Staff and Management roles

Who uses what room in a 4 bed house occupied by two humans and three cats

The cats move around to the current “best spot” of the hour/day/week.
There are two bedrooms with actual beds, and “the staff” are free to use anything the cats aren’t laying on¹.
Management may share a space less than 4ft square, or insist on a sole occupancy of a room.

¹ Staff may be called upon to provide a padded, heated, “under blanket” for periods between 5 minutes and many hours.
Management will reward with dribble and loose fur, and the occasional perforation.

In the living room, making a start: https://heyrick.eu/blog/index.php?diary=20230612 ;)

What, no manga? :P

Bloggy bits:

Well, yes. I will say that Britain was quick off the mark in vaccinating people

1. It should be noted that most of the UK population survived the pandemic despite the Tories
2. Johnson was the clueless one at the daily briefings on TV
3. The cabinet’s slow start was due to them absolutely having to sort out Brexit before they moved onto lesser things like swathes of the population dying
4. The NHS’s reward for coping is a requirement to keep doing more with less cash¹, despite the inflation the Tories and venal associates caused

¹ They don’t have to pay me for 5 days a week now, just three but in return I only work for three of them :)

Do the politicians know very much – the Lawyer bloke says about climate change – but nobody seems to know why the Ice moved back from about where Bristol is now.

The wx has stayed roughly the same during modern human history – why!

What should the temp be – and how many humans should there be – do we need a thinout war :-((

The wx has stayed roughly the same during modern human history – why!

1, In the past million or so years, the have been five (IIRC) cycles of ice age and heating.

2, “Modern human history” is merely a rounding error in geological timescales (Pangea, for example, was 200-300 million years ago).
Additionally, “writing” is far far younger than we are, maybe around a few thousand years? And back when writing was just beginning with runes and squiggles, I doubt recording the weather would have been considered important enough to write down. The fact that the general public (you and me) can all read and write is extremely new. A few hundred years of that.

3, The entirety of humanoid creatures (the Homo branch) is a mere blip. The first sort of humans evolved about 300,000 years ago. We, human humans, are about 11-12,000 years old. Dinosaurs, on the other hand, roamed this planet for about 165 million years.

4, Just because our personal timescales are miniscule doesn’t mean that the changing climate doesn’t begin sometime.

5, That time may be now.
It may not be, sure, this might be a mere glitch in the simulation, but one would be a bloody fool if that’s the crutch they choose to lean upon.

In short: Our species hasn’t been around long enough to have made competent observations of global climatic change on the grand scale. We are working with theories that try to make sense of the data we have to try to determine what’s going to happen.

Johnson was the clueless one

… I don’t remember what the word “party” means … I don’t remember my password … I don’t remember which one I’m married to …

absolutely having to sort out Brexit

How’s that going?

keep doing more with less cash

Everywhere. The place I work for is the same. They are not legally obliged to raise wages of those on more than minimum, so they aren’t. I’m currently getting about half a centime per hour extra.
I’d quit except I actually like the job, I’m a foreigner which makes things harder, the difference is actually rather pathetic (it’s more the principle that annoys me) and I don’t have any confidence that anywhere else would be different. It’s immoral, but not illegal.

So, yeah, we are asked for 110% effort on 90% pay. Hmmm…

despite the inflation

To be fair, Covid broke the banking system, and everybody is too scared to tell the bankers to eff off now they want all their bonuses back.
The Tories? Well, they just made a bad situation worse. Pretty much what they do, but look over there, there’s an immigrant, see, look! Look!

but in return I only work for three of them

Damn right.
Work stuff gets done on paid work time. No “just do this quickly at home” ¹ or “can you turn up ten minutes early” ² or anything. I’m basically a sort of cleaner, I’m not paid to be on call, so now I’m home the phone is off ³.

¹ Such an attitude snowballs quickly, best thing is to nip it out before it starts.

² Both here at work and when I was a Care Assistant, the hour counter starts at my contracted start time. I can turn up as early as I like, but without authorisation from the boss, it won’t count. Thus, it’s unpaid time, thus “bye”.

³ This is actually now a right in France, the right to disconnect. Because, well, when you have the employer’s union (MEDEF) having a hand in writing the laws, things can be abused to the detriment of the employees. So, that was a small win for the overstressed little guy.

to try to determine what’s going to happen.

The problem we have is that this sort of thing tends to follow the bathtub or logarithmic curve. Nothing much happens, nothing much happens, nothing much happens, something…oh crap!

Given that we, as a species, are more interested in making wind turbines, banning plastic cutlery, and pushing people to drive electric cars (a fair few of which make the break even point where they ultimately pollute less than petrol at something like 50,000km, not to mention potentially needing billions of pounds of infrastructure investment); I don’t think anybody is really taking climate change seriously.
Otherwise, well, we would already have much more effective fire breaks on places known to suffer wildfires, we’d surely devise better methods than chucking water out of a plane, and we’d consider that a huge number of major metropolitan areas are either on the shoreline or just up a tidal river…
Oh, and effective regular dredging of natural water courses and maintaining flood plains might be a better idea than turning the areas into designer homes for yuppies…

But it’s a hard sell spending money on “what ifs” when they could instead choose to ease the onerous tax burden of the rich (such as themselves).

Speaking of which… https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/25/gulf-stream-could-collapse-as-early-as-2025-study-suggests

How’s that going?

Brexit is going pretty much as forecast – by the Remain advocates.

I sort half hope that the Scots, frozen out of the north by the Gulf Stream stopping, would come south and recognise the Tories as their natural prey.

come south and recognise the Tories as their natural prey

Well, I’m only an adopted Scot – only spent an eighth of my life here, born in That London – but I’ve always known the tories are my natural prey…and a substantial majority of Scots share this view already…

Oh, and if we’re frozen out, we’re not just going for independence, we’re moving the border south – probably to the Humber. Or maybe the Thames. Or the Channel.

I thought we were going to keep left wing politics and brexit whining to the other Aldershot, so as not to pollute the new posts index?

Oh, and if we’re frozen out, we’re not just going for independence, we’re moving the border south – probably to the Humber. Or maybe the Thames. Or the Channel.

Has anyone reminded the Scots that Elizabeth I handed the throne their direction recently? They may have been a bit careless with it since then though.

I thought we were going to keep left wing politics

It’s not politics to wish ill upon Tories, just a natural human reaction.
My personal political views are only left if you’re far enough right of the centre.

Yes it not politics, it’s just spiteful and childish.

going to keep left wing politics

Interesting phrasing…

it’s just spiteful and childish.

Mainstream politics has been exactly that for many a year now, perhaps reaching an all time low in a long history of depressing lows ¹ in the guise of Robert Jenrick.

¹ I’m not proud of being British these days, just embarrassed.

I’m not proud of being British these days, just embarrassed.

This, and how.

reaching an all time low in a long history of depressing lows in the guise of Robert Jenrick

I’m not sure what he’s done to distinguish himself from so many other depressing lows. Sadly, it has to be said, on both sides of the chamber. To say Britain is going to the dogs would be an unwarranted insult to the dogs. Not that other countries are exactly brilliant on the whole, but in a race to the bottom Britain is certainly one of the front runners. Led by the tories, but with Starmer snapping at their heels.

And no, I don’t apologise for that observation. Not in the least.

Should probably pick up over at the other Aldershot, as it seems only right wing politics is allowed. 😋

For context, the bloke I mentioned is the “paint over the murals” guy. I can’t think of a more spiteful and childish example of this failed government.

But, like I said, The Other Place welcomes you. 😉

Okay, “spiteful and childish” is spot on for that in particular. Braverman and Patel (and by association, the rest of the Tory front bench – and it appears most of the opposition front bench too) are appalling on the subject of refugees. But “spiteful and childish” doesn’t really capture how awful they are, it’s true.

Braverman and Patel

You need a third Clive, completion of the unholy trinity.

That’s a slippery slope, Steve. It could easily run to dozens…no, hundreds…it might be easier to count the MPs I wouldn’t include, although maybe that list is reasonably long, too.

Interesting article in a M/C mag about people in in ‘West’ are good at poking a phone – but not a doing things like repairing things like Motorcycles etc.

Even computer programming going out ‘East’ :-(

Colin – wrong forum thread? ;)

The thing is, for many many years people have done stuff like repairing motorcycles. Indeed, there is a bit of a war raging in America between farmers (who are pretty good at doing whatever is necessary to keep equipment running) and the likes of John Deere who are trying to tie up everything in DRM and “authorised parts only”.
To put it into context, if your harvester breaks down, more than a couple of hours could be the difference between a good harvest and a lost crop (and livelihood).

Computers were, once, things with individual chips that could be prodded, an operating system that could be examined (and fixed, or maybe just rewritten). The *. forums are full of help for weird Beeb faults due to specific chip failures.

These days? It’s all a black box with precious little documentation on the hardware or the operating system itself. Because for years nobody has cared. They turn the thing on, they run whatever, it’s basically an appliance.

But recently the level of official spyware in things (even actual appliances like televisions) has started to concern people. They want to know what’s going on inside. Where’s this information going? Why?

More and more our equipment is being used against us. Given the situation in America where various forms of tracking that can’t be switched off could place a woman near an establishment known to resolve unwanted pregnancies, this sort of thing has real and serious consequences.

As for programming, it all went east ages ago. It’s amazing how much shareholder profit can be made by not paying employees who might ask for things like a fair wage, healthcare, holiday entitlement…..

I thought we were going to keep left wing politics and brexit whining to the other Aldershot, so as not to pollute the new posts index?

Oh, Politics is alright outside of Aldershot as long as it’s not left wing? Thanks for clarifying.

I’m not proud of being British these days, just embarrassed.

Very much the same for me sadly…

You’ll get the same response from me if spouting right wing politics.

Plus I’m sure Rick can put you up in his French peasant hovel, if you are feeling that aggrieved.