» Family codes and rituals

Dentists
Evil bastards though they may be, I can see now, as a fully paid up adult (the checks in the post), that they perform a decent service.

I used to lay down in the CHAIR OF TERROR (tm) where our friendly Dr. De'Ath would say "Aaaaaah, Weetabix/Frosties/Alpen this morning young Prescott". I was regularly amazed that he knew what brand of cereal I had even though I had brushed hard and it was 4pm.

Fast forward. Same dentist, my kids. He asks me what they had. And I tell him.
(Sat 22nd Nov 2008, 14:41, More)

» Procrastination

M'gonna
I had this great idea in about 2003 to do a website called "mgonna.com" . It would have a little google like box after the words 'MGONNA' that you would fill in. Like 'MGONNA give up smoking' or 'MGONNA join a gym'. Or whatever. Then using the search engines, custom written content and paid ads it would serve up info for what you were 'gonna' do. The business plan also had functionality to tell your friends what project you had embarked on so they could support/humiliate you.

I wrote the business plan, registered the url and then did fuck all with it.

The irony KILLS me.
(Sun 16th Nov 2008, 14:42, More)

» IT Support

Mainframed
Many years ago, a 'friend' landed a prestigious 1 year industry placement with the manufacturing controls systems dept. of a global car manufacturer. No one in the history of getting this 3rd year placement had not been invited back full time post graduation.

He was generally well-liked by the other staff and entrusted by his colleagues one day to go and change the tapes in the mainframe, but only "after checking with HSG" (hardware support group - but like 'IT support'). "It's only changing tapes" thinks he, "No need to bother them".

Confidently in he went and started his routine. Unlock the cabinet with the tapes, delay the spooler, take off tape, replace tape, re-engage spooler, turn key for locking the cabinet.

When he walked back in to the control room he noticed all 75 or so colleagues staring at him open mouthed.

It was then he learned, through an Alex Ferguson style hair dryer rant from his boss, that the tapes were not locked. The key he had turned on and off was the power switch. For 9 country's computer controlled, 24 hour, robotic production systems. It was estimated that £9 million was lost in production delays.

He wasn't invited back after he graduated.
(Fri 25th Sep 2009, 8:12, More)

» Conspiracy theory nutters

Major economic trends
This is dull but true. There is a secret department in the Home Office called "DNE" (no, I don't know what it means even though I worked there for 12 years) whose job it is to manufacture macro economic effects for the government of the day on to an unsuspecting public (and sometimes and an unsuspecting government).

Example 1: In 1979 when Mrs. T came to power the country was broke. There was no chance of manufacturing our way out of it because the far east was cheaper and better at it than we were. So how do you magic up wealth? One way was to monetise the crumbling housing stock we owned. DNE created MFI and Texas Homecare and started the early days of DIY TV and the 'property porn' industry you have now. You see by making home improvement fashionable, people WANTED to own houses. This drove up the market and borrowing and related services. One of our successes that one, but we honestly didn't think that DIY would ever become fashionable - we actually laughed about it when we were testing it in Whitehall. It's also a great example to prove the point as for many years it was a very British thing to do indeed and wasn't replicated elsewhere for many years. Before my time the same thing had been done with cars (we made Haynes manuals) before the numbers told us that independent garages would make more money.

Example 2: Binge drinking in the late 80's was restricted to wide boys and dodgy clubs that stayed open after the pubs had shut. However, by maximising this effect you created thousands of jobs in the F+B industry. Also you could beef up your police force under the pretext of controlling town centres (there is another backstory here too serious for b3ta). Deregulation meant that anyone could binge drink 7 days a week and spend the money they earned getting legless. We particularly aimed this at women who used to drink (and spend) far less than they do now. However we did not expect everyone to switch from beers to sugary/caffine laden drinks - this gave them more energy and wasn't factored in. We advised the government to give control to the local councils once this effect had been established.

There are tons of others. I am writing my memoirs.
(Sat 29th Aug 2009, 1:35, More)

» Family Feuds

My Nanna
Is a lovely woman, mother to 8 kids, grandmother to 18 and great gran to about 10 (so far). Everyone loves her, she's a regular at the baptist church and at 82 still does charity work for, as she puts it, "the old folk".

But I harbour a secret grudge. She has a big hallway and stairway lined with big pictures of each granchild on their graduation day. Thing is I am the ONLY person in the whole family that didn't do the Phd/BSc/BA/HND/apprenticeship thing. And my mug is the only one of 18 gran-kids not on the wall.

My Dad winds me up about it and says that I shouldn't feel excluded from the 'Hall of Fame' and that in fact she does have a piccy of me in the broom cupboard, or the 'Hall of shame' as he puts it.

I do hope it's just an oversight and she doesn't secretly hate me.

*whimper*
(Wed 18th Nov 2009, 8:08, More)