Category: General

Yesterday we left the UK after a three month visit. We’d had our last decent Indian meal and proper fish ‘n’ chips… and on Monday I bought (yet another) new suitcase to accommodate  our contributions to the British economy.

At  7.30 am we got the taxi to Heathrow. I was dreading the check-in. Normally there are long queues which I’ve managed to avoid in the last few years by booking-in on line – this time I had no access to a printer. Regs state clearly: two suitcases, 20 kg per person and 7kg hand luggage. We had three suitcases of unknown weight, and four computers and a pile of books in our hand luggage … Continue reading “Home Again!”

Neil Diamond

Right then, by popular demand (Soutie, JW and me), these are the grids as presently constituted.

JM – Embra

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The Ship Spotters’  Roll of Honour

HMES Walton identified by Boa and Ferret

HMES Bach Boa

HMWS  David Byron Ferret

HMES Delius OZ

HMWS Bob Seger Soutie

HMES  Turandot OZ

HMES Melba Soutie

HMES Sibelius OZ

HMWS Muse Nobody (under appeal by OZ)

HMWS Slade  Ferret

HMES R.V’-Williams OZ

HMES Verdi OZ

HMWS Megadeth Soutie

HMES Mikado OZ

HMES Mahler OZ

HMWS Toto OZ

HMWS Police Soutie

HMWS Heart Soutie

There seem to me to be very few facts, at least ascertainable facts, in politics.
Robert Peel

Goodnight everyone, sleep well.

Neil Diamond

Just returned from a couple of days away and faced with a very busy week and a family get together here this coming weekend, I have an imminent hard disk failure. It hasn’t altogether give up the ghost but it’s most certainly exhibiting faults if I try to do anything more ambitious than emails or blogging. Continue reading “Never happened before!”

There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.
Henry A. Kissinger

Goodnight everyone, sleep well.

‘We are not there to produce fodder for industry’ so said a feminist teacher to me during a discussion in the seventies. This was a period of rising militancy in the teaching unions, and among feminists in particular. My argument that preparation of pupils for the world of work was an important function of the education industry was waved airily aside. Since those days, education has become increasingly distanced from industry and commerce.

I was reminded of this teacher’s dismissive attitude this morning, upon reading that British educated students are believed by numerous managers in industry to be inferior to immigrants as potential employees. Once again, numeracy and literacy are specified as problem areas.

In the mid-eighties I was the management development manager with a conglomerate in the East Midlands. That role involved me in the selection and development of young people who aspired to a management role. I found myself forced to introduce remedial training in literacy and numeracy for successful applicants who had good grades at ‘A’ levels in those areas.

Neil Diamond – I am, I said

It’s good to see Australia following the Old Country’s  lead.

We elect a hung parliament and they follow suit.  I never did buy all this about our two countries drifting apart.