Negative interest rates

News Bites
Hmmm, yes, this was the first thing i heard on the news at 6.30 this morning. Did I hear it right? Yes I did

The latest government/banking plan, is to impose negative interest rates

And yes, that does really mean that if you put £100 in a savings account, then one year later, they will give you back £98, !

So, the lender pays the bank £2 for looking after their money

The good news is, this refers to banks, not to the general public like you and me

The bigger picture is, the UK Banks store most of their cash with the Bank of England, on which the B of E pays them interest.

This new idea is to discourage them from doing this, and instead, to lend it to you and me, for mortgages etc.

The bad news is, the 2% they have to pay, to have their money stored, will be paid for by us, in higher interest rates and lower savings rates

Trainer Talk

Finished our action packed 2-day catch up yesterday with some great test results.

Today I will be preparing for next weeks Front Line Manager Technical Programme

Thought for the day

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad

Ripped off once, shame on him. Ripped off twice, shame on me.

Trainer Talk

Had a great 1st day today with my group of lively and energetic learners. Here are 3 of them hard at work during one of the practical sessions.

The day was only spoiled by receiving a request to work with someone that ripped me off for about £10,000.

Would you?

Neither would I

Thought for the day

Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

Paperless? Not for me thank you!

News Bites
Google has been having a campaign about making a paperless world. But this seems to be backfiring. 

Naturally as a paper-maker myself I am not very keen on this idea. We do plant more trees than we cut down

The best comment I have seen to date is this

Hey Google Guys - If you want a paperless world, try wiping your bum on a piece of aluminium foil!

Trainer Talk
All packed and ready to go. For the next two days I will be involved with the MDP catchup session and Technical Taster

I have all my key accessories neatly packed. 

Light Sabre
Long length of rope

Fibres models
Wallpaper

Blank answer sheets!

Have just arranged a meeting to discuss Papermaking apprentices for next year. That is two mills now

Today I have applied to become an examinations centre. More news about that later!



Thought for the day

The teacher can only open the door. It is up to the learner to walk through it

And Finally

I have to commend this to you

Ever wondered what Prison Widow gets up to in her spare time

Prepare yourself and then.......

Watch this YouTube Video

If you like it, then please recommend this Blog and share the light

Money or Justice

News Bites
So Oscar Pistorius gets bail

He did not notice his girlfriend was not in bed with him
His first thought was not to check if she was OK
He did not try and find out who was in the bathroom

If he gets away with it, then life really is about money and not justice

I think my thought for the day is most appropriate today


Trainer Talk
Have started on the Paper Technics detailed program. Its tougher than I expected.

I have also added to my other Blog about the 2-day Introduction to papermaking course that I give. I think I will also add another unit after I have finished this.

Finished making up all my experimental stuff today, tomorrow is the testing day. The work itself is extremely boring, but the results are quite exciting, so looking forward to Sunday.


Thought for the day

To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit, the target

Let Die or Not Let Die, which is the worst option?

News Bites
Two facts

The UK Government does not have enough money, and so it is borrowing
The UK Government gives away £10 billion in aid every year

Conclusion: The Government is borrowing money to give away to other (3rd world) countries. As they are BORROWING, then they will have to pay it back with interest.

And of course, since the Government does not actually generate any income, then it is our tax which they collect, which will repay the debt and the interest.

Who do they borrow from? Their mates of course. So they are creating a great income for their mates from the interest. So if they stopped giving away aid money, we would pay less tax, and their mates would have no income. So that's not going to happen is it?

 Superficially, I can see the point of giving aid, but if I look deeper I am not so sure it the right decision?

Lets look at some numbers

Say 1 million will die this year unless we give them aid. Lest say we provide aid for half of them.

So the world takes a one-off hit of half a million deaths

But what happens about the other half?
They live, and have children, usually a lot of children, but lets say just 5 per couple
So, half a million people = 250,000 couples, that in 25 years time will probably all have 5 kids each so 1.25 million kids. Including the adults we now have 1.75 million

Say we double our aid, then we will keep 1,000,000 alive and 750,000 will die

In 25 years time 1,000,000 people = 500,000 couples each having 5 children, = 2.5 million

plus the adults we now have 3.5 million

It is impossible to keep doubling aid budgets, or so we will be giving away more than half of our own money, so say we hold the budget at 1,000,000 lives, this means 2.5 million will die

So total deaths = 0.5 million +0.75 million + 2.5 million = 3.75 million and 50 years of misery   for those that survived
Balance that against letting all the 1 million die in the first place? Which is really the most humanitarian ? Its a difficult call.

Trainer Talk
Paper Technics has given the approval for my course overview, so am now starting to fill in the detail for the 10 modules.

I have a small R&D contract which I will be working on tomorrow, so I am going to spend an hour preparing all the paper work/trial plan so that things will go smoothly.

Today I have been talking about starch, and alkyl ketene dimer, (now isn't that a mouthful!), so another job tonight, before I forget is to modify my notes to clarify where some of them had problems. No rest for the wicked!



Thought for the day

Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak

Government missed the G-Spot

News Bites
The expected revenue from this waveband auction was more than £1.1 Billion less than expected. Not surprising for a series of reasons. 

• Companies are getting used to Government hype

• It seems to be Government policy to do a lot of jumping up and down, and flag waving while they publicly overestimate potential income and underestimate expenditure. When they prove to be wrong, which is most of the time, they bury it under other more attention grabbing news.

• For the first time, they allowed a company early access, this gave all the other players in the telecoms business a more realistic picture of the potential take up.

We have to be careful here or we will be marketing victims as I have discussed in previous Blogs.

Very few of us really need 4-G - Its main use is for streaming video. The few people that really do need this facility would be paying massive bills if they were the only ones paying for it. So the idea is to convince all of us that we need it. That way the cost is shared between a large number of people. Those that really do need it, will then only pay a tiny fraction of what they would otherwise have to pay.

Not living in a major city, I often struggle to get 3-G, so I like many others will struggle even more for 4-G

Almost all current providers of 3-G offer very affordable unlimited internet access for £35 or less. Why should I now pay +£50 for limited access? Crazy!


Trainer Talk
Wednesday has felt relaxed after the last few hectic days. Written an overview for Paper Technics for a distance learning course

Not looked at my stable of YouTube videos for a while. Was surprised to see I now have 2384 views and 20 subscribers.


Prison Widow
At last we have been in contact with the banks business manager. The meeting with the web developer went well, and items for the shop have started to arrive.


Thought for the day

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research

Energy Bills Rise

News Bites
Energy bills to rise - said the news this morning.

Why? Because some power stations are reaching the end of their DESIGNED lifetime. So! If the government knew the DESIGNED lifetime, why did they not prepare for it?

I did see one crazy suggestion that it was all the fault of the bankers and the financial crisis, but I think we can dismiss that.

It is nothing else but poor planning.

What is very worrying is that Industry is the greatest user of power, I do not have a problem with that, it is what you would expect, it's the way of the world. BUT, think about it for a moment, only 11% of our GDP is from manufacturing, and it has been declining steadily for years. That means that power capacity has been declining faster than manufacturing capacity! Agreed?

If we take this argument to its natural conclusion, then maybe, rather than the lack of power being a result of cumulative incompetence of successive governments, there is another reason.

Maybe it was planned?

Maybe successive governments have been colluding to steer the decline of industry to match the available power, rather than building power capacity?

The question is WHY?

I think we will revisit this topic in a later Blog

Trainer Talk
Well I have had a few days off Blogging and am back fully recharged.

I have not been lazy, quite the opposite it's been none stop!

Saturday
What a great day we had on Saturday, we took the kids to Jodrell Bank and saw the giant radio telescope and had a walk around their gardens on a fantastic day. A coffee and a sandwich in the cafe rounded off the day perfectly

Sunday
Went to Church on Sunday, had a trip around the car boot, got son's glasses fixed at Specsavers and spent an hour with him watching him on his scooter. A rare event that I want to encourage as he much prefers computer to outdoor activities.

Monday
Had Virgin here as we have just switched away from Sky. Internet access speed has now increased from 8 to 30 mbps. This is pathetic compared to a lot of Europe but for a basic package it's OK.

Our course last week was down 3 people, that could not be released by their mills, so next week we are holding a 2-day intense course for them to bring them up to speed on the technical side. We will catch up on the soft skills later.
We will also use these two days as a technical taster for those that want to 'test drive' the course. We have already had 4 nominees, so I have been doing the extra printing and binding.

Tuesday
Today we have been viewing houses and doing a lot of Prison Widow stuff, but I will cover that in the next section


Prison Widow
We have been very busy behind the scenes here. We have now registered a company Prison Widow Ltd. We are looking at various sources of income such as sponsorship, commission based activities, and setting up an on-line shop to sell stuff. We have been battling the banks to  set up a business account, but we think that at last it is sorted. It's just amazing what hoops they make you jump through. Tomorrow we have a meeting with a website designer, Natasha. We look forward to announcing soon, that Prison Widow will be able to devote herself full time to this activity. And when she does - Beware Establishment!


Thought for the day

They begin the evening  news with 'Good Evening,' then proceed to tell you why it isn't.

£3 million to watch Assange!

News Bites

I read today about Julian Assange, still in the Ecuadorian embassy. The police have racked up a massive wage bill of almost £3 million for a round-the-clock guarding of the embassy! Unbelievable?

Is he really that dangerous?

Why cannot they have a webcam watching the doors?

Could the police or government find something better to spend the money on?
Maybe schools? Nurses? Heating for pensioners? Improved cancer screening? Help with childcare?

Just how high is the bill going to go before someone sensible says STOP?

Or maybe there is no one sensible around?



Trainer Talk
Just an hour left to write my Blog. Been with a great bunch of lads for the 1st session of MDP. I gave them a test first thing Wednesday and they achieved a class average of 6.8 marks. I think that really justifies them being on the course! This afternoon before we broke up we did the test again, and the class average was 33.2. I did keep telling them that they had no idea how good I was ! LOL

Then there was a four drive home, never fun! Great to be back with the family though.

With Great Power comes Great Responsibility

News Bites
I woke this morning to the news that Pistorious, had shot dead his girlfriend, mistaking her for an intruder.

3-4 years ago I spent a lot of time in the RSA, it is not a safe place to live. One of the workers in the factory I was working in got home one day, and as he was opening the front door of his house, heard noises inside. He did not go in, he saw nothing, he shut the door and ran. But the intruders still chased after him and shot him. Luckily he survived to tell the tale.

If Pistorious could see well enough to shoot her in the head, surely he could see well enough to recognise her?

It is the philosophy in RSA to shoot first and ask questions later. Looks like we will have to wait and see if this was a case of stupidity, or a plan coming together!


Trainer Talk

Well sorry folks,  looks like I have a really late Blog today. We all had a tough session, Science for Papermakers was the subject.

The Current Bun Theory was supported with cake to illustrate the point. Atomic structure, valence and isotopes gave them all a headache, but we had a little light entertainment when we made models of fibres.

Now we are relaxing with a good meal at The George Inn.

They will really enjoy tomorrow, Stock Prep.


Thought for the day

A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory

The E Cigarette

News Bites
A news item that caught my eye this morning was about E-cigarettes. The headline was Miracle or menace

It is not a miracle it is definitely a menace  in my view

Granted it removes most of the chemicals that cause cancer, but it does nothing to discourage addiction. Offering e-cigarettes is just like offering drug addicts clean needles.

If you take away the cancer risk, then you will encourage more people to become addicted to nicotine.

Nicotine is a very potent poison, it is only because the cigarette delivers it in such small quantities that our body can cope with it.There is enough nicotine in a pack of 20 cigarettes to kill a person if it was taken in one go!

So all these e-cigs? How much nicotine in one? Enough so that someone could open one up, pour it into someone's coffee and do away with them? Could it become a weapon?

You don't have to drink nicotine, it is absorbed through the skin just as easily.





Trainer Talk
It was a good night at the Phoenix Club last night, (home of Peter Kay and Phoenix Nights).It was a family quiz night organised by St Johns |Church.  We teamed up with Carol and Peter. Ian was a great quiz master despite the challenges of technology! It was a great turnout around 80, we did not win but close! Carrs pasty, mushy peas and red cabbage went down very well. Sadly we had to leave quickly as I had a 3 hr drive ahead of me.

This morning I start day three of the 10th Machineman's Development Course.



Thought for the day

Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.

North Korean Bomb Hits the Food Industry

News Bites
We cannot get away from the horsey food stories. So it is almost a relief to hear about North Korea's bomb test.

Yesterday we heard that we cannot ban  the import of meat from other EU countries, because it is against EU law.

The government are tied by these laws, but not the public. Simply do not buy it, then those that import it will go out of business, because they cannot sell it!

Enough on this subject

So the Koreans have had another bomb test? Although I cannot agree with their construction and testing of a nuclear device, I also do not agree with the West's response.

When UK, USA and Russia etc. did not have the bomb, it was OK to learn how to make one. Now that they have the technology, it's illegal for everyone else!

One rule for the rich and powerful, and another for the rest of us!

Always remember, no matter how frightened we are of come crazy country using one, it is only the USA that actually has.

Trainer Talk
Well a panicky start to the day. Within 5 minutes of waking this morning, I suddenly realised that I had forgotten to print out the Q&A sheets for tomorrow morning. So that was the first job, before putting the coffee on.

Tonight is a family quiz night at St Gregory's Club in Farnworth. Children essential the quiz master says! For those of you who do not know, St Greg's is where Peter Kay and company filmed Phoenix Nights.



Thought for the day

We never really grow up; we only learn how to act in public

Pope Resigns

News Bites
The shock news today is the the Pope is to resign

This will be the first time for centuries that this has happened, the normal way of things is that he dies in office.

I have to admire him for this. He is actually doing what I was talking about yesterday, he is moving with the times, deciding that the old way is not the only way. Well Done Pope Benedict

A quote from a close friend of mine that you should all take heed of is

If you always do what you've always done, you always get what you always got!


Trainer Talk
It was decided to go ahead with the course. All my props are packed, light sabre, rope, samples of Elepoo and other papers, and of course my ball and stick modlels


Thought for the day

If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving isn't for you

The demise of HMV

News Bites
In January HMV went into administration, and earlier this week they announced the closure of 66 of their 220 stores, and the redundancy of their Chief Executive. What I had not realised until today was that their CEO was previously the boss of Jessops, a chain that also went into administration.

I am not a believer in coincidence so my interpretation of this is that the man at the top had the wrong vision.

I think this teaches us two things

1 The person at the top has to have the right vision, along with the leadership skills to push it through
2 Change is inevitable, and these days, you have to keep running just to stand still

I cannot comment on the leadership skills and tenacity of the incumbent, but I can draw the conclusion that he had the wrong vision in both cases. Both he and his employees haver paid the price, they have lost their jobs. We the public have also paid the price, there will now be less choice in the high-street.

Things are changing so fast these days we have constantly to be prepared to drop our old ideas and take on new ones.

I remember running a course at Bury College in 1999/2000, all about how to start up and run your own business.

One of the people on the course worked in a well known high street shop where you dropped off your 35mm film and collected it 24 hours later, or earlier of you paid extra. I remember telling him, find a new career, I cannot see your type of business surviving the coming changes.

OK I was not totally right, but I was very close. Today you can walk up to a machine in one of those same types of shops, slip in the card from your phone or camera, and get instant printouts. Recently I saw the same machines in my local supermarket, so you can do it as part of your normal shopping process.

I don't claim to be a visionary. At the time, I just looked around, and extrapolated what I saw, into the future. The hardest part was do disregard what I wanted to happen, or what I thought technology would allow.

In the past, I have seen leaders that surround themselves by yes-men, to protect their own position and authority.

To me, progress is not made by a constant consensus, it is made by argument. If you do not have disagreement, you do not have different ideas, so you cannot choose between the good and the bad

I wonder if this is what happened at Jessops and HMV


Trainer Talk
This morning we discussed the weather. We have a 1-week course starting in the morning, but we have had severe weather warnings. Should we run it? Or postpone it?

Lets see what happens


Thought for the day

Change is inevitable except from vending machines.

If we don't buy it, They can't sell it

News Bites
As you will all have seen from my previous Blog earlier today, another UK Paper Mill is closing, and another   group of friends, met through training, will be looking for another job.

Rumour has it the manufacturing processes will go to China and Sweden.

This of course will mean another lowering of manufacturing's contribution to the country's GDP, which is sadly only around 11%

Where does most of the rest of the GDP come from? Financial Services!! With our recent mountain of scandals related to the banks, LIBOR, mis-sold pensions, mis-sold Payment Protection Insurance,  etc, the world could turn away from London as a financial hub in an instant! With today's technology, it would not take very long to relocate to somewhere warmer, drier, and more honest.

We would then plummet into 3rd world status before you could microwave a lasagne.

But there is a link to this story and the 'contaminated' food.

This is ALL ABOUT NUMBERS. And there are a hell of a lot more of us than there are politicians!

Our buying power (and refusing-to-buy-power) can have a much greater effect than anything a politician does or says.

I would say the 'horse' contamination is more the fault of the public than the supermarkets.

The public has driven the manufacturers to buy the cheapest and not ask too many questions.

You have a choice, a nice good quality piece of English steak, or mince, that you can use to prepare a home made meal, OR you can go for some CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP ready made stodgy stuff!

Look at this logically, step by step
If you keep buying the cheapest you can find, then you will force the manufacturers to make it as cheap as possible. (this could be a ready meal, or a bicycle)

If the manufacturers buy the best quality raw materials they can, (say Aberdeen Angus beef), and they buy the best quality equipment in which to prepare it, and they have the highest quality environmental standards, and the most sophisticated and rigorous testing, and the best people to cook it, then you will not end up with the cheapest product on the shelf will you?

The only way to make a cheaper product, is to reduce quality. And every time you buy the cheapest on the shelf, you are saying to the manufacturer "OK mate, I agree with you cutting corners"

So, Mr Mrs and Miss General Public If you force them to cut corners what are you forcing to do?

Testing, - well they could cut that out, that will save a pack of money
Equipment - don't need all the easy to clean stainless steel stuff, get a big plastic tub and an old wooden paddle
People, - get rid of the graduate, and put a homeless guy in, he will work for next to nothing, maybe just a warm place to sleep and his food. Doesn't matter if he is not too well or if a bit of his fag ash falls into the mix as he stirs it, no one will be able to find it.
The Meat: And finally what about the meat? Well UK meat will be far too expensive, after all, we take good care of all the cattle and make sure they are well fed and disease free, and happy. Better go to somewhere where they do not care about these things. Hey what about going to the animal scrap yard? They are either sick or already dead there, we can save the cost of killing them, bet they are really cheap.

We all know that we eat far too much food, and usually most of that food is bad for us.

So we have a choice

We can spend small money on a large unhealthy tray of ready made stodge and support another country and not care about our health or our fellow countrymen

OR

We can spend the same money on a small portion of good quality Home Reared meat, live healthier, eat healthier, and support our own country


Thought for the day

I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.

Whatman set to close

Whatman set to close

Long faces at Findus

News Bites

Are they just flogging a dead horse, or is there really still mileage in the horse meat story. I guess there will be a few long faces at Findus as this story goes round the track again.

I always thought Findus specialised in frozen fish? So as this story unfolds will we be told that the 'meat' is really sea horse?

The authorities are saying they believe that criminal activity is responsible? So are the criminals using Findus to fence their stolen goods? 

Has it been going on for quite a bit?

I guess poor Findus will be saddled with another crop of horse jokes reining down on them. and will have to harness a heard of spin jockey's to minimise the damage.

Well folks, you know what to do. If you buy locally produced meat you will never have any of these problems will you? 

 
Trainer Talk
Sitting back on my laurels today, feeling good that I am ahead of my goals. 

Visiting a potential new customer today, lets hope the weather is not too bad

Not the Brightest

A couple of blonde men drove into a builders yard. One of them walked in the office and said, “We need some four-by-twos.”

The clerk said, “You mean two-by-fours, don’t you?”

The man said, “I’ll go check,” He returned a minute later and said, “Yeah, I meant two-by-fours.”

“Alright. How long do you need them?”

The customer paused for a minute and said, “I’d better go check.” After awhile, he returned to the office and said, “A long time. We’re building a house.”



Thought for the day


Tell a man that there are 400 billion stars and he'll believe you.

Tell him the paint is wet and he has to touch it

Deaths and U-Turns

Not the Brightest

Following a huge explosion in a gunpowder factory, an inquiry was held. One of the few survivors was questioned and was asked for his account of what happened. The conversation went something like this

      

"Well, sir, it's like this. Old Charley was in the mixing room, and I saw him take a cigarette out of his pocket and light up."

"He was smoking in the mixing room, how long had he been with the company?"

"About 20 years, sir"

"20 years in the company, then he goes and lights a cigarette in the mixing room, I'd have thought it would have been the last thing he'd have done."

"It was, sir." 

News Bites

There is one news items we cannot ignore today, the sad and appalling deaths at the Stoke hospital.


Sometimes we have to think the unthinkable. The country is in a financial mess, and every penny we can save will help.
We have the Liverpool 'Pathway', designed to speed up a patients death and so lesson their discomfort. I guess it will save the Government all those pension payouts that could go on for years and years, not to mention the costs associated with looking after them
I can't help but link these two events. Hundreds of lives lost, Hundreds of pension payouts saved. Could it really have gone unnoticed by the nursing staff, their management, and all the other organisations above them, The Health Trust, The Nursing Bodies, The Medical Bodies and the Governments own Health Ministry.
Could this be a bit of social engineering experiment gone too far? 

Trainer Talk

Still working  on the Front Line Manager Technical Programme Modules.Sadly got distracted by trying to find some graphics for another project.

I also have to comments on the Governments U-turn on education. They have decided to drop the plan to replace GCSEs with an English Baccalaureate,and they are hoping that Chris Huhne's wife will take the blame

Bur seriously, they did have one good idea that the have also U-turned on. The idea of replacing the SEVEN examination bodies with one. Why do we need SEVEN?

China, with its 1.3 billion people can do it with one, so why can't we? In China every child in every school sits down at the same time and sits the same examination paper.

I cannot see any reason why such a tiny country as the the UK cannot do the same. 

Seven bodies, means seven sets of administrators, seven people with inflated salaries to oversee each administration. It can only be jobs for the boys, 

Come on Mr Gove, U-Turn your U-Turn

Thought for the Day?

Despite the cost of living, have you noticed how popular it remains?

Microchip your...

Not the Brightest
A football manager walked into the changing room before the game.  He went over to his new signing and said, 'I'm not supposed to let you play since you failed your maths test, but we really need you today. So, what I am going to do is ask you a maths question, and if you get it right then you will be allowed to play.'

The player agreed, and the manager asked him, "What is two plus two?"

The player thought for a moment and then answered, '4?'

'Did you say 4?' the manager shouted excitedly, 

Suddenly all the other players on the team began shouting..., 'Come on, give him another chance!'

Pet News

So the government are bringing in compulsory 'chipping' of dogs. The article goes on to say that more than 3000 postal workers were attacked by dogs last year. I really do not see how that will be affected by putting a chip in a dog!

If there was a GPS facility in the chip it would be very useful if the dog got lost, but it only works over a few millimetres  . I can see the up side if a lost dog is found, it will be easier to return. But that is the only upside. I am really struggling to see the point of chipping.

Who will get their dogs chipped? The open honest folk that have enough money! 

Who will not get their dogs chipped? Pensioners that can't afford it out of their meagre pensions?Those on benefits who breed dogs as an undeclared sideline?

And what will be the consequence? I can see mass dumping of unchipped dogs, to avoid the fines.
What if your dog escapes, you catch her and she is pregnant? Will we see a new industry growing up for dog abortions? Or will we just find sacks full of abandoned puppies?

What about the cost of policing it. Undoubtedly some councils will already be planning to employ 'chip wardens' to scan every dog they can find.

Finally I suppose, like all government announcements we should ask the questions, Why This? and Why Now?

Are they really interested in this issue, or is it simply to distract us from other things. While we are thinking and writing about dog tagging, we are not thinking and talking about other things, such as 

their friends the bankers and what they did with the LIBOR rate
their minister friends that get their wives to lie about speeding offences
the potential treble dip recession

Trainer Talk

Today I am starting work on the last of the Front Line Manager Technical Programme Modules. It is not due to run until April, but while I have been working on other similar courses, I think my brain is at the right level and in the right mood.

I have just looked at my YouTube video's and have found that I have now broken the 2000 viewings barrier. It sounds good until my daughter tells me she has had over 8,000 views of her minecraft videos.

Yesterday I had a mill call to book courses for 2014, so I have plenty of time to think about that!!

This morning I have also agreed dates for the 4 x 1-week Machineman Development Course, to be run in 2014

Thought for the Day?

99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

The Young have never had it so Bad

Not the Brightest

A policeman pulls a man over for speeding and asks him to get out of the car. After looking closely at the man, he says, "Sir, I notice your eyes are bloodshot. Have you been drinking?" 

The man gets really indignant and says, "Officer, I notice your eyes are glazed. Have you been eating doughnuts?"

Rough News

The headline that caught my eye and ear this morning was 'Generation Theft'. I do feel genuinely sorry for today's young people, 

• Houses prices are too high
• University leaves you crippled with debt
• There are more unemployed than there are jobs
• The gap between the have and the have nots is getting wider
• They are brainwashed into believing that they 'need' the things that they 'want'.

I will expand on these points

A house should be a home and not an investment. Peoples thinking has been twisted by greed. When they see a house, they see '££££' or '$$$$' not HOME. Once we have this different view, then we create competition, which creates demand, which pushes the price up.

There should be no stamp duty on a FIRST house, up to a prescribed value, lets say 100,000 just to illustrate a point.

If a person or company buys a second or third house then they should pay stamp duty on all of them. After all, they can only live in one house at a time,so any other house is a luxury or a business!

As for council tax, whoever had the crazy idea that second homes should only pay half?

If they can afford to buy a second home, they can afford to pay it all! PLUS- House occupants buy things from the local community, and that puts money into the local community. By purchasing a second home and living somewhere else, the house is empty, so that deprives the community of some spending, so money is taken out of the local economy. For that, they should be taxed, say 1.5 times the normal rate of Council tax.


The gap between the have and have nots is very very common in third world countries, I have seen it in many times on my travels. And now I am seeing it more and more here in the UK. Are we slowly sliding into 3rd world status, with our eyes shut?

Finally, the difference between NEED and WANT. We have recently cancelled our subscription TV packages. Why? Because although we sometimes want to watch an occasional programme, we don't NEED, to watch it, plus the time we spend in front of the TV is getting less and less. The children prefer their on line computer games to TV, I am spending more and more time Blogging, answering emails, and writing courses, and my wife does, whatever she does, on her computer

This got me thinking of the crazy things we have been persuaded to do.

Take out insurance for our TV packages in case we are out of a job! - What does this mean? It means we pay money each month to the insurance company, so that, if we become unemployed, the insurance company will pay the subscription for us. In other words we are paying to guarantee the TV companies continue to be paid. What a con!

Buy Newspapers. Have you really looked at a newspaper. More than 50% of the space is adverts. So we are paying for people to try and sell us stuff, and we get a bit of news thrown in, that will be on the TV and internet anyway.

Watch Football.OK it's fun to watch, but it is no longer a game, it's now a business. It is a way of selling us shirts, and scarves, and magazines and a whole range of memorabilia. I have never understood why people that complain they are poor or underpaid will happily give £30/40 each week to people who are multi millionaires.

If we all acted together, instead of only thinking of ourselves, and refused to pay these prices, I bet it would not be long before prices tumbled.

Trainer Talk

In preparation for some work, I was reading all about tea bags! I remember the old days when my grandmother would warm the teapot, and spoon in the loose tea, one spoon per person, and one for the pot. Then fill it up with boiling water and pop on the home made knitted tea cosy. After a while, she would give it a stir, and pour it out via the inevitable tea strainer.We drink a lot of loose Chinese tea's in our house, Jasmine, Oolong, Chrysanthemum etc.,  as well as the traditional tea bags which seem to have insidiously crept into our lives. Clearly they are a neat way of packaging a single dose of tea, but I had really never thought of how they got started.Thomas Sullivan, a New York based Tea Merchant used to send out tea samples in traditional wooden boxes. One day, he had an idea to send them out in hand sewn silk bags, as a novelty. He imagined his customers would simply open the bags and use the tea as normal. But the customers found it easier just to put the bag of tea, as it was, into hot water, and let it brew. They first appeared commercially in 1904

 Thomas Sullivan