PhobosAnomaly

We’re across the water from you in the UK. I understand your predicament and agree on the ick factor, but your country has chosen the lesser of two evils.

The amount of oil and gas coming in to the UK is declining, but it is still a vast volume - and since the 1970s, it has seen billions (maybe trillions or another scale higher?) of pounds worth flow through the UK.

The problem is, it goes through the UK, and doesn’t stop here.

Aberdeen, Hull, Milford Haven, Norwich… all towns that have seen money that is exponentially times larger than their tax incomes flow through, and all of which have little to show for it. It’s made us look like mugs, and all the money has flowed out to the US, the middle east, or other firms based in rando countries for tax reasons shareholder benefits.

The Norway model with their sovereign wealth fund may be ethically questionable, but fuck me I personally wished we followed your lead in the 70s while we had the chance.

Matt Turk

Champion Pete Sampras Tennis player 1998

plastic is stored in the balls

Yeah, it works both ways at the end of the day.

I know fine well when I need to take some holiday days - I work with a team of fantastic guys and girls in a very bureaucratic environment, so any deviation from the norm in certain projects come with a raft of paperwork (an unnecessary volume in some cases), before the issue can really be put to bed.

Everyone makes fuckups. I’ve made fuckups and caused by line manager paperwork when I was at the coalface, and I’ll continue to make fuckups and learn from them in the future. I know my spuds will drop a bollock every now and then, and that’s cool.

There are times when someone has made a royal arse of something and it’s stacked another load of paperwork on top of me, and I get a bit angry about it. It’s not rational, it’s not fair to rag on the poor dude or dudette or dudethey who made an error, and I’ll let my partner know that I’m not after solutions - I’m just needing a bit of extra time to calm down and refocus. Solutions to those problems mean overhauling a heavy and entrenched system of work, and it’s not something that can be done at home - I could have married Kofi Annan, but unless he’s familiar with the system of work, there’s fuck all he could actually do.

At that point, it’s time to book a week or two off, and think about anything - everything - but work.

e: clarity

It works spectacularly well with people you’re close to or on very good terms with.

If my other half is kicking off about something, a quick “hey listen, are you wanting help to fix this or are you wanting to vent like fuck to feel a bit better?”

It’s rarely the former, though I’d be more than happy to help if it was. At least then I can let her rage out and decompress without throwing in unwanted suggestions.

Probably comes across as a bit blunt to people you don’t know well though.

…and that is awesome!!

…and it appears to be governed by a penguin!

The laugh is, each and every one of them can actually mean “mate what a fantastic idea, let’s absolutely smash this” to the middle ground “k” all the way through to “this is the worst fucking idea I’ve ever heard, but no dramas we can sort that on the way”.

The end result will be the same.

Mater’s Tall Tales were absolute bangers. Not only were they funny in their own right, but the background details and cameos were awesome.

Every sword game - maimed horrifically.

I seem to recall Bushido Blade crudely implemented this in the late 90’s, introducing rudimentary disablements on a Fallout-style limb system that would slow you down if you took a slash to the leg, or render your hand ineffective if you were struck there.

The slow march into middle age is making my memories fuzzy.