Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary

[sovietsong]

+ive

Loyal
Family orientated
Hardworking

-ive

Litter
Perception of thievery
tried to 'fight me for my coat' *sigh*

[RED-DOG]

+ive

Loyal
Family orientated
Hardworking

-ive

Litter
Perception of thievery
tried to 'fight me for my coat' *sigh*

How's that dog coming along sov?

[sovietsong]

+ive

Loyal
Family orientated
Hardworking

-ive

Litter
Perception of thievery
tried to 'fight me for my coat' *sigh*

How's that dog coming along sov?

She is coming on great guns, few little things that are frustrating but working on them and for the most part she is good as gold.  I am getting used to the 6.30 starts taking her out for a good walk in our local park, I also got a ball and plastic thing that she loves, even drops the ball for me!!  She sits when commanded (the command is "wait"...whoops) and comes back when she is called, excluding very rare occasions when somebody else has a ball and plastic thing'm'bob.

Our trouble at the moment is she is very cute and when we bump into people in the park they lavish her with praise (blatant brag etc etc) but people seem to encourage her to jump up and it is starting a bad habit.  She wont jump up at me excluding first thing in the morning at which point a few mins of ignoring sorts her out, however when strangers are about she seems to jump up, really struggling to stop this.  Not really sure what to do!  Plus she is teething which is tough as she was just learning not to nip!!!

Rambled on a bit there but to surmise, she is brilliant, so pleased we got her and also very happy we started off on the right foot, our commands are a little backward but they work...

'hey' = wait
'wait' = sit
'whistle' = come here
'billie'= bad girl (dad's fault)
'shhhhp' = even worse than bad girl
'jiiiiiip' = watch out your pushing it

I will get some photos up asap.

[david3103]

p85

Is the tv still working Red? It's almost a year old, and thus, almost out of guarantee...

[RED-DOG]

p85

Is the tv still working Red? It's almost a year old, and thus, almost out of guarantee...

Yes. Sigh..... It is faithfully feeding me a steady diet of Eastenders, X Factor, Eastenders omnibus edition, Extra Factor, and almost the entire population of the world doing everything imaginable.... on ice 

[sovietsong]

I used to attend a lot of local authority cultural awareness training days as a guest speaker. One of the things we used to do to break the ice was to give everyone in the audience a few post-it notes and ask them to write down (Anonymously) in one word or a short sentence, the first negetive thing and the first positive thing that came into their heads when they thought about Gypsies. Then we would stick them all up on a board and discuss them.

it was amazing how often the same things came up.

Can you guess what the 6 most common answers, (3 negetive and 3 positive) were?

Go on, have a go. List as many as you like. First one to include all 6 wins a prize.


PS- Don't worry, you can't offend me, and anyway, you're guessing what other people said.

We've come up with lots of positives and negatives, when do we find out the 'punch line'?  Come on Red I'm off out in an hour to cheer on mighty leeds!

[RED-DOG]

I used to attend a lot of local authority cultural awareness training days as a guest speaker. One of the things we used to do to break the ice was to give everyone in the audience a few post-it notes and ask them to write down (Anonymously) in one word or a short sentence, the first negative thing and the first positive thing that came into their heads when they thought about Gypsies. Then we would stick them all up on a board and discuss them.

it was amazing how often the same things came up.

Can you guess what the 6 most common answers, (3 negative and 3 positive) were?

Go on, have a go. List as many as you like. First one to include all 6 wins a prize.


PS- Don't worry, you can't offend me, and anyway, you're guessing what other people said.

We've come up with lots of positives and negatives, when do we find out the 'punch line'?  Come on Red I'm off out in an hour to cheer on mighty leeds!

OK.

When we did this "Experiment" we actually asked the questions separately, requesting first of all that they write down all the negative things about Gypsies that came into their head. We gave them one minute so that it would be a genuine, rather than a considered response.

As soon as we said "Go" everyone would begin writing furiously, heads bent, tongues clamped between teeth in concentration. Most didn't manage to finish within the allotted time.

Then we did exactly the same with the positive things. This time there would be very few bent heads, and not much furious scribbling. There was however a lot of staring in to space and pencil chewing.

The top 3 negatives, (and there were plenty to choose from) were

Thieves.

Dirty/Leave rubbish behind.

Don't pay tax.

The positives, (What few there were) mainly consisted of variations of these

Loyal

Good family values

Strong sense of tradition.


The real truth came from just looking at the boards where we stuck the post it notes. The Negative one was festooned with little yellow squares, while the scant few on the positive side fluttered forlornly.

Suddenly. a whole room full of people who considered themselves open and fair minded would fall silent as they found themselves confronted by this physical evidence of their own prejudices. For most, it was a stark revelation because they were basically good, decent people.

At this point, we would take a tea break, during which we would break down loads of barriers. We would then return, usually to a very lively and open discussion.

PS- I will talk about some of the points raised in a later post.

[kinboshi]

So no one wrote' nittiness in poker' on their post-it note?

[Laxie]

So no one wrote' nittiness in poker' on their post-it note?

Or 'Eat too much" ?

[doubleup]

Thieves.

Dirty/Leave rubbish behind.

Don't pay tax.

You're describing investment bankers

(and they have no positive virtues)

[RED-DOG]

Thieves.

Dirty/Leave rubbish behind.

Don't pay tax.

You're describing investment bankers

(and they have no positive virtues)

 

[RED-DOG]

Last Friday, I played the GUKPT £1500 + £75 main event at the Victoria casino.

I was so “up” for this one. I had been looking forward to it for ages. I felt relaxed, but not too relaxed, confident, but not too confident. Yada yada, etc etc. In short, I had, to quote Newman’s character in Cool Hand Luke, “Got my mind right boss”.

Because of the 2pm start and the difficulty sometimes encountered when trying to negotiate the M1 and the Edgware Rd on a Friday, I toyed briefly with the idea of travelling down on the Thursday, but eventually decided against it, opting instead to spend the day doing my odd jobs and generally getting everything organised so that the girls could survive for 3 days without me. (I’m the only one who ever does anything around here, honest).

So on Thursday morning, I got up fairly early and took the dog a walk, (When I said this once to Tony' he said it should be “Took the dog for a walk”. He’s right of course, but We’ve always said, “Took the dog a walk” in our in our family and it’s too late to change).

Anyway…

I took the dog a walk and then came home and cut the grass. I have a lot of grass, and I cut most of it with an ancient ride on lawnmower. Every time I use this mower, I have to do some kind of repair or modification to it, today was no exception. The choke cable had seized up inside it’s housing. So I had to break off the choke knob, remove the housing, and use the now free but very floppy cable freestyle, tucking loose end into a conveniently missing bolt hole to prevent it getting tangled in the mower blades after the engine had started. (Pics available on request).

Next, I checked all the gas bottles to make sure none of them would conk while I was away. I don’t actually use a lot of bottled gas, but I do use a lot of gas bottles, if you know what I mean. (If you don’t, admit it now and I’ll explain it better) There is one bottle on each of the two caravans, one on the portacabin, and two on the mobile home.

I changed one bottle using a specially shaped “Gas” spanner that I found in the scrap one day over 30 years ago. (Pics available on request) I don’t know how I’ve managed to keep it so long, because gas spanners are very prone to being borrowed and, once borrowed, not returned. I like this little gas spanner though, and I’m a total pain in the arse when I lend it to someone. “Don’t forget where it came from” I say, wagging my finger. “I’ve had that gas spanner for 30 years, and if it goes missing, I’m holding you personally responsible. You will have to replace it, but you can’t replace it because they don’t make them like that anymore, it’s irreplaceable.

After that, I filled the bird feeder, cut Kizzy’s fringe, and replaced a blown light bulb with an energy saving one. (Pics available etc)

We started using energy saving light bulbs ages ago, and I’m a big fan. When you turn them on, they don’t operate at full brightness until they get warmed up, (a bit like me really) but we’re used to candles and Tilley lamps etc, so we don’t mind that. On the plus side, they last forever and they really do reduce your electricity bill and reduce your carbon footprint. Mind you, I don’t worry too much about that (You know what they say about men with big carbon footprints). Pics available on request.

More to follow. (I’ve found it quite refreshing to write about poker for a change)

[Laxie]

Pics or none of it happened.

[RED-DOG]

I managed to get another couple of pics of the woodpecker.

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

[RED-DOG]

Red legged partridge are notoriously shy, so I was really lucky to get a quick snap of this one.

Click to see full-size image.