29/07/2009 by paul.

Well, the weatherman definately said, earlier this year..”it will be a summer of BBQs”, now we learn that it will be wet and unsettled for the near future and that they didn’t really mean we would have a good summer !!
Definition of an expert…someone (often with an exagerated sense of self importance…maybe a politician) who is marginally less ignorant than the rest of us…but non-the-less, ignorant.  Weather men fall into that category…and so do financial “experts”

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30/11/2008 by paul.

I have been working in the electronics industry for 40 years and 2 months…I know that because I have just seen it on the redundancy settlement that I have received.            Now I am not shedding any tears over this, since I have seen it coming for a couple of years..and I stress that it has nothing to do with the ‘highly spun’ current recession.  What is weird, is the reaction of others to the news (of my redundancy, not the global self inflicted recession).     As soon a I tell anyone that I am being made redundant, they immediately adopt a sympathetic posture and voice a high degree of concern …., so I immediately have to re-assure them that it is no real deal to me.         In fact I have just been to the hairdressers and as part of that often forced convesation that takes place as ones hair is being cut, the young girl asked by if “I was on holiday today”, “just popped out of the office”  and whether” I would be leaving the office early today” (being a friday).      So, I just said “no” “yes”  and “probably” in that order, rather than saying that today was the last day of 40 years working for a multinational company and that today was the last day that I would be driving 100 miles on the motorway to get to/from the office. Also the last time that I would frequent that particular hairdressers.                                  So for the first time in a long, long time, I have just had to buy myself a car and a mobile phone (the later being a lot more complicated than the former), and on Monday …..well, I am not quite sure what happens from Monday.

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11/11/2008 by paul.

It could have been written for a sitcom.    Here in Solihull, at the 11th. hour, of the 11th. month etc. the girls in the office decided that we should all observe the 2 minutes of silence.
So, to mark the beginning and the end of the 2 minutes, they sounded the fire alarm.  Within a few moments of the sounding of the alarm for the beginning of the 2 minutes, the main switchboard phone rang. Of course, it was not answered, due to the silence.
Immediately after the 2 minutes, it was discovered that the unanswered phone call, was from the fire brigade. Receiving no answer, they rushed round to put out the fire…..making a lot of noise

Doh !    

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11/07/2008 by paul.

Having been somewhat bored at the office, the other day. I took a visit to one of my favourite sites………”Bad science” (see the link on this blog).

There I found an article entitled “All time classic creationalist pwnage”. This is a quite an entertaining article and through this article, I followed a link to “Conservapedia”, which promotes itself as a “trustworthy encyclopedia” and an alternative to Wikipedia. Now, clearly (to my moderate view point) Conservapedia is promoting a somewhat fundamentalist  view on life, but I found an entry in Conservapedia on Wikipedia. Since Conservapedia’s views on Wikipedia appear to be a bit on the extreme side, I thought I would check Wikipedia’s views on Conservapedia.

The Wikipedia view on Conservapedia is a little more restrained, but somehow, through the Wikipedia article, I found myself at another  Wiki site, by the name of RationalWiki.

Now Rationalwiki , whose aim is to “refuting anti-science….refuting…crank ideas..authoritarianism…fundamentalism”  is almost an alternative to Conservapedia.

Brilliant….another hard day at the office over     

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29/04/2008 by paul.

I was a bit upset at the beginning of the year, when I paid £1.11 for a litre of diesel, but now I have just paid £1.20 and just heard that the price is expected to rise to £1.50, by the end of the year.    Aaaaaagh!
I am sure that an economist could correct me, but I an equally sure that i recall, many years ago, being told that the cost of fuel was rising due to the (then) strong $. OK, so now the $ is weak, why is it not offsetting the other fuel inflation factors…..Those factors being - excessive tax (thank you Gordon), excessive profits - “BP and Shell profits jump”, and industrial action by a bunch of workers that wish to retain a type of pension scheme that most of us lost many years ago. All further aggrevated by the Chineese discovering the motor car and our cousins in the New World, continuing to enjoy the use of low cost fuel in some very inefficient motor cars.
I did recently read that fuel consumption on motorways can be reduced significantly, by keeping to the 70mph limit. Since most of my driving is on the motorway network, I have tried to save fueld by setting the cruise control to just under 70. I have to say that it is quite effective and I have certainly noticed a difference in my fuel consumption….but…most lorries seem to travel at speeds between 60 and 70, whilst most cars travel at sppeds in excess of 80. This means that driving at 70 is a real pain. You slowly catch up on the lorries, but get stuck because of all the cars that are wizzing past at 80+. It may well be more fuel efficient, but it is certainly a lot more dangerous   

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11/02/2008 by paul.

Been having some serious thoughts about Organic.  Now and again, I buy organic veg. in the supermarket…. if it is going cheap ….. but do not really make a habit of it…but with the exception of tomatoes. A few years ago we visited the south eastern coast of Spain, as part of our search for a suitable holiday home. As the plane descended over the Sierra Nevada and into Almeria airport, the view out of the window was impressive, to say the least. The sun was reflecting of a mass of lakes and the whole area looked very picturesque…..until just before touch down, when we realised that the lakes were, in fact, massive areas of polythene. In reality, closer inspection revealed virtually that every bit of level ground (excluding runway) was covered with cities of polythene. The ground itself, seemed stony and dry, but inside the polythene cities, vast plantations of vegetables existed, with an emphasis on tomatoes. I subsequently understood that the tomatoes existed on a cocktail of fertiliser and pesticide. In addition, very few local Spaniards worked within the polythene cities and that the main source of labour wasNorth Africa…after all, goodness knows what effect prolonged exposure to the enhanced atmosphere in the cities might have and the locals were no fools.

With immediate effect, I resolved to move to organic tomatoes. A bit naive really, since it is clear that most other vegetables in the supermarket also come from Spain and no doubt, are being “grown” under similar conditions. So I really should be moving to organic for all of my vegetables.  My real problem is….that I don’t trust anybody, especially government advisory bodies.  History clearly demonstrates that today’s wisdom is tomorrow’s ridicule……

I read the other week, in the Sunday Times, a review of a book about the history of food additives. I meant to buy the book, but have now lost that copy of the Sunday Times and cannot remember the name of the book. Probably just as well, really.  But, whilst following some links in Wikipedia, the other day, I can across an entry on “Smartfresh” a “brand of synthetic produce quality enhancer based upon 1-methylcyclopropene” (what ever that is). Amongst other things, it is used as a gas to prolong storage life of fruit and is “perfectly safe”. Hmmm! like smoking was, not that many years ago, or the miracle development of hydrogenated vegetable oil,  [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat ]   used for a similar purpose.       

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21/01/2008 by paul.

Having thought, earlier in the month,  about the fees that professional executors charge, I decided to re-write my will. The previous version appointed a firm of professions administrators to act on my behalf. 
This I have now done and the administrators are now in the family. Whilst re-writing the will, it occurred to me that there existed an opportunity to save further monies, by expressing the wish that ( in due course) no undue costs should be occurred in the purchase of an elaborate coffin etc. It seems absolutely crazy that such sums are spent on a bit of wood that will lie rotting in the ground.  I thought about the provision for a highly ecco-friendly cardboard coffin. Then Mary e-mailed me a link to a site that advertises a much more obscure means of disposal……http://www.heavenlystarsfireworks.com/…….  it is so “bad taste” that it is almost demands consideration.
I guess that cremation is a pre-requisite…..the mind boggles, otherwise  

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09/01/2008 by paul.

Am currently reading “A short history of everything” by Bill Bryson.  I first saw the book on Nina’s bookshelf in Bermuda and started reading it, did not want to nick her copy, so bought a copy when I got back home and continued reading. Have to recommend it….tried Stephen Hawkins history of….. once, but had to give up (just after the first chapter).     In a section about Ice Ages, it is written that a guy by the name of Alexander von Humboldt, once observed that there are 3 stages to any scientific discovery
1. denial
2. denial of any importance
3. acceptance and give credit for the discovery to the wrong person
I was reminded of this whilst I driving up the motorway, listening to a discussion on Global Warming
 The ”leader” of the free world..JWB (him who seems to have trouble talking in joined up words), views on Global warming seem to confirm this theory
1. There is no global warming
2. Well ! Ok but it’s not that important anyway
3. We will lead the world in the fight against it

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09/01/2008 by paul.

Many years ago, mum & dad had their mortgage with a certain building society….for the sake of arguement, lets call it the Halifax.  When the mortgage was paid off, the account was left open in order that the halifax could provide storage for the deeds. This service was free of charge. The halifax also provided the house, buildings insurance policy and automatically renewed it every year. Every year, even after the mortgage was paid off, the halifax automatically added the cost of the insurance policy to the mortgage account. This meant that the mortgage account immediately acquired a debt, onto which the halifax applied an interest charge. This in turn, meant that the total payment for the simple insurance policy increased from a position of “uncompetitiveness” to even greater “uncompetitiveness”. 
Last year, upon discovey of this, Mary visited the local branch of the b/society to
(1) pay off the accumulated debt and
(2) instructed the b/society to cease with this proceedure. 
That was early last year, so a few months ago, aware that the policy was due for renewal at the end of the year and that most financial institution’s track record for remembering instructions given to one of their branches, was not particularly good, I wrote on behalf of mum, confirming that they should “on no account” add the insurance premium to the mortgage account.   But, to send a new quote and if they were competitive, mum would send a cheque to cover the premium  (the letter was signed by mum). 
Guess what ? early Dec. the halifax  wrote to say that they could not comply with mum’s instructions and it was their policy to continue to automatically debit the mortgage account. They further added that, if mum wished otherwise, she should contact them to instruct as such   ????!!!!####
What the bl##dy hell did they [Ms Gemma Sharpe, Customer Service representative] think the original letter was for in the first place ?  
I felt the urge to contact their help desk and ask why such an obvious, “job experience” girl was allowed to answer correspondence from clients, but have long realised that, if you get shirty with help desks, you get nowhere. So I rang them and although they agreed that mum’s letter was clearly an instrution to change their method of charging for the insurance, they further wished mum to ring them direct.  Luckily martin was visiting mum at the time and he rang them, with mum present, and cancelled the policy.  
Paddy, has since renewed the policy, online with another company, at a fraction of the halifax price

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08/01/2008 by paul.

Am currently working my way through a load of old papers that are in mum’s correpondence folders. Amongst them are a number of copies of old wills, together with letters and accounts from the respective administrators of those wills (mainly solicitors).
Grandad mathews and great aunt mathews, being a couple of them. One in particular (Miss T. Mathews) makes interesting reading.
Total assets =£489.87, left in equal shares amongst 5 beneficiaries. The final account received fom the solicitors shows the following - 
Solicitors costs for administration of the will - £270.75
Balance, divided by number of beneficiaries = £123.75
Sum for each beneficiary = £24.75
So, the solicitor received £270.75  from the will and the beneficiaries received £24.75  each.
Hmmm ! There is a clear lesson here. If the will is a simple one (and I guess that most are), appoint a couple of the beneficiaries as administrators and keep well away from the professionals.

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