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3496

General Discussion Area / Re: Moving house woes

« on: 04 May 2010, 11:34:06 »

Just helped my son to move this weekend and I am totally exhausted and we were very organised.

The people moving out had parrots, reptiles, dogs, rabbits and the house reeked - carpet cleaners were in as soon as keys available and team of friends, parents etc to decorate all main rooms and hall stairs landing in 2 days. Lots of bodged jobs to tidy up.

Outside were hutches and aviary with all manner of shit to be cleaned - hours with jet wash.

All things considered it worked well but would not want to take this on now at my age without a load of back up.

3497

General Discussion Area / Re: War by PowerPoint

« on: 28 April 2010, 23:01:01 »

lost for words - even if you follow some of the threads/links - the connection is meaningless.

Whoever produced this must have been on something.

3498

General Discussion Area / Re: Windows 7, servers, icons, and missing the point

« on: 23 April 2010, 15:37:14 »

On my netbook I have an XP and McAfee combination and last night there was a pop up for an important update - assume that was the fix??

3499

General Discussion Area / Re: Will Belgium fall apart?

« on: 24 April 2010, 09:02:29 »

And to quote from the original post on this thread:

"The country, which is home to European Union institutions and the NATO military alliance, takes over the six-month European Union presidency on July 1, and the domestic crisis throws into doubt its ability to set any meaningful EU agenda. "

3500

General Discussion Area / Re: Will Belgium fall apart?

« on: 23 April 2010, 16:59:56 »

hmmm - a bit heavy for Friday afternoon - but for example coltan is a mineral used in mobile phones. Because of its value people in Rwanda and Congo fight over it.

Is this source of revenue, which should be good for the economy of those countries, to be banned because it causes conflict? Or the companies that buy it criticised for not having measures in place as to guarantees that it has not been purchased from rebels etc? Or should it not be for the UN to act decisively to sort out such messes with vast amounts of human suffering and civil war.
Belgium is always pushing to make companies responsible for doing the job of  governments and threatening bans etc. My point was that whilst some of us do understand the situations reasonably well - we are not backed up by say UK civil servants who tend to jump on the anti business bandwagon to avoid criticsm of government's standing by and watching the atrocities unfold.

Not sure if that helps.

3501

General Discussion Area / Re: Will Belgium fall apart?

« on: 23 April 2010, 16:27:58 »

I have had some interesting discussions with members of the Belgian government in the area of conflict countries and natural resources. They are one of the first to try and point the finger for the problems of difficult countries at everyone else except government's. If you argue robustly and demonstrate UN indecision they climb down.

Unfortunately in many many issues we find our weak civil servants with little knowledge of the outside world just agree with crack pot interpretations that end up damaging business and livelihoods of those they are supposed to safeguard. I think this is the area of concern that our politicians do not deal with the whole Belgian thing from the point of view of business or conflict country experience,

3502

General Discussion Area / Re: Will Belgium fall apart?

« on: 23 April 2010, 16:14:01 »

Do you remember the Mike Myers quote from Goldmember (or one of his films) the "evil Belgian and his teenage sex slave".

Sorry it just came to mind.

3503

General Discussion Area / Re: Will Belgium fall apart?

« on: 23 April 2010, 15:33:35 »

You are right - also just come back from lunch!!

3504

General Discussion Area / Re: Will Belgium fall apart?

« on: 23 April 2010, 15:23:46 »

Nick Farage may become their next leader.

I go there next week for 2 days - they tried to charge me 450 euros for one night in the Chatelain Hotel because everything is fully booked due to conferences.

3505

General Discussion Area / Re: Car insurance

« on: 24 April 2010, 13:49:18 »

I am happy with Admiral bunch - what is quote from them if you drop son off policy quote? then make him pay difference if he wants to drive it

3506

General Discussion Area / Speed Gun Evidence

« on: 21 April 2010, 22:42:26 »

Just looking at a speeding case for someone.

Device used was the LTI 20 20 TSM Speedscope and have seen the calibration certificate etc. The camera viewing officer has put in evidence to support the summons that the photo reference number has been changed from "2540 to 2540A for administrative reasons". Anyone come across this before?

Why would you change an original photo identifier unless a) it was a back up copy but surely you would keep the copy for your own purposes and submit the original ref to court or b) something has been changed, resized.

Any experiences?

3507

General Discussion Area / Re: Help with Naming new MV6

« on: 19 April 2010, 23:06:43 »

Death Star Canteen (Silver service or tray)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv5iEK-IEzw

3508

General Discussion Area / good start to the weekend

« on: 16 April 2010, 14:12:14 »

1. Arrived at station where the private parking bays (including mine ) are clearly known and marked - a muppet is chancing it to leave his car to go and buy something - so he got the sharp end.
2. Train is cancelled
3. On platform there are 8  teenagers being noisy and deliberately shouting annoying comments - everyone hides behind their papers - so sorted that out as well as I am in the mood. By-standers say thank you to me - the lariest of the kids says "it would be the biggest who had a go at us"
4. On train - "lady" with both feet on seats - no-one says a thing - except me - so I have go at her. Report it to station staff who look at me blankly.
5. By Blackberry I file additional objections to Council plans to include local farmland in house building proposals - ring Council and give them a blast.


And now off to Cornwall!!

3509

General Discussion Area / Re: Vodafone security ...

« on: 15 April 2010, 22:29:01 »

orange have improved big time in last 18 months. hardly have to wait - but they have put me on premier service - or maybe everyone is on premier service. I have orange care and phones are changed within a working day if faulty.

3510

General Discussion Area / Council - Rich List

« on: 15 April 2010, 18:51:26 »

My local Council has some of its officers on the so called rich list.

So I have done some digging in the public accounts.

89 employees are pulling around £7-9 million a year in total out of a workforce of just over 4000.

I have now lodged a freedom of information act request to clarify the pension contributions and benefits.

But get this - I was whingeing that with all that taxpayer money spent on a few people I could not get the area cleared of litter and the roads were in an appalling state - they have in last 2 days cleared the litter and filled in the potholes just in my area!!!

I am off to attend a Council meeting tonight for first time in years.....

As I pointed out - reinvest that money in people who directly deliver the services not those who just cut and paste from government imposed guidelines and tell you everything in the garden is rosy.