johnnyone

Agree with all of that.
It often amazes me how good tradesmen (often self taught) resolve problems as they go along when working on quite complex interfaces that may work on a drawing but do not in practice or even where there is no drawn detail available at all.

bil

I used to have a friend who was a structural engineer, and who had to produce sometimes what architects had drawn. He used to often look at the drawing, and say 'Do you want it to fall down quickly, or slowly?'

Domino

is it the difference between being practical and educated ?

have met one or two people as Dick describes, one managed to get to 38 and not understand how to drive a screw into wall via hole in metal mounting plate using a battery screwdriver. same guy thought I had found the holy grail when I explained to him that making a pilot hole in wood with nail and hammer ensured the screw stayed in place before starting. He lived with his father who did everything in the house.

any truth in the rumour that the shape of the Great Pyramid was decided by the craftsmen building it and nothing like the architect's design ?



Education is wasted on the young especiall when it comes to International debt.

HBG

I have a dream.

Spain returns to the Peseta and I get 300 of them for my pound Sterling.

UK property prices rise by 50% next year because of the Olympics.

Spanish property prices fall by 50% . . . hold on, hold on, I have a house here . . .

End of dream, again.

(No, it's not - I bought my Spanish house to live in, and I'm going to stay here).

(Am I?)

Domino

thats life - full of decisions and nowadays it doesn't seem to get any better as one gets older

Dick Dasterdly

Yes, life must be so much easier with those living on benefits or tick.

No difficult decisions to worry about and nobody can take off them what they haven't got, and in any event the nanny state will never let them go hungry.

Only joking of course, though there may well be more than a grain of truth in it.

Domino

as happy as a pig in s**t ??
except when working on my uncles pig farm I found out they are similar to us in so many ways, and that it is us that leaves them in s**t

but you are right about the security of living on benefits - which is why there is so much fuss that govt have broken the trust agreement by reducing payments or actually having the nerve to tell people they are no longer eligible as actually they are no longer "disabled". after all its not their fault.

bil

Apart from the natural dislike we all have for parasites, the nanny state does seem to worry more about those on benefit rather than those on pensions. Perhaps it's because pensioners don't riot.

HBG

There's a funny aside to all that truth, we are all going to live much longer than before and all governments are panicking because they can't afford too many old people.

It's even worse for Spain, in a recession people stop eating McDonalds and return to their poor (pure), famous Mediterranean diet of fish and fruit, and live for much longer.

I love Paella, but not the rabbit one.

bil

There's an interesting thought to this. This particular problem hasn't just come out of left field, it's been on its way for a long time, and should have been loud and clear on the government's radar. Like so many things, had they started to take steps earlier, they wouldn't have been so painful.

We pay these people to spot this sort of stuff and fix it.

It would appear that they are incompetent as well as dishonest.

Domino

yes, i see all these "promises" that everyone is going to live longer
just out of curiosity does that start for everyone starting from today or yesterday or is it tomorrow
or is it just for those who were born yesterday..

surely it is something to plan for based on solid figures and knowledge not coming out with the usual knee jerk reaction.

Plan to Plan comes to mind here.

Domino

government's radar ? that was dropped in the defence review of 1966.

when in doubt get everyone jittery and they will stop spending and save more, open pensions etc that can be filched by rogue "traders" who come out of it smelling of roses and £10m bonuses. Meanwhile anything left will be subject to a "special levy" of pensions by the govt which turns out to be an annual tax they forgot to tell us about.

the worrying thing must be that those at the top don't understand what is happening, that a small group are making $millions out of futures betting on currencies, in the same way as George Soros did for the £.

It is serious enough for the UK's PM & Chancellor to remain on holiday rather than come home, I hope they now have secure mobiles that the NOTW staff cannot hack into, the military had it decades ago.

bil

There was a cartoon in el Jueves the other week of a protest filling the streets. The placard they were carrying said

"Take away our dreams and we will become your nightmare."

Dick Dasterdly

They do have a way with words.

I imagine the same will apply to quite a few countries, though no doubt some will be more rebellious than others as seen recently in Greece.

bil

I still think there would be some merit in the thought of just saying bollocks, and every country reneges on it's debts. Wipe the slates clean.

It might piss the chinese off, but what are they going to do? Stop selling us their goods?