Vinnie Jones On Lotteries
In today’s Sunday Times, Vinnie Jones is asked about life and money.
One question was “What would you do if you won the lottery jackpot?”
He replied. “I’ve won the lottery of life, which is bigger than any financial lottery.”
I’ll go along with that!
I always feel, I’ve had some very good luck and some extremely crap luck too!
Phince Philip On Crossrail
Matthew Parris , who admits he is no royalist, has an article in today’s Times entitled The Debt We Owe To A Thoroughly Modern Philip, in which he praises Prince Philip’s attitude to engineering, science and technology amongst other things.
He finishes the article like this..
Earlier this year, at 94, Prince Philip descended into the main tunnel of London’s Crossrail project to see more. They told him it would open in 2018.
“Too late foe me,” he said. Then he thought again. “Or perhaps not.”
I hope not.
I would agree with Matthew.
A Clever Idea From IKEA
When I was in the kitchen showrooms in IKEA at Tottenham, I noticed that their corner cupboards didn’t have any lights. And we all know that things get lost in corner cupboards.
I have a feeling that our last two designer kitchens didn’t have corner cupboards because lighting them was difficult.
I thought that I’d be able to use IKEA’S OMLOPP LED spotlights, but wiring them can be tricky.
Then I found some IKEA STRIBERG LED strips, so I took one home.
Reading the instructions, when I got home, it appeared they were for wardrobes. But after a bit of experimenting, I found they worked in my corner cupboard. These pictures show it working.
Note that there are two things left to do.
- The door hinges need to be adjusted to get it straight.
- A hole needs to be drilled in the back of the cupboard to pass the wire through.
But it certainly works well!
Note.
- There is no wiring to do, as it just plugs together and into a 13 amp socket.
- Multiple units can be daisy-chained.
- It comes in various lengths with the 67 cm. version being ideal here.
In my view, it is much easier to install than OMLOPP.
Infuriating IKEA
In Sorting Out IKEA, I said this.
Ever since Summer 2015, I’ve been unable to purchase anything on-line from IKEA. It is very difficult trying to build a kitchen in phases to have to go to the store to buy or order everything. Especially, when you can’t drive. I am lucky, that I can get a 341 bus to IKEA from about two hundred metres away and can even catch a bus from closer, that uses the same stop as the 341 at Manor House station. So it might take about an hour, but it’s not an arduous journey.
I think that the reason for non-delivery, is that that don’t like my home address, as they use a system that checks it against a list of ones with a large number of problems in the past. These were long before I bought the house.
Things have not changed, and I still can’t buy anything on-line, despite having high credit scores that show no problems.
As I need one cabinet to fill a space, I went to the store at Tottenham to buy one.
But you can’t pick it up, as it has to be delivered. So I ordered it in the store and then had to walk miles to get out to pay for it.
How was my shopping experience? Unnecessary and f**king awful, would be the best description.
I now have something small to buy and I shall have to repeat the process for something that I can hold in one hand.
The Steptoe Solution
My kitchen is coming on, albeit slowly because of Infuriating IKEA.
These pictures show the current state.
I’m building up to the big finish, where the side by the window gets ripped out and replaced by new units.
Will we find some more of Jerry’s Wonderful Wiring.
Jerry’s Wonderful Wiring
Or even worse, as there is plumbing and water involved.
So I can’t guarantee that, we’ll be able to plan how long the shut-down of my water and washing-up facilities will be.
On the other side of the kitchen, a wall had to be rebuilt, so I suspect that getting the wiring and the plumbing correct to accept the new units will probably take a couple of days.
I haven’t got another big sink upstairs, but I do have a very small one in my bedroom, where I could wash plates and put them in the shower to dry.
As to washing saucepans and other larger utensils, it will be a Steptoe Solution, as used by Harold to wash his clothes, when he had a bath.
We All Go Round In Circles
I am a Control Engineer by training and I have extensively modelled dynamic systems and constantly changing projects, which are updated regularly, if not daily.
My experience tells me that because we are a rich and innovative nation, that we will attract migrants because they know if they work hard here, they will earn enough to look after their families. Which patently many can’t do in the war-ravaged countries they’ve come from.
Most migrants will bring skills and muscle to fuel our growth, whether we like it or not.
So we get richer as a nation and more and more migrants are attracted to come.
One way to stop the migrants is to say, that we will not let them in and stop them coming.
But then the NHS and other industries wouldn’t have the labour they need, as many migrants settled here would move on to places that valued their skills.
An alternative would be to close down our economy, so that migrants are no longer attracted. Control Engineering says you must balance your production to the need and the resources you have available.
I believe that because of the maths, we either accept migrants or reduce our standard of living dramatically. Our Victorian forefathers brought in the migrants and the rest as they say is history!
This evening, the bookies have it that it’s six to one on, that we stay.
I once had a horse start a race at odds of twenty-two-to-one on. The horse came home by almost the length of the straight at Ayr.
The bookies were right as they generally are!
America Is A Sick Country
There is no other title for a post about this story on the BBC entitled Gun that killed Trayvon Martin ‘makes $250,000 for Zimmerman’.
In my view anybody who wants to own a gun other than for genuine sporting purposes, needs his head examined.
Until the United States has a sensible gun policy and abolishes the death penalty, I shall not be visiting.
I’ll Go Along With This Quote
With a memorial service for Sir Nicholas Winton today, I make no apologies for publishing one of his quotes.
I believe in ethics, and if everybody believed in ethics we’d have no problems at all. That’s the only way out; forget the religious side.
I doubt I can live long enough to see religion, become something you read about in history books.
But the world would be a better place, if everyone followed Sir Nicholas’s advice.
Mutual Blogging
A reader of this blog, who used to be an old Artemis professional, is currently working on a large project, where there are a large number of sub-contractors and a difficult public relations problem with those, who live locally to the project.
They asked me, if a blog could solve some of his problems.
So here goes!
I would suggest, he starts a simple blog, probably using WordPress, as it is generally easily managed by an individual with average computer skills.
- Only a tight group of individuals would be allowed to add posts to the blog.
- Posts would be limited to so many a week.
- Anybody would be allowed to comment, but under a set of behavioural rules and moderation, If the project is controversial, you don’t want the blog to become the focus of discontent.
- I believe that with a difficult project, it could be a place for constructive discussion.
- Hopefully, each post would generate comments and discussion, that improved the original post.
- The blog would also point on its home page to useful sites concerned with the subject of the blog.
- There would be a contact form.
If you were having a blog like this for say a public infrastructure project like Crossrail, it could be public, but a project like perhaps trialling a new treatment for a controversial-to-some illness like HIV-Aids, might be password-protected.
I think on balance most project blogs would be public.
If a system like WordPress is used, all of what I said is possible. And a lot more too!
North of me, they are electrifying the Gospel Oak to Barking Line and there has been a bit of controversy over noisy piling in the middle of the night.
A simple post apologising for the noise and giving locations may have eased the problems. You might even get comments to the blog from those overlooking the piling, which show the details of the engineering and the generated noise.
You can never be sure, the way that such a blog will develop.
But I’m sure it will work, to improve the smooth running of a project.
Mainland Birmingham
Just listening to Adrian Chiles doing a live broadcast on the Brexit debate from the Bull Ring in Birmingham.
He has just interviewed a third-generation Indian sub-continent stall-holder, who described himself on-air as born in Mainland Birmingham.
Even Adrian, who is a Brummie, was caught out by the phrase.
The wonders of the English language.
The Anonymous Widower 