we have never seen a single gun there

Never been there during a festival or wedding then :)

Place is full of them…Cretians could start a revolution if they fancied :)

I didn’t see it, I’ll have to now.

Greece is screwed, I said it back in 2003…Corruption kills the country. Those at the top and the very wealthy, break every law they can, to fill their own pockets, nothing ever happens, so the man in the street says, “Why should I follow the rules, no body else does and they are doing okay”.

I love the country, but the politics and wealthy will continue to grab what ever they can and screw the consequences.

I actually think the Troika should have taken control at the start and sorted things out…especially the tax evaders. All the government did was tax normal people on PAYE more and more and never really went after the wealthy Doctors/Lawyers/Business owners.

I have to laugh, I still pay tax there on a property that I can’t sell unless for a huge loss and the rent doesn’t even cover the mortgage, so I pay tax on a property that costs me money.

I’m having Dejavue (sp?)

I’m sure this was covered a while back, non?

The beer is generally crap.

what…. WHAT!!!!! ………. Good God Man!!!

Due to my upbringing (and the fact, growing up there was always a World War II film on at the weekends)….and lots of other reasons and having worked with a lot of them…I sometimes can be a little unkind to our European Neighbours….thankfully I have also met a lot of Goodens in work and outside….

…..but never once…NEVER….have I said there beer isn’t up to much…NEVER!!!!

Although it’s not quite as good as ours…but not bad, I’ll give them that.

Cisco live.

Thanks BTW for all the suggestions.

Thanks for the info.

I guess I’ll probably be getting around with the Metro/Train.

I was there quite a few years ago so had a good look about at the usual site seeing places. But can’t for the life of me remember where we stayed. Although the hotel was pretty cool, the area itself wasn’t the hive of activity.

Fancy being somewhere where I can have a mooch about the streets, pop in for a beer and food somewhere, i.e. somewhere where there are people hanging out…I’ll be on my own, so nice to walk about and do a bit of people watching instead of a meal for one in the hotel.

I do remember that it was one of the coldest places I’ve ever visited….although I was living in Greece in those days so most places felt a bit chiller than the norm!

The anger that builds up is huge. Honestly the line between those that do and those that don’t beat their kids is pretty bloody marginal.

Are you looking after them full time? If so, think you need to tell the wife she needs to give you a break. Both of us work, but I would say I would say she suffers more from the kids playing up than I do….she’s a control freak, I don’t mind the odd mucking around.

One thing I found out early, if you are stressed, they pick up on it and act up….You just have to keep your emotions hidden, even when they are being little so and so’s.

he had been sitting on the outlet of the fountain. It had come on and given him a chlorinated enema.

Someone actually came over to my desk as I was laughing so much I was nearly crying!! Poor little bugger, bet that gave him a proper fright! He won’t be doing that again in a hurry.

Does get easier “I think” as time goes by…a couple of years ago I used to get woken up most mornings at 05:30 by at least two very active children bouncing up and down on my head with laden nappies full of lovely warm wee.

Now I’ve progressed to around 06:30 to 07:00….”Dad….FINISHED!!!”

Que bum cleaning duties…boy those boys are regular.

Must admit, even before kids my wife was a bit special at times, since having them I’ve nearly walking several times. But as you say, you stay for the kids. Same here, plus if you aren’t there and the Mrs finds another guy…guess what, another bloke is around your kids and that’s something I’m not willing to risk.

If you are determined to leave, then leave, may not be good, but she hopefully won’t make your life a living hell. Guess what, if she finds out you’ve played away…..oh man, you are in for a World of pain.

As someone said, best keep your head down and trust in madam palm and her five sisters…..never know, maybe she might come around after a while…hopefully.

I understand quite well how you feel, at the end of the day, you have a responsibility to your kids above everything else.

shrunken head

My thoughts exactly….

Outskirts of Zurich

-13.5 yesterday.

0.0 this morning.

Bonkers the difference in 24 hours….

dump on the back seat

Now that is mean…rank.

Someone stole my car headlight a few years back.

I had a Bonnet nicked once. It was from an RS Turbo so had the vents.

Came back from an evening of partying at my mates who was at Brighton Uni. Got a phone call from my Dad saying the police had been in touch about the bonnet.

Off I trot to see my parked car minus bonnet with the two head lamps placed neatly on the kerb. The thieves were that thick they mangled the boot lock trying to get in, but didn’t once think of just pulling down the rear seats, I mean, they were already in the car.

Phoned the AA up and a proper weird guy came with a low loader.

Thing was we may have had a herbal cigarette or 3 and my mates started mucking around saying that the AA man was a mad axe murder…..did make the evening just a bit more “weird”.

Apart from a “Very Sorry for your loss”, there isn’t much else.

Not easy I know, before I’d lost people close to me I really struggled to know what to say or how to react.

As others have said, drop a card with a telephone number offering to help out should his mum need any assistance. If he’s not too good it’s probably even more stress worrying about his mum too.

In the early stages a lot of it is practicalities, if he knows someone is near by to help with any practical problems his mum may have, it will be a great weight off of his mind.

It’s not the superiors offspring sent to spy???

Best make yourself super busy!

My Humble Gentle Sir,

Please accept my good intention invitation as I have big sums that we can share from a client of mine who is no longer shamefully with us.

Yours Bartholomew Tuwanga.

Chief CFO, Master Excellent President.

Greek or Cypriot?

It’s okay, I’m sure he’ll be known as Tolis.

At least you can pronounce his surname, took me a few days to get around my wife’s surname when I first met her.

Absolutely no idea about e-bikes….but I did see a fat e-bike the other day….niche!

Years ago when I were a Sparks.

We were carrying out testing in a police station. Opened up one of the main fuse boards to find a little mouse skeleton sitting on top of one of the bus bars and a small pile of fur at the bottom of the fuse board.

Not sure how long it had been there, but definitely not one of those things you see often.

To be fair….it’s London…

If someone comes running towards you and it ain’t Marathon time…..get ready to flight or fight!!

Using outlook?

Send yourself emails, deadlines in calendar, Virtual sticky notes….yep, you can put them on your desktop….create tasks….all sorts.

I just have a list of jobs to do in my book. Write all my notes in there, have my lists and just make sure I have everything down.

I write really simplistic notes covering the most minor of details. Its amazing how those little details come in handy 2-3 weeks later when you have worked on 50 other things since the original task.

Main thing, neatness. makes your life so much easier.

Must agree. That bus came along at a reasonable rate. If she’d swerved it could have been squashed person time.

Make sure you use capitals and exclamation marks OK!!!!

It’s okay, it’s not your fault.

I bought some Snow Shoes in November in anticipation of walking around off the beaten track whilst the kids were in their Ski lessons.

I said at the time, it now wouldn’t snow…..I’m starting to think I have a lot to answer for.

I thought this thread was going to be about a mouse in the house of something.

I’ll let you off this time ;)

Lovely looking animal, but I’d be packing my whack if that slivered along whilst I was enjoying a beer in the Garden.

It may be like the French highway code which only requires you to signal when you leave the roundabout*

*This may or may not actually happen in real life

Probably is. Which is okay on the big one’s, but the smaller ones leave you waiting until the last minute wondering if the cars coming around are coming off, or going around.

There is a roundabout on my way back from work that I have to go around and off the final exit, which isn’t used that much. The lane coming on to it before I turn off is after a long stretch and people tend to come up to it pretty fast. I tried their method but the amount of people nearly T boning me was getting a bit scary….So now I go back to the “Correct” British method of indicating as I go around….still have some **** from time to time who end up having to slam the anchors on….perhaps they assumed I didn’t know left from right.

Although I spent 9 years driving in Athens so driving in Switzerland is a walk in the park compared.

I’ll continue to use my indicators as I see fit,

Surely they should be used in accordance with the highway code?

If we all do things as “we” see fit, it may mean bugger all to others.

These are the things that your learn during your driving lessons and should continue to practice every time you are behind the wheel.

GrahamS has it.

It’s not difficult is it….as he says, if you don’t do it properly then it’s about as much use as a chocolate tea pot.

Poor driving is a pet hate of mine. It’s not difficult, it’s a wheel, some peddles and a stick….follow the rules and everything will got to plan.

Something which they don’t do here or Germany, is to indicate (in our case) left whilst going around the roundabout, big roundabouts not such a problem, but the smaller ones it’s a RPITA.

Anyway, he agreed to go halves, so we did.

I didn’t agree to go halves on the second survey.

He owes me £250 irrespective of who’s surveying what.

So you can all sod off!

Ask something, don’t like the responses, tell people to sod off.

Charming.

As others have said, be thankful everything with the repairs have been made and signed off.

It’s 250 quid…..in the grand scale of things when it comes to house buying…bugger all.

I’d never heard of this before. Just had a read up.

Respect and admiration for all of those who put themselves in harms way.

Sounds like one definitely to watch…although I can imagine there might be a bit of dust or the like floating about.

You might end up being really good at it.

And the race to the bottom continues, hurrah!

Exactly.

OP, you made the right decision. The company doesn’t mind charging the client top dollar, but doesn’t want to share the wealth….screw em.

A firm is only as good as the people that work for them.

I’m the same. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

Lovely looking dog. Looks like he has a bit of character.

So the outcome is they can get f***ed.

Fair play. Use all your energy to find something else, let them boot you out and wait for Karma to take care of things.

Utter wangers. Total disregard for their staff.

Best of luck, I’m happy for you that you will stand your ground.

Duolingo +1

Good for learning vocab.

My advice….just keep chugging away, never easy, but if you do a lesson a week, it slowly sinks in and forces you to at least sit down once a week and learn something.

To be fair, French isn’t too tricky, I’d say the hardest part of learning any language is understanding what people are telling you…..natural speakers tend speak too quickly for a learner…you get buffer overflow.

Also, check out websites. I know for German you can listen to the daily news read slowly.

Previous Swiss company I worked for gave us Mammut Jackets which mentioned what company we worked for and had a funky outline of Switzerland on the breast section. Granted I wouldn’t wear it on a night out, but for pottering around the shops on a Saturday, no worries. Although I would have drawn the line if it had my name on it.

Remember bumping into a bloke out in the middle of no-where once who must have worked for one of the regional offices, with the same Jacket, stopped and said hello.

I hope VW didn’t have too much printer stationary….must have been a bugger re-printing everything after smogagate.

Just waiting for responses from various applications

Wish you luck.

I’m not a massive fan of Unions as I sometimes think they push things too far….but this is definitely one case where there assistance would be helpful.

What!!!!! So it’s a two bed flat, but there’ll be 3 of you???

Who gets top bunk???

That really is complete crap, if that’s how they treat their staff I’d be looking for a new job.

I hope you can sort things out so you don’t get shafted.

Got a bonus for 2015, no pay rise for 2016. I took a jump in take home pay when I moved here in 2015 as the salary is a bit better than my last and I don’t have a 120 km round trip every day, win in time not spent on the road, can commute by bike and I work with some great lads and there is a good environment…sitting tight for the moment as things are a bit shaky in the market, but if my particular business keeps heading down and the bonus/pay rise isn’t up to scratch I’ll probably start looking.

In my eyes, bonus is for work above and beyond and to keep you at the company. If you can get more else where and the environment is okay, go for it. Companies won’t keep you around for a minute longer than they have to so you don’t own them anything in return.

Do your work for the given salary, if the market goes up and they don’t want to increase, then go else where and get it.

Oppphhhh, that is proper class right there binners….I can see you are a man of impeccable taste ;)

New partner that has some imagination

:)

Fancy watch?

My wife can be a bit difficult…

Plus, it’s not easy to find things she’ll likes as a surprise, was lucky to find something that ticked all the boxes, Still a bit pricey, but well worth it. She loves it and it will outlast us…..She did mention whether I had an heirloom in mind for our daughter when I bought it….I just pointed out that I was left without choice after she bought me a lovely Ti frame for my 40th….win win :)

A few of these sound familiar.

For me, I just can’t handle hangovers anymore, for a whole day I’m wiped out. Decided as I get on, I may not have so many left….can’t be wasting them on feeling like poo.

With most things in my life, I’m on, or off. Same with booze, if it’s there, I’ll drink it, problem is your body gets used to it….also, I have big gulps. I was out with a few lads from work and I constantly noticed I’d be close to the end whilst they still had 3/4 left…can’t be standing there empty handed so you get another one in….soon adds up.

I’ve been thinking about it for a while, decided I’m never really going to keep it in check….the devil in me always gets carried away after the first few, so decided to try and knock it on the head. Fine when I’m at home, in fact I sleep bloody wonderfully, think it will be a bit tough when the lads head out for a few cold ones after work…still, can join to be social for a quick coke or something and then head off early.

Will miss a glass of good wine with meals, but the ups have to out weight the downs.

Next visit back to the UK and being in a pub with proper brown beer will also be a bit tough…still, when needs must!!