The Cryin' Game

So I wake up to find Rachael Thieves has been crying in Parliament over something. I don't know the full story, as I've only just read about it on Twitter while sat on the bog

 

What surprised me though, was the Tweets offering sympathy, and asking that we don't make this a thing about weak women crying, but acknowledge that she's under a lot of stress in her position (I didn't screenshot any of this while sitting on the porcelain throne, so you'll have to take my word for it)

 

This is the woman who last year, increased employers National insurance, and increased the minimum wage beyond already unsustainable levels, resulting in many job losses

 

Redundancies were made at the place where I work. I was pretty lucky, as I've managed to convince them I'm indispensible (I'm not, no-one is, but for the moment, it's easier for them to keep me than bin me, since they whittled my department down from four to one, and I've been doing this for 17 years).

We did loose a few good people though, and some of them cried

 

Work has slightly picked up since the redundancies, but unfortunately we still can't afford to re-employ any of them full time, so when we get a bit of extra work in, it's up to everyone else to take it on. Fortunately we have part time staff who work the weekends only, so they have been able to earn a bit of extra cash in the week

 

Mrs Buckos company also made redundancies. They went through a very long consultation process. Much too long in my opinion. The stress of all that would probably have made me cry

 

She got lucky too, but others didn't, and some of them cried 

 

I'm sure Rachael Reeves is in a very stressful situation, earning her Chancellors wage and expenses, while playing student socialist politics and runing the lives of working stiffs, who just need to go to work and earn a bit of money to pay for their net zero enhanced bills

 

Her story could almost make me weep. Not. She should be crying. The whole bleeding lot of them should be made redundant, and made to cry so hard, they're at risk of serious dehydration. Then made to cry some more

 

Sympathy?

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have no sympathy for her or any of her economically and socially illiterate mob. In the one year they've been in power, their fixing the foundations and dealing with the black hole, have done more damage to ordinary peoples lives than their lazy, inept Conservative predecessors could ever have hoped for 

They should be made redundant, they should be thrown out of power, they should have all their assets stripped and given to the treasury. They should be swinging from lampposts (For all I care)

 

Of course I am not advocating for violence here. I don't want to go to prison. You get less for noncing young boys than suggesting people should actually vent their anger on the source. So no, please don't swing any MPs from lampposts. I'm just kidding

 

Of course, you don't actually have the time to be swinging anyone from lampposts, what with all the extra hours your doing at work, just to make ends meet

The only people with the time on their hands to swing people from lampposts, are wasters who choose a life on the dole, or middle class twats living of mummys trust fund, and they all actually want more government, not less

 

Anyway. You've probably got it, that I have zero sympathy for this woman. I've seen people cry this past year, and it was for real reasons. That's where my sympathy lies, not for the dimwit that caused it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Update*

Pound tumbles and bond markets sent into turmoil after Rachel Reeves's Commons tears

I'm not that well up on how markets work, but apparrently if your Chancellor makes a blubbering mess of herself in the Commons, the pound falls

Traders are likely to be anxious that even after Ms Reeves’ dismal stewardship of the economy, any Labour replacement could bring more uncertainty to the public finances

Ahh. So she's shit, but any replacement would be shitter. I get it 

 

Just to confirm:

 

 

 

So she can fuck things up without even trying. Nice... 

Did we leave the EU?

We did. Although I'm no longer sure that really means anything

The European Union is planning to ban airlines from charging extra to take both a “personal item” — the small under-seat bag — and a one small carry-on wheelie bag.
Members of the European parliament’s transport and tourism committee voted to ban airlines charging extra for two bags, in an effort to simplify booking processes, remove so-called drip pricing and save consumers money.

How the blue bloody fuck is more EU regulation going to save consumers money?

 

Currently you only pay for what you need. If the EU bans airlines from charging for carry on and under seat bags, all passengers will just be made to pay the equivilant of both, regardless of what they take

 

Prices up for everyone

 

I've taken a total of five flights with only an underseat bag. Saved a lot of money, each time

I guess that's over... 

See that? That's climate change, that is

Antarctic ice is melting and we're all gonna die

Antarctic ice has grown again...

Oh? Well that's good news then, surely?

...but this does not buck overall melt trend

Oh? But if it keeps growing?

Study shows ice sheet gained mass from 2021 to 2023, due to extreme snowfall...

So will we get more extreme snowfall, so we can all stop worrying about climate change? 

...that was also an effect of climate crisis

Oh... 

 

Melt - Climate change

Grow - Climate change

Cold - Climate change

Warm - Climate change

Turn off the fucking money tap - No climate change

 

Link 

1976 And all That

For the record, this is my belief on climate change:

The climate changes all the time

Humans aren't doing it

Humans can't do it

 

Well I'm sure humans could do it with a bit of an effort. A good nuclear winter is likely to do the job. It's also suggested that fucking about with clouds could do it, but I'm not convinced on that one. You'd need to mess with a lot of clouds

 

Anyway, as the temperatures have been quite high this past few weeks, due to it being summer and all (British summer - very warm rain), I've been hearing a lot of talk about climate change

 

Of course, for the climate doomsayers, it's all gleeful talk about how cows farting in devon have altered the climate and caused the current good (if wet) weather, and won't somebody pleese think of the children. The end is nigh and they're loving it

 

But from the more rational element of society (The social media I go on), I'm hearing mainly, 'Oi mate, it was much hotter than this in 1976'

 

1976?

 

Come on chaps, we can do better than that. It's like listening to England football fans carp on about 1966, beacuse they've won fuck all in the 59 years since

 

Most of us were not around in 1976. Many more were too young to even remember it. I was born in the tail end of 1975

 

It's nearly fifty years ago for fucks sake, and there have been plenty hot and cold spells since then. I get that it may have been a bit humid back in 76, but remembering one particulary sticky summer is very far from an argument against anthropogenic global warming

 

I remember one summer when I was 19 and I was setting out for work each day wearing a short sleeved office shirt and no jacket, something very rare for me. The weather that summer was glorious, and I remember it well. I don't use it in 'Best arguments against climate change 101'

 

My fond memories of that summer may have been down to the fact that when I was leaving for work in the hot sun, with my nipples showing, I was leaving from my girlfriends house. During the two weeks when her parents were on holiday. So my memory may be tainted by other factors. But whatever

 

I also remember one summer when it rained constantly every day. This was back in the time when me and Mrs Bucko could not afford a holiday abroad, so we booked a week off work so we could go out and do stuff, but it rained hard every day

 

My vivid memory of that is because I took time off work; I remember it raining every day all summer, but that's only based on the one week that has stuck in my mind

 

During the 17 years I've worked at my current job, I've had two days, in two separate years, off work due to unusually deep snow. Both of which I remember very well

 

British weather is usually deviod of extremes, and usually pretty much the same, year in, year out. Warm rain in summer, with one week of sun, cold rain in winter, with two hours of light snow

 

Remembering an extreme weather event can be very subjective, and it certainly isn't an argument that defeats the climate cultisits with their well funded studies and 'settled science'

 

There are a million reasons why anthropogenic climate change is bunkum, and the more rational among us are surely able to quote half of those without breaking a sweat

 

So why is everyone on Twitter fixating on the summer of 76, like it's a massive gotcha?

 

Dudes, it was fifty years ago and it probably wasn't that warm anyway

 

We can do better 

You get what you pay for?

The question of if female footballers should be paid the same as their male equvilant, has been answered

Women's football team that announced equal pay with men's team goes broke

And it's been answered in the only way I was hoping for. No, sorry, I have no sympathy for this siuation at all. It was blindingly obvious why female footballers get paid less than men, and it was never about sexism 

 

Whoever thought this was a good idea, fully deserves the consequences

Lewes FC has issued an extraordinary appeal for £120,000 to survive the summer, warning that "the next few weeks" will shape their entire future.

The Sussex club, which became famous in 2017 as the first football club to pay their women's and men's teams equally, admitted they now face a fight to stick to that landmark commitment and even "to keep the club running".

I wonder who they are asking, for all this money? The fans? If the fans aren't paying to watch the wimmins, they aren't going to open their wallets for an appeal

Sponsors? If the fans aren't watching the games, there's no reason to invest money in sponsoring them 

The crisis comes eight years after launching their pioneering "Equality FC" campaign, which sought to "put an end to the excuses for why such a deep pay disparity has persisted in our sport".

Well you certainly achieved your goal. You put an end to those excuses by proving they are not excuses but actually reality

Former board member Barry Collins, who helped rescue the club in 2010, resigned in September 2019 with a scathing assessment.

"I joined a football club and feel like I'm leaving a political party," he wrote, adding that "the club has become overwhelmed by the single issue of the equality campaign."

I would have thought by now that the 'Get Woke, Go Broke' lesson would have been learned many times over, but it seems there are still unstoppable morons out there who think virtue signalling will somehow alter reality

Board member Joe Short confirmed there were no immediate plans to abandon Equality FC, whilst Collins warned: "If you can't pay your bills, you potentially face administration or insolvency."

And absolutely refuse to look actual reality in the eye... 

And I reckon there's another dimension to this. We're looking at Lews FC. The 'gender pay gap' there must be a hell of a lot smaller that your average Premier league club, and probably lower divisions too. I'm sure the wages are pretty low to begin with, and any increase in the female salary to match the males, can't have been huge numbers

 

With that in mind, consider the wast amount of revenue that would be required to have an 'Equality FC' in a serious club. And this is revenue that would have to come from existing sources, as they ain't gonna get more ticket sales or sponsorship by simply saying, we're paying the wimmins more, give us extra cash

 

TBH I don't know who Lewes FC are or what kind of money they make, but after reading this article, I'm thinking these players are only in it for a hobby, and I'm actually wondering why they are being paid to hobby about anyway

 

 

Disaster!

I had the worst weekend ever

 

Last weekend, the waste pipe from the bathroom sink started leaking, at about 10pm, and water was dripping through the kitchen ceiling

 

I spent the next couple of hours dismantling the pipe and adding sillicone to the joints to seal it up. That wasn't enough though. Whoever put the pipes in place some decades ago, had it all squeezed into a gap that is too small, so there was a lot of pressure on the joints. The rubber seals have perished as a result, and the screw fitting to the basin has stripped some of the thread

 

It needed a flexible pipe, so I bought one off ebay. Which turned up on Thursday and was the wrong size, so went it back

 

Saturday morning, I got up bright and early and went to the local plumbing shop for a flex pipe, then after a few coffees and a cigar, I removed the old pipe and replaced it with the new one, which was perfect

 

I ran some water through it to test the seals, and it started coming through the kitchen ceiling again 

 

F%$k!

 

The problem with these old terraced houses is, if you start tugging at pipes in one area, you can break seals further down the line, because they are so old and brittle. I figured I'd damaged the part of the waste pipe that goes under the floor and out to the drains

 

I removed the laminate flooring, the underlay and the necessary floorboards, to find the waste pipe is an old bendy lead pipe, and it was totally rotten. Not only was it leaking about a foot from the pipe I replaced, but also had been leaking nearer the outer wall, for what looked like a very long time 

 

There was also a bit of decades old gaffer tape wrapped around a kink in it. And half the diameter was clogged with disgusting gunge

 

So I removed the entire length of pipe and replaced it with new plastic pipes, tested it with water again and everything was working

 

Result! So I was re-laying the floorboards, while giving myself a pat on the back for a job well done, when I hammered a nail through one of the central heating pipes

 

I was piss wet through, the bathroom was piss wet through, and I was sat there with my thumb covering the hole, wondering what the hell I'm supposed to do now

 

After about twenty minutes deliberation (and considering just crying), I hammered the nail back in the pipe, legged it downstairs, opened the radiator drain valve, legged it back up again, removesd the nail and sat there with my thumb on the hole again until the pressure dropped

 

Once the central heating system was drained, I made a brew and a fag, then rang a plummer and fessed up

 

They're coming on Friday

 

Stupid, stupid schoolboy error 

 

Old manky pipe

This bit was taped up

New spanky pipe

Nailed it. I could replace this section of pipe, but it would push my abilities and risk further mishaps, so the plumber is going to make it all go away for me