The body does slow down with age, and weekends can often drip by with routine household tasks. When most tasks are accomplished it’s threatening dark and that’s mostly because of your  late start. So on a rain besmirched day, like today, Sunday 24th, I lit the wood burner early and settled into some bird mags and then my newly purchased twin volumes of  Birds of Scotland. It fired me up and lifted the “cabin fever”, it reminded me of the days when I was 18 and keen on fly fishing, my mate (big Gordon) and I would eagerly await the…

http://gregpytel.blogspot.com/

try this blog spot for a very interesting view of the financial crisis (don’t think it’s over) and bankers behaviour.

I obviously would never make a banker as I cannot see how a bonus can be paid until the taxpayers money is paid back. But we are shareholders so the money will not appear as a debt, but if we are the major share holders then surely we can veto these payments when management meetings are held, I understand major shareholders are present at some of these.

It is apparent that bonuses will be paid, with the banks paying…

The post title is a book title by Joe Moran, not finished it yet but can still recommend it to you folk interested in our roads’ history. This author is not dilatory when it comes to detail, it is crammed with it. I did have to point out through his blog spot that a central reservation is a central reserve, mere pedantry I know but how often can you correct a University lecturer?

Hope he doesn’t read this as I will no doubt have made several grammatical errors.

It’s

decorative, particularly on trees

land smoothing, blanketing

mouldable, a plaything

represents Christmas to those of us in the north

is like breaking a spell when you are the first to walk on it

Cornices, don’t be the first !

Is easy to shovel

puts superior smiles on 4 x 4 drivers

brings neighbours together, in mutual car shoving, complaining and snow moving

increases wellie sales

Increases bird numbers and variety to your feeding table

makes it very important to feed and water the birds

makes driving “interesting”

bonus time for gritter drivers

nice for a couple of days…….

add…

Well how were 192 countries ever going to agree?  the developing world had their hand out and the developed world need to look after their economies, this, that puts money in the hand of the developing world. I never liked the stance of the G77’s  Sudanese chairman, I heard a long interview with him on the BBC’s world service, and he was clearly educated, erudite, and entrenched in his views. Anyway he doesn’t matter, as he represents the nations with the hand out, those of you who have read most of my posts will remember the “golden rule” he who…

Pictures today of Gordon Brown kitted up with all the protective gear in Afghanistan, well why not give him a taste of what the troops have to endure by sending him out in less than the best vehicles that they have, to Helmand province. Be more than his defect eye that would be half shut and shut. And the great perpetrator of our entry into the illegal war in Iraq, Mr Middle East peace maker, Mr Tony Blair, is making blaa blaa about WMD’s I would have found another reason to invade, he declares, this dictator (Saddam) bombed and gassed…

Can you believe the absolute brass neck of these egregious bankers? going to resign as they can’t represent the whole of the shareholders to their benefit. Well they blooming well should have resigned when they were representing the whole of the shareholders when the share price was 20p. Was that to their benefit? Call their bluff Mr Darling, on behalf of the majority shareholders, us! How can they say this top talent needs rewarding, this is the top talent that brought the bank to it’s nadir.

Take the one point something Billion quid and give it to the retail side…

Finally I have added a post to Ian’s site.   

I do have some good photos but as for great, I am not so sure.  As a beginner to DSLR photography I am still finding my way and experimenting; after a year there are still many functions on my camera that I have no idea what they do, and many of my photos are down to luck.  As a beginner to photography I have probably chosen the most difficult subjects – wildlife and in particular our avian friends.

Two weekends ago myself, my wife and two of our friends spent…

Below is an excerpt from the internet, adding to my sparse folklore knowledge of the magpie, this by a chance remark from a colleague who stated his wife saluted a lone magpie and issued a greeting. Well we knew he was / is dithering on a delicate edge of sanity but his wife also?

Seems not, she is following an age old superstition that I and her still borderline husband were not aware of !!

Magpie Superstitions

There is an age old rhyme regarding magpie superstitions, brought to the fore in the 1970’s, by the children’s programme…

From listening to various radio programmes it is apparent that large investment banks particularly Goldman Sachs, are investing in super computers. principally in America, seemingly these computers can monitor all selling and buying of shares and have algorithms that cause the super computer to act ahead of  the normal system that has alerted the super computer through the normal system to a deal on which to act. I don’t pretend to understand stocks and shares and the dealing that goes around them. But the principal of share holding is surely to help companies that you favour with your money to…

I don’t read newspapers, I get my news through the radio, I have a great little DAB radio that is first into my suitcase, when travelling. The business programme on Radio Scotland on Sunday got my ears fully tuned in. It was the prosaically named James Smith, Chairman of Shell, Shell UK I guess as I may have missed this point, however the reason I was listening with attention was, he was espousing the same doctrines for planet salvation as Tom Friedman in his book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded. The guy is no dumb red neck Texan, this Brit is…

I had a meeting today with a newish testing lab in Scotland. CET Safehouse have arrived in the small marketplace in Scotland, and  have a tool that the others do not have, Internet reporting.  An evolved system, some five years in the making, not only does it act as a an electronic booking in system but it also has the worksheets and the report sheets integral to the whole system. In CET safehouse’s system they transfer into your inbox your checked and authorised results, this means you can pick up your results as fast as they produce them. UKAS still…

I did deliver my pavement design talk to my senior colleagues on two separate occasions this week. Fortunately my stumbling performance was politely received, my highland hosts have an imbued politeness, which contrasts with my part weggie assertiveness. (Pure dead aggression, bye the way, know what I mean?)

To the talk, my spreadsheet brings together everything I put in text, and highlights, “where’s the money”. I have set it at 80 MSA  as that would appear to be the “design” standard adopted by Transport Scotland for most trunk roads. Perhaps so, if you have the money, order the best you…

Just had a great week in Cornwall with our friends. Cornwall for those who have not visited the county, is different, different in speech, different in topography, different in many subtle ways. Building for instance, the older roofs are built differently, no sarking, but across the roof joists  are purlions (i’m guessing here) and the slates (from Cornwall) are lime mortared on. It would appear to be a measure of coping with the different slate depths, the mortar evens it out, least they don’t rattle as mine do in a storm.

It was the walls I wanted to bring to…