dad took a picture of me.
Here it is
i100.photobucket.com/albums/m34/Veeeight/DSCF1016....g
{Link corrected}
Happy Christmas to all the cat lovers on here who understand me purrfectly:)
Ginger
PS
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 25/12/2009 at 17:53
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You're up early Pat! or late to bed?? Ginge looks like a bit of a Hooligan don't you think?
Have a good break all of you and thanks to everyone for another great year on 'ere.
Best wishes........Martin.
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Wonderful Pat - I read it out to the missus and we larfed :)
Here's hoping everyone has a peaceful Christmas and a Healthy New Year (especially Rattle!)
Ray & Ann.
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You have heard about things driving you up the wall.
tinyurl.com/yg96ao8
Great fun once you have powered it up.
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thanks and a merry christmas too all, especially now my FIL can see his dials again on his focus ( they went a bit dark cause the switch got knocked , its next to the headlight switch) ...happy new year too.......zoo
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Well, busy day yesterday. Quite apart from the turkey oriented bits, I had three rounds of golf, went skydiving a couple of times and even managed to fit in some waterskiing. Followed in the evening by some highly competitive sword fighting.
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Absolutely Bobby ! Nearly forgot the couple of games of Basketball to round things off....
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I am completely stuffed and creating the most interesting aromas! Must be the:
Turkey
Beef
Pigs in Blankets
Pork and sage/onion stuffing combo
giblet gravy
brussels
mug of brussels water (don't ask!)
peas
carrots
xmas pud
mince pies
ice cream/custard/cream combo
chocs
biscuits
baclava selection
cheese and crackers,
mustard pickle
branston pickle
nuts
on Xmas day AND boxing day!
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Likewise. No alcohol tack???
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All mixed up in the same bucket, I presume ?
We had bubble and squeak yesterday.............blessed relief !
Ted
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No alcohol? Well, I don't drink much, so limited myself to couple of bottles of beer for xmas day breakfast, then a glass of champers before lunch, shared a bottle of wine for lunch, then finished off with port and then cognac with coffee. Today was great, finished off the bubble and squeak (or squiddly diddly as wife calls it) turkey, beef rib, stuffing, apple pie with mince pies, custard, coffee, bottle of viognier and then coffee. Got myself a Yamaha DD65 electronic drum kit to play with today, the alcohold DT's really help with the drum roll!
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Don't quite know where to post this, is it just me or has the normally good natured and jovial BR taken a turn.
There's a particularly unpleasant series of exchanges taking place on the 'smokers' thread and for and against views are getting similar from some on the TG thread, it's that nasty i don't want to post my thoughts...fair minded (i believe) or not.
Is it a case of bad moods following too much Christmas cheer.
Whatever it is it's not enjoyed by many of us i daresay, do others feel the same?
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Quite so GB. It is though often the case that those who choose to rant and rage against relatively trivial matters do so as a reaction and response to their own often unrelated inadequacies. Particularly common place now that it is possible to do so with the anonimity of the internet. I do try hard to take the view that they are probably more to be pitied than scolded.
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Glad it's not just me then Humph, sensitive soul that i am..;)
Sometimes discussions do get a little heated and we can all be guilty of that, but mostly they are kept humourous as most of us can see our own numerous faults, it's the thinly disguised personal attacks that make it unpleasant.
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I stopped shouting at the internet years ago - I have fired an e-mail to the local rag about slovenly writing styles though !
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Ive never ever written to my local rag but weirdly emailed them a piece about theft locally to me last week and they rang me to agree they would print it.
So for the first time in my life i was famous,the weird thing is my wifes name was also in the paper because she won a prize for herself and 3 friends to have high tea at a local hotel.
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>>> response to their own often unrelated inadequacies. <<<
What you've done now Sir Humph, is transferred ill feeling to this thread by your quite inflammatory remarks.
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I don't think it's that at all, GB.
Smokers have felt aggrieved since the smoking ban, not only because of the ban itself, but mainly because it has gven every one the right to be rude to us, to remove the need for common courtesy as well as remove the right to smoke in enclosed public spaces.
Quite how we're expected to be the only part of society who can be treated that way and accept it, I really don't know.
I don't think the OP of that thread was in a bad mood after too much Christmas cheer, I think he posted for a reaction from experience, probably because he isn't allowed that much rudeness when indoors in the company of his family.
Whichever way you look at it, it's sad that he feels so strongly about it that it makes him so unhappy.
I feel equally strongly about my right to do as I please as long as it isn't hurting anyone else.
I will now tell you of something that happened to me in May of this year on Cherwell Valley Services.
It was 5.30am on a sunny beautiful morning, I had stopped for 15 minutes break on the outer perimeter of the deisel forecourt at Cherwell Valley ( GB will know how big it is away from the pumps).
I was sitting reading the paper, drinking a coffee and enjoying a cigarette in my cab.
Ther was no-one else around when all of a sudden I heard shouting, I looked up and this man ( another lorry driver) was running across the forecourt shouting incomprehensibly to me. He climbed my steps and flung open the door of my cab, I was so scared, he grabbed my arm and shook it violently, I thought he had a knife.
He knocked the cigarette out of my hand and the lighted part went all over the cab and he hit my face in doing this. I pushed him away and got the door closed and locked. He took photo's of my cab and myself and then went into the garage and remonstrated violently with the staff about me smoking on a deisel forecourt. They explained that I was parked in the area they are allowed to yse for smoking but he was incoherent and didn't understand anything.
I was so scared because a few months previously a lorry driver had been hijacked at Cherwell Valley in broad daylight and forced to drive off while being held at knife point, so his load could be taken.
I drove off with the doors locked and then I got angry, because the cab is MY home, MY space and he invaded it.
I phoned the Thames Valley Police who insisted that it was assault and that I should make a formal complaint.
I did, but even though he was arrested the CPS said that as there was no CCTV evidence a prosecution wouldn't be possible.
This sort of thing would never have happened before the smoking ban but it did have one lasting result that changed my life.
It was on my mind and with the onset of winter and dark nights, I decided that living in a lorry cab was too risky for me after that.
That man's self righteosness cost me the last winter of my lorry driving career which would hve completed the 30 yrs I so wanted to do.
Pat
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Well said Pat.
It isn't always true that those who are barking mad are more to be pitied than censured. Some of them need to be repressed, or if necessary shut away, to prevent them from making a nuisance of themselves to innocent passers-by.
A burning desire to lynch people under some silly pretext, combined with a tiny little nerve centre like a cockroach's in place of a human brain, is a combination that always makes a nasty atmosphere and can be downright dangerous.
Unfortunately there are so many of these halfwits that the political parties suck up to them and encourage them in their poor behaviour and limited understanding. It can only get worse.
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That must have been awful Pat, well out of order, and very scary, but I cant help thinking you were lucky that the Police and CPS didnt take your own crime further.... it is illegal to smoke in a company vehicle.... ;-)
I was sitting reading the paper drinking a coffee and enjoying a cigarette in my cab.
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Illegal or not doesn't give people the right to issue summary justice though.
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it is illegal to smoke in a company vehicle.... ;-)
As a sleeper cab is the drivers living quarters, I wouldn't have thought so. Perhaps a trucker could tell us?
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The Police, in their own words 'don't have anything to do with the smoking law, it is up to the local authority to police that one'
It's very much a grey area, since living in a cab all week means it is your lounge and bedroom in the evening and overnight, and your workplace in the day, plus you drive the same one all the time.
Oddly though, if the night heater doesn't work, a lorry driver doesn't have the pleasure of a 'minimum' working temperature that a factory or office worker does because a lorry cab is NOT classed as a work place for that purpose??
I do know where you're going GB and can fully understand.
Pat
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An office worker doesent get the benefit of a minimum working temperature either.
Your cab hoever IS a workplace, and I suspect in the letter of the law smoking in the cab is illegal. If you were an owner driver it probably wouldnt be.
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tinyurl.com/ysbetx
A lorry cab without a night heater can get well below these temperatures on any winter night and we're supposed to sleep in this and be fit for a 15 hours shift the next day.
When I approached HSE on behalf of a member, becuase hi employer wouldn't repair the heater, I was told by them that the lorry clab wasn't classed as a work place regarding 'this particular part of the regulation'
So how can it be a workplace if you want to smoke in it but it's not a workplace if you are in danger of catching Hypothermia from being forced to sleep overnight in it?
Likewise how can we be expected to have any repect for regulations of any description when they are selective?
Pat
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When I approached HSE on behalf of a member becuase hi employer wouldn't repair the heater
And thats why despite the hatred of some here properly represented and responsible Unions are a good thing for many reasons.
Company i work for, night heater doesn't work means truck doesn't go anywhere even if nights out should not be involved, the recent weather means i don't need to expand on that.
Like you no doubt Pat i've overnighted in years gone by stretched out on wooden boards carefully balanced between the doors and centre bonnet, and scraped the ice of the inside of the windows.
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I certainly have GB and with polystyrene between the glass and the curtains to try and stop the cold.
I was speechless though, when HSE told me that for the purposes of smoking, a cab is a work place but for sleeping in with no heat in mid winter, it certainly wasn't.
Is it any wonder we get resentful of legislation that always seems to benefit someone else and never a lorry driver?
Pat
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I am astounded the same place can be classed as both place of work and not place of work. Because my company car can be used for business it is a no-smoking place (I don't smoke) and we also get stickers we are meant to display! I don't. Note it is non-smoking all the time because it could be used on business.
I work from home a fair bit too and the room I use as an office is also legally a non-smoking area. Now who polices that..... Again irrelevant for a non-smoker but it makes you wonder.
Edited by rtj70 on 29/12/2009 at 17:44
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Conversly I have some friends who are husband and wife. They run a small business and have one van which is sign written. They both smoke, but it is insured for both of them ONLY to drive it.
That too is a work place and they can't smoke in it!!
Pat
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yes i too was given no smoking signs to display in the company car claiming it was a workplace. It may or may not be but the main driver for the ban in company cars was the leasing companies, with reduced refurb and valeting costs.
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"signs to display in the company car claiming it was a workplace"
How on earth do you get any work done if you're not supposed to use the phone while you're driving?
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no smoking signs to display in the company car
Yes, just what you want to set off the walnut and leather of your company Bentley, a huge garish no smoking sign.
Perhaps a good-taste no smoking sign could be devised for executive limos. A mandarin orange or cumquat on little legs with a smiling face, shaking its finger at you.
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Come to think of it, I will super glue them to the dash board before it gets returned ;-) No one smoked but the sticker caused such damage that it was a right off.
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Had a peek inside a Police car - they had these signs in them as well - In the old days many a copper allowed the "accused" a smoke on the way to the pokey - it was the way things were done...:-)
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I am astounded the same place can be classed as both place of work and not place of work. >>
Could it be that while the truck's tachograph is running, it is a work place (measuring the work/driving hours).
And conversely, while it is being used for sleeping/eating/drinking outside of the paid work hours, it is not a work place.
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I was pulled into a full multi vehicle VOSA check at the NEC Birmingham in October 2008.
I passed with flying colours, vehicle check, tacho check, deisel check and everything else they could think of. We all had a good laugh about the fact that I had been driving lories full time and it was 21 yrs since I'd last had a full check and the VOSA lads were brilliant both in skill and attitude. Just as they were finished I asked if I could go and they told me no, as there were two young ladies who wanted a word with me. They were both wearing High Viz jackets with Public Health on them.
Apparently I had been photographed entering the VOSA check smoking in the work place.
I argued the very point above, that it was my lounge and also my bedroom, and that I was the sole driver of that vehicle from new to it being sold.
'Ah yes, they said, but what if someone wants to buy it after 3 years who doesn't smoke'
With that I lost the will to live and asked them to do their worst.
I was told I would get a £60 fixed penalty through the post.
I never did get it, and can only assume that the photograph wasn't conclusive enough.
Life isn't fair, I should know that by now:)
Pat
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Never cough anything Pat.
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That's the trouble with these nanny laws, they lead to whole armies of sincere and well meaning busybodies with hi-viz jackets and clipboards, all probably on above the average wage and unemployable in any meaningful field.
And you have to queue for a Burger because McDonalds can't get the staff...*sigh*
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I do know where you're going GB and can fully understand. Pat
Usually best to tell the 'Authorities' to "get stuffed". Ineffectual interfering snip in most cases.
M
Martin, please don't try to defeat the swear filter - as Dave says far easier to delete posts than edit them
Edited by Pugugly on 28/12/2009 at 22:52
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Nasty experience Pat, but i think the lunatic you encountered is hardly representative of non smokers in general.
He may have been at the helm of a lorry, whether he qualified as a proper truck driver is another question entirely as you know, sounds like another sutcliffe type to me, and i hope the bill made notes about him.
It's not just you thats become concerned for their own safety on the job so to speak, my own sis who's being doing it longer than both of us feels just the same.
Not from zealot anti smokers, but from the general undercurrent of violent and thoroughly ungentlemanly behaviour that is now so prevalent, at one time a lady truck driver would be taken under some proper mens wings, i hope that doesn't sound sexist or patronising, it relates back to a better time not so many years ago.
She drives abroad most weeks, and thats all i'll say about that as Pat knows where i'm leading.
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The story began here
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?f=2&t=80...8
It continued above with Ginger himself posting on Christmas Day:)
Among the suggestions given in the original post was one from Pug Ugly, and that was to advertise for his rightful owners locally.
Wel,l the brand new copy of Doddingtons Doings came out yesterday and I had a phone call last night from a lady who lives just 4 houses away from us.
She was very nice and very relieved because they hadn't seen Ginger for almost 3 weeks.
She explained that he was 12 years old and lived with his Sister and another cat until just over 2 years ago when his Sister died.
Apparently, he never really got on with his Sister and they used to swear lovingly at each other but he always respected her and they never came to blows.
He'd always been grumpy and always been a bit of a roamer too but when he lost his Sister he spent most of his time outside looking for company again, they thought.
They moved to this village three years ago from Alconbury (20 miles away) and Ginger returned to his old home three times and had to be fetched back. I usually took him around 3 weeks to arrive at Alconbury but once he managed it in half a day and they think he must have hitched a lift somehow!
They have a St Bernard and used to run Dog Kennels so he's quite used to sticking up for himself with other animals and his speciality is catching grey squirrels!
He also has a penchant for fresh prawns, I'm told.
His real name is Rolly, he has been spayed and chipped ( I really must go to Specsavers again!)
I told her about our visit to the Cats Protection League to search for a replacement for Totty who died in January, but felt it unfair while there was friction in the feline household with Ginger coming in so often.
I listened to all of this with a sinking heart, but pleased that he did actually 'live' somewhere within a loving home.
I knew we shouldn't have grown to love him and we'd wondered if PU's advice was right all Christmas, as he became more and more accepted by both Gus and Katy, with all three of them sleeping in the same room for most of the time.
Then she asked if I believed in fate, and could this have been the reason we didn't come home with our third cat from our visit to the CPL in early December?
She explained that they were moving to Ely ( 20 miles in the opposite direction to Alconbury) at the end of January and had been worried that they wouldn't find him before the move. They also felt that it wasn't fair to put him through the inevitable long treks, in winter, at 12 yrs old back to Doddington in search of their old home, as had happened the last time they moved.
It will also be a town location and he loved the squirrels and the fields at the back of our houses so much.
I began to feel a little bit of hope and she finally asked if we would like to keep him as he needed the company of Katy, our old female, to replace his Sister Rosie.
I was delighted:):)
She is coming to see him to give him a cuddle between now and them moving, she's bringing his certificate ( he's chipped) and is transferring ownership at the vets as well, so there won't be any problem there.
We have agreed that they can visit him anytime after they have moved as well, and whatever happens to him, we will always let them know!
I'll print his Christmas photo off for her to take with her and after the end of January I can take off that stupid collar with a bell on it, but I think tact is the order of the day for the next couple of weeks!
I wouldn't have chosen a ginger cat, I wanted another Siamese but Ginger ( Rolly?) chose us, and that's a compliment.
So there's a Happy Christmas Tale for the backroom among the contentious posts of the last few days!
Thanks go to PU for his excellent advice, without which I suspect, Rolly or Ginger may have been facing one last trip to the vet, instead of moving to Ely, if he'd gone home before they moved.
Pat
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Maybe time to read a Happy Christmas Tale above this now:)
Pat
Edited by pda on 30/12/2009 at 17:41
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Very nice! We had to have our old (17yrs) Poppy put down earlier in the year and she has now been replaced with a very active 3 yr old called Snowy... quite a difference going from a blind and deaf one to a live wire! Her latest thing is to lie on the radiators whilst they are on, she either then falls off when moving around or jumps off because she gets too hot! She has also taken to trying to get under SWMBO's electric bed when it lifts up... I've usually then got to get her out by the scruff of the neck!
Cats, eh!
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Some nice news on the forum over Christmas. Sounds like Ginger (Rolly) and you are going to both be happy. Well done PU for the suggestion of posting in the local newspaper.
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HB there may be something of interest to you here
spamtrap362@googlemail.com
Pat
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HB there may be something of interest to you here >> >> spamtrap362@googlemail.com >> >> Pat >>
pda Pat: Something missing from your above post?
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