The On-Line Adventures of Stig & Nasty

Whew! Punch!

2009-11-20T08:33:00Z

I've been missing from Livejournal the past few weeks. Actually having to work at work sucks. But this morning I opened my diary to discover that the three meetings that were organised for today have been cancelled and all my prep for the Executive Steering Group meeting I have next week is finished. I do have a bit of work to do for a meeting on Monday but that'll take no time at all.

As a wee bonus, there is one of those bull-riding machines installed in the atrium of the building allowing us to watch as the braver members of staff attempt to wreck themselves during working hours. Doubtless the day will see a couple of accountants from the finance department walkiing arround our floor dressed as tarts with plastic buckets asking for donations. Someone will have their head/beard/tash shaved off and there will be a tragic experiment to see how many data input staff can fit into a lift.

It must be children in need day.

I don't mind the charity stuff, but the stunts these people pull are the same every year and most of them were not very funny first time out. Personally I'd like to suggest a new fundraising idea. How about a bunch of the people who take part in this thing every year, line up, blindfolded, and we have an auction to see who is prepared to pay the most amount of money to punch them, hit them with a plank or make them do the wallpapering sketch from Sunday night at the London Palladium.

The old silent movies and the success of shows like Jackass show that something that causes pain to a friend or (especially) a boss is always funny. The fear of extreme violence would encourage better interpersonal behaviour during the working year and I wouldn't have nightmares about the guys from finance .

So we have a chance to improve the working environment, reduce stress levels in hard working Risk professionals (thats me folks) and raise lots of money for the kids.

Go on, Punch a workmate for Children in Need!

(How do the accountants still manage to look staid and boring (if a little scary) when wearing yellow miniskirts, black stockings and heels?)

Spotify

2009-11-08T17:58:40Z

Not sure how many of you are using the Spotify software. But I have set up a playlist and a blog to go with it.

Love to get your comments on the music and the drivel I've written about some of the tracks.

Blog Link

Playlist Link

Ramble On!

2009-10-27T09:32:16Z

What a pleasant way to spend a Monday night, drinking tea, ~~talking rubbish~~ indulging in intellectual conversation with morienosand watching as my daughter trys to deal with the worlds most enthusiastically friendly canine.

No dogs allowed in our house, my wife is terrified by them, so my daughter loves to visit houses where the little beasts reside. (We do have two rabbits, AKA the slippers, who live in a far too expensive plastic hutch, having eaten holes in the two wooden hutches we had for them before. But plastic and wire have sorted out their gnawing activities!).

As a twelve year old, my daughter is just starting to find me more embarassing than funny, but after a couple of hours with the dog last night she was talking twenty to the dozen on the way home and totally forgot to try to be cool. Nice times.

I'm about to start a week off work. I was worried that I was getting behind with the projects I inheritated when my boss was transferred, that I made extra efforts to catch up last week. (Its called delegation) As a result I was left with two phone calls and a one hour meeting to get through today and then I will be fully up to date. I'm hoping to have everything out of the way by lunchtime.

What? No!

2009-10-23T10:01:01Z

I think the Daily Mash got this about right.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/everyone-hoping-griffin-says-something-about-jews-200910222159/

A huge number of people appear to have sat down in front of their TV last night, determined to be offended by Nick Griffin. I heard the show on the radio, on my way home from a much more interesting debate on the use of punctuation marks.

Obviously, I was on the liberal side of the argument, championing the freedom of anyone to litter their work with question marks and exclamation points in a vain attempt to avoid the dreaded adverb. (They are not your friends you know).

On the other side of the debate, noted word fascist morienos demanded that a question mark be replaced by the phrase "he asked quizzically" and the exclamation mark by "he ejaculated" thus revealing the real reason for the creation of that particular piece of punctuation - to spare the blushes of gentle women of the Victorian age.

Our debate, I would suggest, was better thought out, more clearly expressed and certainly much more entertaining than the mess presented by the BBC last night. Griffin sounded, and looked - when I finally got home and switched on the TV - like a self-important little man who wasn't half as clever or eloquent as he thought he was.

But with the sole exception of Bonnie Greer, the rest of the panel were little better. Like Griffin they obviously had pre-prepared comments and jammed them into their answers to questions whether they fitted or not.

Baroness Warsi, the Conservative rep, was almost incoherant at times. She was a good speaker, in that she sounded like she was was making important points, but there was often little content to her words other than the 'talking points' she had obviously learnt off pat.

Jack Straw was Jack Straw and sadly not the one from the Grateful Dead song. (Is he really that small or did the BBC make him sit on a really, really low chair). He got a few useful digs in at Griffin, but could not overcome the extent to which he resembles Jack Straw and turn himself into a sympathetic character.

Chris Hulhe the Lib Dem seemed to be nothing more than a haircut with a good line in political cliche. By the time he got to the second sentence of any comment, I had drifted off and was mentally ticking off a list of friends who wore size nine shoes or something equally interesting.

Overall the audience asked better questions and made more pertinent comments than most of the panelists and did so politely, thus ensuring that Griffin was unable to play the persecuted victim card. Indeed, I think that Griffin's appearance on question time will have gained him very few additional supporters, whereas the attempt to silence him, had it suceeded, would have fed into the story the BNP likes to protray.

It is a long time since I have watched Question Time, it'll be a long time until I watch it again.

Cheese morienos?

Would Yous'uns Ever Just Bog Off!

2009-10-16T12:54:32Z

This just depresses me.......

Its a part of our heritage I thought we would be able to consign to the past, but there appear to be some amongst us who can't seem to let go......

Its Nice in Nice

2009-10-07T11:46:29Z

Just back from a long weekend in Nice in the South of France. A good break from the office, but the discovery that my boss had moved to another division in the two days that I had been away marred my return somewhat when I discovered that his work had been passed on to me.

Temperature was between 25 and 30, roughly the same as when we were there in the summer, so it was far too hot for me, but perfect for my wife who regards any temperature below 20 as baltic. Spent a very pleasant time reading in bars drinking good coffee and Pastis while my wife shopped.

Until this summer i'd always avoided the strange cloudy drink that my brother in law drank, assuming that it would be as vile and sweet as I remembered Pernod to be. But the variaties available in France were very different, not sweet, and, when cold, very well suited to a hot Saturday afternoon.

I was also struck by how friendly the French were. I'd always assumed that the stories of the unhelpfulness of their waiting staff and their refusal to speak english even when they could were true. Not my experience at all, although I suspect my Norn' Irish accent might have helped in that regard. I did witness a waiter feign an inability to speak english with an english couple and then procedd to speak quite clearly in english to me.

But then they had been quite rude to him on their way into the resturant.

As usual I spent a little bit of time in a comic shop on Saturday morning, in the wonderful BD Fugue Cafe . Staff were very friendly, coffee was good and the selection of French BD was awesome. I wish I could read the language, the variety of material available is stunning, from westerns to scifi, historical stories and humour.. Heavy Metal really does not do the european scene justice.

Even the Marvel Soleil books, while welcome are nothing in comparison to the originals which are published in much bigger volumes (in terms of page size, rather than page count). No wonder they, along with the Savage Sword of Conan reprints which eventually led me to get glasses. The same applies to the Lewis Trontheim Dungeon books, published in little more than paperback size by NBM, in France they are on the same size paper as Dc's absolute books.

In the end I bought very little, but I couldn't resist picking up an excerpt from Jacques Tardi's 1914-1918 published in newspaper form, a little like wednesday comics but in black and white and featuring a single story. The words were not necessary to understand what was being said. As vivid a treatment of the horrors of the first World War as i've seen anywhere. I may order the collection at some time even if it is in french.

Music.

2009-09-23T14:56:26Z

Not often that music makes me laugh out loud. But when I realised that the song I was hearing on my ipod this morning was a cover of T.A.T.U.'s "All the things they said" I lalmost spat my coffee over my PC screen.

Performed by Bosshoss, who were supposed to be playing in Belfast on Saturday but cancelled, its a really raw Country version of the song. Well worth a listen if you treasure inappropriate covers of songs like I do.

Picking on Santana (Bluegrass covers of the works of Carlos) and 'Dub Side of the Moon' are highly recommended.

Banks, Hockey and Getting Plastered

2009-09-21T10:31:39Z

I've been hiding inside my headphones this morning. Lots going on in the Office that I really cannot be bothered with today. Another set of reshuffles is underway, trying to find the capacity for an additional 250 voluntary redundancies. Lots of angry noises coming from the union at the moment

By the time this is finished we'll have cut our staff by 1000, or 15%. In some areas that isn't a big problem, like most other Irish banks we have a large 'sales force' who were involved in servicing the property market and other borrowers. As a result of the crash in that market, and the severe dowbturn in the Irish ecconomy, the level of loan applications to be processed has fallen dramatically.

Potential customers are in short supply and many of those who are applying fail credit checks on the basis of Stress Testing. In other words they are applying for mortgages they can afford at current Interest Rates, but which they will quickly find impossible to manage when the inevitable Interest rate hikes start to appear.

So cuts in front line and loan support staff are easy to find, but for many other areas there has been no reduction in workload. Indeed there are a number of growth areas. Dealing with the financial regulators, or managing potential bad debt spring to mind.

Cuts are falling mainly in the Republic of Ireland, the Irish government and employers have been very good to themselves over the past few years. There has been a government approved rate for pay increases applied to salaries year on year during the Celtic Tiger period.   The difference in settlements has been such that my equivalent in ROI is paid 20-30% more than me in real terms.   I suspect that trend will start to reverse itself in the next few years and Irish tax rates will again move way ahead of the UK,

Our workload has increased quite considerably in recent weeks. Instead of us having to push for process reviews they are now being requested, but my line Manager has been transferred leaving all of his work behind him. Including some of the dullest audio meetings known to man. (The one i'm in at the moment isn't exactly thrilling) Very shortly I'll be required to say 'no, we don't sell that sort of product' and that will be my full contribution for this month.

A busy few months ahead I suspect.

Giants 4, Blaze 5.

Belfast Giants game on saturday was also showing the effect of the Credit Crunch. A much smaller crowd than last season and a poor atmosphere.   It may be my imagination, but I suspect we are seeing a lower standard of play as well. Players who last season were on 2nd lines have been promoted to first line status and not, I suspect, because they have improved. The Giants have replaced their main sponsors and do not appear to have been able to afford the quality of overseas players they had last year.

Even with that they had to work hard to lose this game. They seemed to be by the better team by a long way, more than double the number of shots than Coventry. But they were lacklustre in defense and suffered badly for poor goal tending. They were 4-1 down by the end of the first period with two of the Blaze goals coming from unlucky/silly goaltending errors.  It was only in the final period, when they were already well down, that the Giants came to life but Coventry held on for the win. In the end the best thing about the evening was the Thai Red Curry I had on the way home.

House a bit of a mess at the moment. After 90 years the pebbledash on the outside walls had started letting in water. So its being replaced. Never in the field of human building have two workmen drunk so much tea in so short a period.!

ELO in Good Song Shock!

2009-09-16T06:58:25Z

Shuffle is a wonderful inverntion. Doing my usual pre-8:00 stunt in work, firmly plugged into the headphones on shuffle. I loaded a batch of seventies music along with albums by Drive-By Truckers and Booker T last night. About 7:35 I was shocked to discover a listenable ELO song that I'd forgotten about.

The 10538 Overture was the first single by the band and Roy Wood had not yet departed to form Wizzard. Very different from the blandness that was to come from elo.

The riff was later used by Paul Weller for his song Changing Man.

Help!

2009-09-14T14:22:38Z

This is an utterly pointless post. But as of Friday, I've spent 30 years working for the same employer I joined straight out of school. One of the Irish High Street Banks, and today someone has produced a photograph of me taken on my first day in the training school.

Sadly (I won't be able/don't want) to reproduce it here (it won't scan very well and too many people would laugh at me) but it was interesting to look at the photograph and think back.

Of the eight people in the picture, three of us are still working in the bank ,all of us having graduated to Head Office departments and sitting barely 15 yards apart.

Of the others, one, the one we used to tease about having fat ankles, became Miss Northern Ireland and now runs a model agency. Another is dead while a third, the only one I ever worked with again, left the bank almost fifteen years ago to be a full-time mother. One guy left within two weeks and escaped into the real world never to be seen again. Not really a surprise, as he wasn't able to do anything that we were being trained in, A bit ironic because, as far as I can remember, he was the only one who wanted a career in the Bank. For the rest of us this was the best place to make money while you thought what you would do after screwing up your A Levels.

The only alternative with the same level of pay was the Police and you thought very hard about that in the Northern Ireland of 1979. About a year later a Bank Manager was killed when a bomb was planted under his car, the car he'd bought from a Policeman that very day.

The last girl in the photograph, the one all the guys fancied, eloped to the Isle of Man with the Assistant Manager of the first branch she worked in. They'd known each other six weeks.

All Darling's fault - say the American's

2009-09-04T09:01:28Z

This story in today's Guardian makes interesting reading. Especially considering the profits Barclays have made from picking over the bones of the collapsed american bank Lehman Brothers.

I think we are now beginning to see the roles which governments played in the banking collapse and the subsequent global ecconomic downturn that is putting so many people out of work. The collapse of Lehman's was the key event in the crisis and to see that the Bristish and American government's were not able to organise some form of rescue is stunning.

At the end of the day, Lehman's was an American Bank, and if action was needed it was the responsibility of the American authorities to make sure that all the t's were crossed, but Mr Darling does not come out of the story very well. But then his handling of Northern Rock did not exactly inspire confidence.

stigandnasty919 @ 2009-09-03T07:52:00

2009-09-03T07:55:50Z

No posting for a while. Spend most of last week in a cottage in Mount Charles, Donegal. Weather was awful, but we lit the fire and watched the wee boats struggle across Donegal Bay.

No real excitement this time round, no lunatic Englishmen trying to walk across the sandbank that appears for about an hour in the middle of the bay at low tide like last year.

We called the Guardia and watched the rescue through binoculars - well it was better than another episode of Murder She Wrote which seems to be the only thing on RTE (Irish national TV station) shows.

My daughter spent all her waking hours on the beach with a dog called Sox, collecting crabs and getting as dirty as humanly possible.

Walking around Donegal (the town) the effects of the economic downturn in Ireland were very obvious. Firstly it was possible to park. Something that is not usually possible in the last week in August. There were a lot of empty shops and those remaining open have noticeably reduced stocks.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Work this morning:

Can anyone imagine why I would be interested in the reason behind Sainsbury's closing two rows of Petrol Pumps this morning? And how can someone spend ten minutes telling me the story? I seem to get a new, very dull story every morning. Told at great length, usually when I have something much more interesting to do. See my 'Blah, blah, blah' posting a couple of weeks back.

It isn't in my nature to be rude to people, but its getting to the point where I can't help myself. I no longer take my headphones off when the person concerned comes into the office, I refuse to make eye contact as that seems to increase the length of the stories and quite often I don't even bother to pretend to listen anymore. Nothing seems to work.

Its like my tinnitus (much reduced thank you very much) is now scattered liberally with "and I said to her" and "she said to me" and other bits of irrelevant word salad.

Its only when my daily audio meeting, 8:15 every morning, starts that I manage to get a respite.

Warning!

2009-08-26T11:55:46Z

Football violence can inflate your pants.

Return of the Concept Album?

2009-08-25T07:24:20Z

I'm not talking Yes and their Tales from Topo-bloody-graphic Oceans or any of that poo-faced rubbish, but an album with an overarching theme, Cricket.

The Duckworth Lewis Method is the name of the album (and the band) and I reckon anyone who likes Cricket will enjoy it. Even my Dad, whose musical taste we will not even begin to discuss..

Neil Hannon, from Devine Comedy and Thomas Walsh of Dublin based Pugwash are the core of the band and they have treated their subject with real affection and wit.

There is even one song, Jiggery Pokery, about a single delivery, which made me laugh out loud. Its takes a lot of skill to craft a lyric like this into a song

"Robery, muggery, Aussie skullduggery,
Out for a buggering duck!"

Strange that it is two Irishmen who have put this together. I do wonder how it will play with those who are not interested in Cricket.

In a totally unscientific study, I have to say that it is one of the few CDs I have ever seleted to play in the car where my wife has asked me to 'Play that Again' as soon as it was finished.

Its Fallen in the Water.

2009-08-24T12:36:20Z

This is really quite scary.

Fills you with confidence over safety standards in the Rail Network in Ireland. The viaduct concerned was inspected just two days before it collapsed into the sea. Inspection was probably of the "aye sure its grand" type.

Somehow I can see huge increases in the use of video conferencing over the next few months.

stigandnasty919 @ 2009-08-24T08:08:00

2009-08-24T07:09:55Z

I had a wee rant a while ago, about Esther Ranzen and her outburst about the people of Northern Ireland.

It all stemed from reports of racist attacks on a group of Romanian families living in Belfast. Attacks that caused them to flee the country vowing never to return. At the time there was something odd about the reports, as the Police here were saying that the trouble started as a result of difficulties within the Romanian community.

Another slight twist, having been flown home by the government a couple of months ago, many of the same families have come back. Maybe Belfast isn't such a bad place after all?

This Isn't me (Repost)

2009-08-19T16:32:56Z

I thought i'd post this before morienos does. This is not what I look like. The differences are:

1. I have a beard and some hair
2. I am not green, at least not that green.
3. I would never wear a pair of white tights.
4.With the state of my knees I couldn't sit on that wee tray for more than 2 minutes.

otherwise, close enough.

Time for work, whoop-de-do. Thank heaven for the Shakedown Stream podcast. A new Grateful Dead live show every week. Check it out bingobison !

Er, bit of a cock up on the posting of images front.

2009-08-18T06:40:15Z

Nothing to see here, move along.

Welcome BingoBison

2009-08-17T09:22:48Z

bingobison another resident of North Down.

stigandnasty919 @ 2009-08-14T07:31:00

2009-08-14T06:34:05Z

Coffee Machine Madness and Random Burbling

2009-08-13T10:39:56Z

Arrived at work this morning to find a guy taking all the coffee out of the vending machine, he'd mixed the decaf with the real stuff earlier in the week and had to replace it all. I'm not sure how anyone noticed but that may explain why I didn't sleep last night. I spent the whole day yesterday running workshops and that means I was chain-drinking coffee-machine coffee.

Usually I don't much like decaff, coffee free coffee, pretty much describes it. (That pod stuff you had, morienos is an exception) but the coffee machine stuff tastes no worse than the brown liquid which passes for ordinary coffee in our vending machines. Lowest common denominator, but it was interesting to see that there are actually different packages for the various drinks offered as everything seemed to taste the same.

Can't really complain as its all free.

Guys in white suits out the back of the office today and the street behind us is sealed off. Our security men told us that "Some bleather got a wild kicking, yonder" which is Ulster Scots for "A gentlemen was asaulted in that street".

CSI Belfast seems a fairly laid back affair which mostly involves chatting and standing about with your hands in your pockets.

Couldn't hear exactly what they were saying but I decided it was:

CSI Belfast officer 1 "Here, that's blood that is".

CSI Belfast officer 2. "Aye".

I think morienos should write the new series.

OK, audio meeting over, back to doing something useful.

Writer's Block: Memo to Myself

2009-08-11T06:28:11Z

If you could travel back in time, what advice would you give to your younger self?

View 558 Answers

No, there isn't plenty of time of time to figure out what you want to do for the rest of your life..

Help - Part 2

2009-08-10T13:26:05Z

Last week I posted this:

"Boss away today, couple of people taking advantage. This is a summary ot their conversation, which went on from 8:05 this morning until I finally went to a meeting at 11:35. I may have paraphrased it a bit, but it boiled down to this:

Blah, Blah, Blah, curtains, Blah. Terrible, blah, blah, needn't think that I'll be, blah, blah, blah. Blah, Blah, Blah, men are rubbish, Blah. Terrible, blah, blah, , share price, blah, blah, blah. Blah, Blah, Blah, curtains, Blah. You know your man, blah, blah, pay, bank, baddies, blah, blah, blah. Blah, Blah, Blah, Just take this phone call, Blah. Terrible, blah, blah, , share price, blah, blah, blah. Blah, Blah, Blah, curtains, Blah. Terrible, etc, etc, etc."

Today we are the same situation. The conversation started slightly later and I missed more of it due to being in a meeting or two. But I noticed something very odd. The conversation was more or less constant, right up until 12:00, right on the dot silence fell. Crosswords were done, paperbacks were read and food was eaten, but no conversation took place. Maybe they don;t like each other in their own time?

Cinfined to Barracks

2009-08-09T13:34:41Z

For some crime or other, I'm sure I'll find out what it is shortly.

In the meantime - Hippy Bathday duj_1arm

Meme, Meme, Memety, Meme

2009-08-07T12:07:17Z

OK, here are the rules. Test your memory and your love of live music by listing 50 artists or bands (or as many as you can remember) you've seen in concert. List the first 50 acts that come into your head. An act you saw at a festival and opening acts count, but only if you can't think of 50 other artists. Oh, and list the first concert you ever saw (you can remember that, can’t you)?

1 Rolling Stones

2. UB40

3. Santana

4. George Thorogood

5. Bob Dylan

6. Thin Lizzy

7. Ramones

8. Johnny Thunders Heartbreakers

8. Rudi

9. Outcasts

10. Undertones

11. Bob Dylan

12. U2 – supporting and not as good as a band called DC Nine

13. Damned

14. The Clash

15. Flaming Groovies – best live band I ever saw.

16. Dizzy Gillespie

17. J Geils Band

18. Dexy’s Midnight Runners

19. King

20. Skid Row (the Irish Band)

21. Horslips (about 15 times)

22. Third World

23. Neil Young

24. Crowder House

25. Duke Special

26. Iggy Pop

27. Jam

28. Massive Attack

29. Whitesnake (God Help Me)

30. AC/DC

31.Neil Young with Pearl Jam

32. Paul Weller

33. Ocean Color Scene

34. The Adverts

35. Ruefrax

36. The Flys

37. Patti Smith

38. Virgin Prunes

39. The Radiators from Space

40. Hawkwind, with lemmy

41. Motorhead

42. Seasick Steve

43. Jethro Tull

44. Ken Kesey

45. Robert Cray

46. Bruce Springstein

47.The Chieftons

48. Steel Pulse

49. Big Country

50. David Bowie

First of these was Hawkwind.