Category: General

Not prone to purchases on the spur of the moment, nor to extravagances generally, I rather surprised myself a couple of weekends ago (on my re-union weekend) when I bought a handbag (egged on by ‘the girls’ ) in about 5 minutes flat, and without even looking around first. Continue reading “A Handbag? (one for ‘the girls’)”

Good Morning:

Bearsy: if you re-read my comment #93, you will see that far from asking you to change your views, I was most emphatically suggesting that I feel exactly the same about some of the views expressed on  the thread of  Bravo’s post as a MEMBER of DNMT.   I hope that clarifies my position. I most certainly agree with your right to comment as you see fit.

I feel that of course discussion is reasonable on any of the subjects that arise out of this appalling event, but don’t feel personally that Bravo’s post is an appropriate place to do so.

This was the reason for my request that Bravo or an administrator remove some of my comments. If you or Bravo choose not to do so, then it is your prerogative of course. I stated that I would prefer this to happen, but no matter.

“I think Tocino makes a very valid point, Bravo. Historically, many so called terrorists are now respectable politicians. I’m sure you can think of many examples.”

Time permitting the above  may be an interesting subject for a post; it is, however, a viewpoint and not an endorsement by me of their actions in any way, nor should it be construed as such.

As you might imagine, I’m a little busy here this morning. The bombs on the Metro have caused 30+ reported deaths and another 40 injured so far but reports are still coming in. Responsibility has been claimed by a muslim separatist group from Chechnya – though they are most active currently in Dagestan where there have been 19 terrorist attacks so far this year. It is the same group which claimed responsibility for the attack on the Moscow – St Petersburg express in November.

The attacks were made on the busiest line on the Moscow Metro, one on an interchange in the suburbs, Park Kulturyi, and one on a very busy interchange in the centre right underneath the HQ of the Federal Security Bureau, successor to the Soviet KGB. The attacks were timed for maximum effect at the peak of the rush hour. I was fortunate that I left for work before the explosions occurred – the one in the centre being about half a mile from where I live and the second one being next to the road i travel every morning to get to the office and about a half-mile away, again.

The metro is still running, but getting into the centre is a nightmare and traffic is almost grid-locked.

Al Jazeera is carrying the best reports – you may find these links interesting.

http://english.aljazeera.net/

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/08/2009817141410883512.html

PS. The blog title refers to personal experience. N. Ireland, Germany, London, Serbia and now Moscow. One moment people are going about their everyday business, the next they are lying in the rubble and chaos shocked, stunned and bleeding – or worse, in little red, wet gobbets spread around the scene. And you wonder why I go on about terrorists. Ask yourself this, where does the money come from to finance these groups – but better yet, don’t ask me, ask TTM and Levent.

I spotted this site on Iain Dale’s Diary. It allows you to create your own poster making the real pledges that the Labour Party will be making for the forthcoming election. Have fun!

Here is my effort:

And about time too!

Is it today that most on here have to run around resetting clocks on walls and appliances?

Would you believe that I have never had to reset a timepiece in my life? Except of course on overseas travel, (I remember traveling what appeared to be due south on the Eurostar and having to adjust my watch by an hour, seemed silly at the time.)

I for one am pleased that you are all an hour closer, I do enjoy watching the midweek sports matches but invariably fall asleep during the latter stages.

There is no doubt in my mind that changing clocks is something that we should consider down here, besides the fact that we are heading for a capacity problem with our power stations so many of our rural homes have no electricity at all, children having to study by candlelight would find an extra hour of daylight a blessing.

The ship was fitted with a 50 ton SWL crane on the starboard side aft that reached out over the stern and was used for recovery of diving kit, sea bed rubbish and the like. On that charter we picked up tons of maritime detritus off the sea bed that was in the way of the planned route.

Our job was to survey the route the pipeline would take. The Straits of Messina are a busy place and to minimise down time, we worked long hours with every other weekend off in port. This was the second part of the charter for us and work had increased tremendously as we neared the charter end. Whilst we were at liberty to go ashore, a lot of us tended to stay aboard to catch up on sleep, do our washing and generally chill out.

The hours we worked were 12 on and 12 off and it was all go as it was a full dive operation with surface and Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) work.  For the crew this meant constantly shifting bottom beacons (which marked the route and whose signals were picked up by the ship’s hydrophones) which meant lots of small boat work to recover the beacons and then move them to the next location. On top of this we still had the myriad of ship’s tasks to do such as basic maintenance aboard – so when the weekends came they were a welcome and well deserved chance to catch up. Continue reading “The Quick and The Dead. Part two.”