kevinjohnsonmbe

Steer well clear of Devon & Cornwall constabulary then or you’ll forever be getting pulled for drink, drugs and curb crawling markers..... Yome probably used to that by now anyway ?

Which name were you applying Egger....?

It’s a bit late for the anniversary, but worth a re-post: Today is a special day. June 4th 2020 marks the 16th anniversary of the Killdozer's rampage through Granby Colorado. Sit down kids and let me tell you a tale, about a reasonable man driven to do unreasonable things. Marvin Heemeyer was a man who owned a muffler shop in Granby Colorado. The city council ordained to approve the construction of a concrete factory in the lot across from Marvin's shop. In the process this blocked the only access road to the muffler shop. Marvin petitioned to stop the construction to no avail. Petitioned to construct a new access road, and even bought the heavy machinery to do so himself. Denied. The concrete factory went up in disregard to the ramifications on Marvin's business. To add insult to injury, the factory construction disconnected the muffler shop from the city sewage lines. An indifferent city government then chose to fine Marvin for this. His business and livelihood were in ruin. Rather than lie down and die, Marvin chose to fight back. Over the course of a year and a half Marvin secretly outfitted the bulldozer he bought to save his business with three foot thick steel and concrete armor, camera systems guarded with bulletproof glass. On June 4th 2004 Marvin Heemeyer lowered the armored shell over top of himself, entombing himself inside the Killdozer to make his last stand. He burst fourth from the walls of his muffler shop and straight into the concrete factory that ruined his business. Over the course of the next several hours Marvin drove his Killdozer through 13 buildings owned by those officials that had wronged him, including the city council building itself. Swat teams swarmed the dozer, but it proved immune to small arms fire and even explosives. Another piece of heavy machinery was even brought out to fight the Killdozer, but it too fell to the dozers righteous fury. In the end, Marvin's Killdozer became trapped in one of the buildings it was built to destroy. Marvin chose to take his life, the only life he took that day. Today we celebrate Killdozer day and Marvin Heemeyer, the last great American folk hero. A man driven to the brink who chose to fight back against an indifferent system. From notes left behind after his passing: "I was always willing to be reasonable until I had to be unreasonable. Sometimes reasonable men must do unreasonable things." HAPPY MOTHER****************ING KILLDOZER DAY EVERYONE.

Noooooooooooooooo! Don’t open THAT can again....

You’ve no special “right” or “privilege” to claim greater (or lesser) offence than anyone else based upon self acclaimed social demographic. GLC are Welsh FFS! They’ve got more to be pissed off about than most ?

A bit tricky to do it justice in the pics, but this was a really interesting tree with a single spiralling column of remaining vitality in an otherwise dead tree! Not the sort of tree I'd want to climb every day...

Pic 3 is an awesome photo!

Friday - that Friday feeling... The stench of chicken shit from one direction, the septic tank from the other. An ivy clad Ash dismantle over the house and to make matters even worse, had to use the small chipper. Baking heat, sweating like Jimmy Saville at an orphanage, tanking in the fluids and still pissing treacle.... By 11:00 I was SERIOUSLY considering just jacking it in and walking away. Been a while since I didn't want to do a job THAT much...

“Tip in a lay-by” New here..... Dont know what is a piss take.... Yeah, go on, pull the other one it plays Jingle Bells ?

Not looking like it mucker, theme still hunkered down like VC at the Battle of Khe Sanh!

@eggsarascal - go give it a good ‘looking at’ Egger!

Maybe in 5 years time, when (if accurate) accident stats from (say) the preceding and next 5 years are laid side by side, we’ll see if it’s made any difference...... ...... or not.

Always a pleasure

Just a petite amend suggestion K....

How to rotate a photo?

Our predecessors at home did a 1 stage ‘reduction’ on this cherry. Cut at 1.5m and retained the stem. it’s taken 10 years of alternate yr pruning but it’s come back nice. {not much help to the question at hand but nice to have a ‘good news’ distraction ?}

Don’t panic Mr Mannering! Found it: Rail Minister launches review of tree cutting alongside rail lines - GOV.UK WWW.GOV.UK Review of Network Rail’s tree cutting and vegetation management has been announced.

Can’t, already moved on! Separate subject, do you recall some sort of legal challenge to NR doing line clearance in nesting season a year or so back? I’ve got something of a memory of them being told something like - just because you didn’t get it all done in time is no excuse for carrying on into nesting season. Ring any bells? Can you point me in right direction for references?? PS - one of my regrets of leaving the Andrew was that I left before QE was commissioned and I missed the opportunity to be transported around the global cocktail party circuit. PPS - there are considerably less regrets than there are jubilations for leaving when I did ??

I’ll switch target to the boiled egg! Come on egger, it’s not Dixon of Doc Green, Ford Anglias, roller-Dex, pencil and note book any more. Data collation, analysis and exploitation is the future of policing. Of course there will always be the community role of the Bobby on the beat but not to the same degree as in your distant yoof of getting your collar felt! Service manpower cuts are an inevitable consequence of digitisation in ALL walks of life (and links nicely to the UBI argument.) Its old hat for died in the wool socialists to constantly ‘blame the Tories’ for job losses (past, present and future) whilst burying their heads in the sand and trying to ignore (never mind embrace) the INEVITABILITY of significant streamlining of future actual paid employment opportunities.

I didn’t miss it, as I hope you haven’t missed mine ? I very much enjoy / appreciate our exchanges and I DO recognise a kindred (sarcastic) spirit ??

Grandfather’s fav tipple. He would get wild if the bottle went in first and the draft on top. Draft first, bottle part poured then taken to table to top up at leisure. Im sure it was the thought of getting a little bit extra draft that appealed to him... I think it was called thrift back in the day... I think I got the tight barsteward gene from him ?

Maybe ‘rainbow’ as a deferential nod to the ‘alternatives’ and ‘unspecified / undecided?’ Maybe black as a nod to the revolutionary Marxists at BLM? Maybe some sort of ocre in recognition of the ‘new wave’ from HK? The options (in pursuit of the avoidance of offence and overt declarations of empathy) are almost limitless. Prob just as well stick with ‘blue’ as a historic norm and so as not to bruise delicate sensitivities? Or is there some sort of sub-conscious micro aggression linked to Empire associated with blue.....? Cant be white for obvious reasons of impracticability on duty - I mean, imagine a coloured officer in a white uniform on a zebra crossing! It’d set off all epileptics within line of sight and that would be epilepsy-ist!! Its all got so terribly complex....

You’ve both completely missed the f point - for different reasons. Having separate and distinct silos of public sector, all with (maybe) enough resource to manage ‘normal’ circumstances and with additional capacity to surge (to a degree) when required, whilst sitting idle through lengthy periods of inactivity is a luxury the tax payer should not be expected to finance - nor should they tolerate the burden. An example of such combined output is the tri service responder - part fire, part ambulance, part PCSO. A single bod in a medium sized vehicle - agile, adaptable, VfM. It’s taken generations to get that far, all the while whilst fire service, for example, have such generous terms and conditions to allow them regular second jobs and sleep whilst on duty. The military, generally, has high tempo high intensity periods of warfare punctuated by decades of relative inactivity. After Labour’s great balls up of the economy and Tory austerity it’s time for a different approach to the spending of tax payers money and if it takes the likes of Dominic Cummings to force change through them system’ (and the thick skulls of the public that keep slaving to meet the tax burden) then I for one wish him all the best. It’ll be an uphill struggle against entrenched resistance to chance. Oh, and as for ‘brown shirts’, no, they’d need to be blue uniform so as not to upset the hard of thinking. ??

Like (probably) all public sector finances, Defence procurement is, and for a long time, Has been a complete disgrace. 1 thing that absolutely does need to happen - for the sake of taxpayer VfM - is that military personnel stationed in major cities should be available to support police as special constabulary. Whilst currently there is the long established protocol of military aid to the civil community, this is only ever utilised as a very last resort and at the point where ‘other agencies’ are forced to acknowledge that they are overwhelmed. Hence the reluctance to admit defeat and ask for help. There is a fundamental barrier to accepting this type of thinking by military, civil service, police and government heads of sheds because they are all too precious about their own tribal silos. Of course there are elements of ‘presentation’ that need to be addressed -particularly in relation to law and order issues (not so much flood relief, Olympic security, foot & mouth, fire service strikes (quite a long list actually) - we’re not a banana republic after all. Current events with police in retreat from a baying mob however.... 1000 military personnel in a reduced special constable role would soon put paid to the sort of mob rule that has been evident of late. Let the coppers do the arrest / investigate / charge business as usual but give them some support in numbers so that they can stand their ground and provide order.