If you don’t care, don’t post about it

Precisely, thats why I do, I object very bloody strongly to the bottom dwelling scum suckers leaching off me and mine.

Why do you find it so objectionable for someone with (what you claim to be) a minority opinion expressing it?

Self Evident: He’s a royalist

D’you think we’ll ever get a black, gay atheist for a Queen?

Well who knows what’ll drop out given the shennaigans the royal prodgeny get up to?

The queen was an army car mechanic photo opportunity in the second world war

Not bad keeping the same job for 60 odd years…. not many miners could claim that, mark you different reasons though.

Yes. Generally our European neighbours have a better climate and are joined, by land roads, to other European neighbours.

Which is what I said, people go for reasons other than royalty.

Regarding how many photos are taken by Japanese tourists, presumably all of those are of members of the royal family ?? Get a life, have you ever been near any Japanese, Chinese, or Korean tourists?? For reasons that escape me they fire off more cameras per second than you can imagine. Subject matter rarely relevant. Evidenced by the fact that when I am in those places which I often am I am routinely photographed either on my own of with their kids. Does that make me worthy of a huge segment of the public purse???? I’d hope not

Prince Charles is currently on a diploamtic visit in Saudi Arabia, at short notice, due to the death of their crown prince.

Nothing to do with the old boy network, prince to prince obviously…. just doing it as his own expense to save us poor old taxpayers the burden yeah right!

As for Royals as making the UK a ton of cash, lets break it down into easy to understand chunks; we *KNOW* a lot of people come to the UK and spend *ALOT* of money to visit the royals, as the Royal family a hell of a tourist pull to people in the US/China/Japan as well as commonwealth countries.

absolute tosh. There is NO evidence to support that whatsoever.

Firstly, The royals would not soil themselves with being seen by tourists. Except by complete chance few if any tourist have ever seen any member of the Royals. FACT

Secondly, Our near european neighbours list Tourism as one of the major planks of their economy, last time I checked I think it produced directly and indirectly something like 45% of GDP. They executed their royals in the 1700’s. What people actually go for are much more mundane things than visiting the royals, which off course none of them can actually do. ALSO A FACT!

If we had a politician inbred as head of state they’d invent things to do. Things that would either just **** things up further or cost lots of money and then **** things up further.

Fixed….

Thats exactly what they do do isn’t it? 😕

Just can’t see the need for it when you’re going for a ride with your mates.

… but then thats not what this thread is about when alls said and done.

Coaching /Leading/ Guiding whichever you are involved in, is not as easy as many people may think.

ditto what Ray said

Do you honestly do all that every time you go out for a ride

Pretty much when I’m responsible for the safety of a group.

Why? Am i safe to presume then that you

a) never bother to check your bike before riding,
b) ride when it is self evident that you are not up to it for some reason,
c) leave important medications where you can’t get them when you are quite likely to need them
d) ride everything regardless whether its within you or your bikes capabilities or not
e)don’t take even the most basic of safety precautions
f)ride off with no knowledge of where you are, where you are going or how to get back
g) continuously lose contact with whoever you are riding with
j) never tell anyone where you are or when you are likely to be back

H and k I will admit I tend not to do when riding alone, but I do tell my Mrs the name of the loop I’m doing and the contact details of someone who knows it just in case.

To be honest most of that seems pretty basic and not terribly hard to me even when just riding with mates or on my own. Definately not much of an issue if I’m taking a group ride.

There are a lot of misconceptions on here about this.

So some facts.

1) There is no such thing in law as “at your own risk”, so if an organised group is involved it is responsible wahtever you might think.
2) Everyone does RA’s all the time. For example you don’t step off a path into the path of a bus, because you have RA’ed the outcome and decided to minimise the risk by waiting till the roads clear.
3) Written RA’s are no different and are for the organisers benefit. They enable you to demonstrate that you have fulfilled your duty of care to those that you are responsible for should you have the need to.
4) There is no need to do one until someone you lead falls, injures themself and as a result finds themself without an income or have to claim off their insurance. Roughly about that time the no win no fee bods arrive and thats when you will find you need the RA. Obviously if that eventuality is never going to happen you don’t need one at all.
5) RA’s don’t need to be difficult and complicated, nor do they have to cover every imaginable eventuality. They just evidence the fact that you have looked at what you are doign and had a good think about how to keep what risks there obviously are under as much control as possible

General advice.

a) Check bikes are fit for purpose
b) Check riders are fit for purpose
c) If any have ailments like asthma make sure they have their inhaler/medication with them.
d) Assess ability and avoid taking them anywhere outside of their ability, or advise them to dismount where you have concerns.
e) Have first aid provision available
f) Pre ride the route and plan bail outs if needed and check phone coverage.
g) Lead the ride from the back, in your pre ride plan obvious stopping points that are easily recognised and advise lead riders to stop there once they reach each point and wait for you to close up.
h) Do a route plan/map and stick to it.
j) Make sure someone else has a copy and knows where you will be and when to expect you back.
k) Arrange for them to alert emergency services/assistance if you don’t return/call in (from the pre planned phone-in point with good reception) within X period of that time.

Alternatively you might want to consider your answers to this question… Well Mr. X please show the court what steps you put in place to fulfill your duty of care to my clients deceased/disabled partner?

ta

Her point was that the answer “yellow” shows a lack of imagination.

I think you will find that her point is that she is an extremely poor manager. Trick questions have no place in an interview situation. The idea is to draw out of the applicant the information you need to make a value judgement, not to to to trip them up with some “clever” device.

Not so much questions as answers I’ve come across over the years.

Q: Why do you want this job?
A: I don’t know if I do yet so can I ask you some questions to help me decide?

I liked that one, the guy got the job in the end.

Q: What is the answer to..{fill in your own horrendously technical questions}
A: I don’t know, but if you’d like to give me a few moments I know where to look to find out.

Pretty impressed with that one too.

However, my particular favourite whilst being interveiwed for a job as a group buyer with a multi million pound budget…

Q: We can’t really offer you the salary your are asking for, how do you feel about that? (basically trying to knock my price down).

A: You are interveiwing me for a position of chief negotiator for your business, what credibility could I have in that position if I couldn’t even negotiate a deal for myself?

A: You utter bastard! (whilst laughing)

And yes I got the deal and the job.

If you tried to recreate German labour laws in the UK, you’d potentially shut off that free flow of people and ideas.

Is that shorthand for **** over less people than currently and have a really successful economy by comparision, (one which you may be forgiven for forgetting has managed to reabsorb the Eastern German state and be the powerhouse of the eurozone in recent times?)

LOL not in my case though, I’m the boss 8)

Like selling off 100% of the forests and then reverting back to the intital plan to cut it whilst leaving people like 38 degrees claiming a resounding success you mean?

Your right there Bandit, although as a Manager / Owner of a business employing 30 people I’m glad to see the balance coming back to Employers,

As a someone who was general manager of a compnay at 21 and who has employed literally thousands of people in a 35 year career to date, I have to say I have no idea waht you are talking about. Never had any problems of that nature. Years ago I did speak with an ACAS advisor whose advice was if you’re a crap employer you’ll get crap employees. Very true in my experience.

you wouldnt believe the amount of time that is WASTED in UK businesses with Employee complaints.

You are not wrong, I probably wouldn’t, not necessarily for the same reasons though.

Arn’t the statics for number of employees invloved in complaints against there employers something like 1 in 4 in the UK at the moment ? and we wonder why were in the shite… employees in the Far East dont work like that !

I very much doubt whether that statistic is correct. If it is its the biggest single issue effecting our economy currently, running into many millions of complaints which I’m pretty sure it isn’t.

and we wonder why were in the shite…

Mainly piss poor leadership both political and managerial in my experience.

employees in the Far East dont work like that !

In my experience, which is over the last 30 years of doing business in the Far East that is true and no bad thing either frankly
Generally though its the same there as here, the good companies have good management and employee relations and the bad ones don’t.

3 out of 4 constructive dismissal cases have been found in FAVOUR of the employee.. there is a default to the Employer beeing at fault.. but if you step through the steps employees can avoid it.

That statistic may be right, however a case for constructive dismissal is incredibly difficult to prove, and for that reason it is quite rare for one to go before a tribunal. Personally having been through the experience of having been constructively dismissed (Definition: being put into a situation no reasonable person could tolerate; which in my case was my employer F’ing and B’ing down the phone at my 10 year old daughter, and then accusing me without any supporting evidence or investigation of gross misconduct). My brief reckoned I had a cast iron rock solid case, but the advice was that it was unlikely to run because it was all verbal and without independant witnesses, so frankly if someone gets done for constructive dismissal you can be pretty sure they deserve to be.

In the end I feel that employees dont benifit from current rules, employers dont, but the legal profession does and the people who like owt for nowt do to….. but think who covers the cost of all these claims against employers

Again in my experience, most cost is incurred by expensive briefs being employed by dodgy employers. My particular case was on a no win no fee basis, but with an upfront one off payment from me of £1000 (because it was constructive dismissal and usually they don’t run).It did not get as far as a tribunal.

**** me!

Facts

1) Unfair dismissal is not generally about the reason for a person being dismissed, its about the process used to dismiss.
2) You can actually dismiss someone and subsequently find out that the reason was incorrect and it still be fair.
3) Management recruit the staff, and manage them. If the staff aren’t performing thats a management issue not a staffing one.
4) You can easily dismiss someone who is not performing, and it does not take months.
5) If you have recruited a tosser, you have 12 months to figure that out and you can act on it with complete impunity.
6) If someone has worked well for 12 months and now doesn’t, perhaps finding out why might be a good place to start, rather than a knee jerk dismissal

Overall this whole issue is a complete crock which quite clearly holds no water and therefore presumably a smokescreen for something more insidious.

well, we were given a chance to change the system (AV) – we didn’t want it.

Actually we were given nowt, we had an expensive vote about a system that neither the Lib dems or anyone else wanted against the status quo….shockingly staying where we were won the day in those circumstances. 😯

Wrong problem

SO the Tory self destruct button is firmly pressed once more. Hurrah!

Am I alone in thinking that whatever had happened to him had actually happened before he was hit by Rossi and Edwards? Doesn’t seem to me like he fell in the usual high speed corner loss of control kind of a way. The bike was still upright and travelling.

Whatever the reason. Terribly grim day for family and fans.

The similarities with the collapse of the Gold Standard are striking.

I think the point you might be overlooking is that our ability to weather the storm or otherwise is not greatly moved one way or the other by whether we are in Europe or out. This is the issue the Europhobes can’t get their heads around. In actual fact paddling our own canoe island further away from europe will not isolate us from what is going on there. There is sitll some impression in this country that we are somehow superior to everyone else. We are not, nor are our former colonial advantages and marketplaces open to us any longer.

But more likely you would have an over-valued and inflexible currency, inflexible labour laws, excess regulation,

Isn’t that what Dave and the kids are after?

Dear God, I just wish we could move past the fact we are on it and that there is no realistic possiblity of leaving it without bankrupting the country once and for all and just get on with it.

What I really don’t get is that it was the Tories that took us in and they have just consistently whined about it ever since. MTFU and get on with it you whinging bastards.

Given TJ’s views on the legitimacy of the rebels I can’t wait for the debate about independence for Jocklandia, when he realises that the legitimate government by his terms is the UK as a whole and that there would therefore be less than no chance of the jocks hsving their way other than us, “the legitimate authority” getting bored with their whining, which to be fair is not to big a leap of the imagination.

Get grip for Christs sake, the guy with the big stick gets to write the rules, the history and the constitution. It was ever thus, and ever will be. You benefit from it hugely, live with it or stop yer whining and sling your hook and prepare for new rules, history and constitution to be imposed upon your worthless backside. 😉

Is this a statistically observable fact across all of Jamicia and the UK ?

“Boys are more interested in hustling, which is a quick way of making a living, rather than making the commitment to study. This is a supposed to be a street thing which is a male thing.

Yep, Adolph certainly looks like a white supremacist to me:

Which is specifically not what I said

I’ll see your:-

He is also talking about Jamaica are you an expert on this

and raise you a:-

He went on to suggest the same cultural attitudes affected the learning of African-Caribbean boys in England.
He continued: “I would not be surprised if here in England the same or similar things occur in terms of how they feel about themselves and how they respond to and with respect to the society around them

…..and his credentials as an expert on Afro Carribean males in the British educational system are ….?

Did you actually manage to get past the headline?

Yep I also read the bit that said

“Boys are more interested in hustling, which is a quick way of making a living, rather than making the commitment to study. This is a supposed to be a street thing which is a male thing.

…. which basically reinforces negative and racist stereotypes of young black males. How about you? First couple of paragraphs or better?

libya will now be a divided country in a state of civil war. Islamic extremists will take over some areas, tribal rivalries will ensure the civil war is perpetuated.

Excuse me TJ, but isn’t this precisely where Gaddafi came in, and also right where the NTC came in too. For that reason I’m not sure how you can blame that on the actions of NATO currently. I can live with the colonial aspect of it being at fault, but not NATO now, in fact I’d go as far to say that there is a strong argument as yet unutilised that the current NATO campaign could arguably be seen as righting some of the colonial wrongs done in the past.

Do you know, given all the available options I’d rather be dictated to by the Americans, Blair, Cameron or even Thatcher as to what my life might be like rather than Gadaffi or Hussein quite honestly? So while I share some qualms about what has gone on I’m not going to be so hypocritical as to feign indignation whilst continuing to enjoy a way of life that is a function of it.

don’t know about that, but judging by the picture above Gaddifi’s a dead Sirte…..

(coat on)

it would be on Grand Designs before you could sneeze.

Looks like it’d be on its backside if you did!

Dale farm …you know it makes sense

AAAAAAAARRGHHHH….. [runs for cover]

NB: Had two similar in August. One being a youngster I was training whose bars snapped resulting in a face first full speed impact with a tree. That resulted in nothing more than a precautionary ambulance trip on blues and twos for a scan which revealed no damage other than to the tree and her helmet (which was totalled), and the other being another young racer who fell and smacked her temple on a rock. A fact she was unaware of until after the race when she realised she had taken a semicircle of material out of the rim of her helmet, but leaving her unware and unscathed. Of course the rotational forces did untold damage and that will only become clear later in both cases 😉

Ideological arguments apart, it seems to me that to do something that self evidently doesn’t work and then recommend doing more of it as a solution does draw the sanity of those proposing that course of action into question.

Its bash a fatty day

blimey they’re really having a go aren’t they??

tinkering with tax here and there will magically cure the country of its ills.

Whereas we all know that not being a porker does that for you…..