Posts

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Scouting is ‘A Good Thing’

Reading through the various websites and newspapers yesterday and today, it seems that the general opinion is that Scouting is a good thing! Wow what a shocker! It's nice that the positive aspects are being promoted and not just the usual piss takes. Not a mention of Dyb Dyb Dyb (stands for Do Your Best. Dob stands for Do Our Best – now you know!). Not that those phrases have been used for nearly 40 years!
The Scout Association's PR machine is doing really well in this our centenary year and with the Jamboree going on.
The general opinion is that Scouting is a good influence on young people and is a good influence. I'm sure BP must be impressed! 
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School Holidays

Well, we broke up on Friday and now have six week of holidays. Except we don’t!
In a school, there are three types of contracts.
  1. Teacher. You are employed on a full time (or part time), 52 weeks per year contract and get 13 weeks holiday.  You are not expected to work in the holidays (although to be fair some do).
  2. Full time support staff. You are employed on a full time, 52 weeks per year contract and get roughly 6 – 8 weeks holiday depending on length of service. You have to work in the holidays.
  3. Part time support staff. You are employed on a part time, 39 weeks a year contract (term time) and technically get no holidays as you are not employed for those weeks. However staff are paid over the full year.
The majority of non teaching staff are part time. In fact there are only 4/5 people, including me, in my school who are full time (one person remains to be seen!).

So why is it the majority of non teaching staff are part time? Cost of course, it’s a lot cheaper to not pay people for 13 weeks a year.
The other side of the coin is why are teachers paid for 52 weeks a year? I guess it’s all down the power of the teaching unions and the lack of power and interest from the unions representing the support staff.
Oh well, at least I’ve got a few quiet weeks before my hols!

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Virgin Lose the Cross Country Francise

Wow! Virgin have lost the Cross Country franchise to Arriva!

One thing that struck me straight away is that they're promising to reintroduce HSTs! That's something Virgin were determined not to do and when they've hired one in they've apologised about the fact!
I'll be fascinated to see if they improve the services and also the number of seats on the trains!
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Ink Costs

There is a full page advert in today's Sunday Telegraph from HP extolling the benefits of buying genuine HP ink cartridges over recycled ones!
The thing that they forget is that the cost of their cartridges are so damn expensive! I seem to remember reading once that ink for printers is more expensive than gold!
Cut the prices and stop spending money on full page adverts HP!!!
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Terrorism, London, Glasgow, Chesterton & Bradwell!

Well it appear that some of the suspects from the weekends attacks in London and Glasgow lived in my area. In fact only a mile or so from where I live and very close to friends of mine!

What is it that makes doctors with a family want to blow people up and injure them? It can't be because they're Muslim, because Islam is supposed to be a peaceful religion. Like all religions I suppose, people interpret things in a way that suits them. Never heard of a Buddhist terrorist mind!

I feel sorry for the kiddies of these people. If they are involved (and we must assume innocent until proven guilty), what will it mean to them? Mummy and Daddy tried to blow people up!

Also, it seems that the local F***wits are out in force again by hurling abuse to any person who may be Muslim – makes you proud doesn't it? 😉

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Smoking

Well it's finally happened, smoking in public places is finally banned in England. Nice to see we're behind Ireland, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland though.
It will be nice to go into a pub or pub / restaurant without coming out smelling like an ashtray! There is an argument by the pro smoking lobby that it infringes their human rite to smoke. Tough! It's my right not have smoke blown at me. Even if there are non smoking sections, smoke always drifts.
It will be interesting to see what people say in the press over the next few days / weeks!
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Longport Station 2

Seems like some money is finally being spent on Longport Station see here. 

This is good news. However, it is noticeable that it is not Central Trains who are funding the work, but North Staffordshire Regeneration. Strange really as it was Central Trains who have not spent any money on the stations and made them unstaffed halts since they have had control of them. Having said that, they lose the franchise on 11/11/07, so it will be interesting to see what the new London Midland company and the new East Midlands franchise will do. They can't be worse than Central – can they?

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Windows Vista

Well, last week I got my hands on my new laptop. I'd sent my old one off for repair and eleven weeks later(!), they decided that it couldn't be repaired so I was issued with replacement vouchers.
So now  I am now the proud owner of an HP Compaq Windows Vista lappy. Having read some not too complimentary articles about Vista, I was quite interested to see what it would be like. I remember Windows XP wasn't great when it first appeared and only truly became stable when SP1 was released. With SP2, it became very reliable. However, it should have been reliable from the beginning.
Anyway, back to Vista. So far so good. In fact I'm using it now to type this – still using Firefox with the Deepest Sender add on though!
I've always liked HP stuff and this is no exception. I've found a couple of things that aren't available for Vista yet. I've got a Netgear SC101 NAS drive that hasn't had Vista drivers released yet and Comodo firewall isn't out yet, but these are coming.
Vista is a bit 'prettier' due to the Aero interface (which is quite kewl to be honest) and it seem a lot more secure. Every time a programme or service needs to run, you get asked.
Time will tell how I get on, especially as SP1 is rumoured to be out in the  autumn!
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Supermarkets

I watched Whistleblower on BBC1 last night. It was about some of the practices on the fresh food departments at a Sainsbury's and Tesco's stores.

Can't say I'm surprised at what they found (cleaning issues excepted). In the 13 years I worked in retail at various stores, similar things happened.
It's basically down to the fact that there are never enough staff and the managers are under such pressure not to blow their wages and waste budgets and to always meet their sales targets. The other hindrance is the fact that the stores have little or no control over what stock is delivered to them, so if too much stock is delivered, it is the store's problem.
The supermarkets can be extremely hypocritical at times! The customer always comes first – no, the profit margin always comes first!
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Etruria and Longport

I've just noticed there is a comment on this post I made last year about Etruria station. I never did receive a reply to my letter. I suppose my MP didn't think it was worth bothering with as there is nothing that can be done now.
This still doesn't remove the fact that local public transport in this area is poor (to be polite). As mentioned in a previous post, Longport station is supposed to be having money spent on it to improve its condition. As far as I can tell after visiting it on two separate days last week that amounted to 2 new waiting shelters. One of which had some of the local Chavs in it sipping on their cheap lager! Tell them that people stand on stations for a hobby and they'd take the p**s! It's a great place to hang tho innit?
I digress! I still get the impression that no one in the Government or the Train Operating Companies really care about North Staffordshire. Longport still has a train to Stoke / Derby and Crewe every hour and the 2 trains to Manchester within half an hour of each other in the mornings and one at night from Manchester, but that's it. Hardly intensive is it? The Stoke – Stafford local service is still a bus and will be until 2009 (I think). There is a proposal for a Crewe – London service via North Staffs in 2009, which will stop at Alsager, Kidsgrove & Stone as well as Stoke, but although that will be quite useful, we still need a service for the local stations to Manchester. Well, to be honest we need a decent local service full stop!
Eighteen months ago I wrote to Central Trains about their awful service in this area and they replied that it wasn't their fault, it was the DfT's. This is despite the fact that they operated the services and asked for Etruria to be closed!
As an indicator of the Central Trains' attitude to this area, in a reply I got, I was told of the wonderful new Desiro service from Birmingham to Liverpool. Very good I replied, but as it doesn't come anywhere near North Staffordshire (well it does, but straight through as there are no stations between Stafford and Crewe!), what use was it to me? They didn't reply to that!
Central Trains are to lose their franchise in the next 6 – 12 months! 
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Snooze

Just got back from Shrewsbury. I was intending to have lunch with Carol, but Superdrug struck again, and she wasn't able to get out for lunch.
While waiting at Crewe, it occurred to me how boring it now is! The diesel depot is closed and I didn't see one loco moving through the station. All Pendolinos , Voyagers , 175s , 170s , 158s , 153s & 323s . Dull, dull, dull. No wonder there was hardly anyone spotting.
I came across some pictures from 20 years ago, they showed new and refurbished locos coming off the works and loads of variety in locos and units!
 
Pendolino @ Crewe