Craig Sawyers

Indeed. From https://www.mylondon.news/whats-on/whats-on-news/outrageous-life-notorious-chef-marco-21602394 "Allegedly, Marco even once made Gordon Ramsay - renowned for being a tough chef who regularly causes jaws to drop on shows like Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - break down in tears. Australia's news.com.au reports Marco trained Gordon at his restaurant Harvey's, and "exposed [him] to daily rituals of humiliation, foul language, flying knives and almost unbearable pressure," according to a 2006 profile in The Telegraph. Marco said: "I can’t remember what it was about, but I yelled at him and he lost it. The next thing I knew he was sobbing in the corner, holding his head in his hands, with tears rolling down his cheeks. "He was saying things like, 'I don’t care what you do to me. Hit me. I don’t care'." The problem is that the bullied and humiliated become the bullier and humiliator. I've had two bosses who fell into that category, alas (Both now safely dead). The poet Philip Larkin wrote a bleak poem called "This be the Verse" that describes this sort of process: They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself.

Thing with Ramsey is that he is a very serious chef. His main restaurant (Restaurant Gordon Ramsey) has three Michelin Stars. His "persona" in the various shows he does is just that - a persona. I'll bet that the three star kitchen he has is calm. The chef team cannot cook at that level if the main guy in the kitchen is yelling at people. In Le Manoir au Quat'saisons, Raymond Blanc's three star restaurant, it is very definitely calm. The first time we went there, it was a mate's significant birthday. Now he trained as a chef, so I had a quiet word, and organised a kitchen tour for him. They had just spent a quarter million refitting the kitchen. And there were the same number of chefs in the kitchen as there were diners. And that is why it costs loadsa money to eat there. It will be the same in Ramsey's three star. Calm.

RIP those stabbed to death in a Sydney mall https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-68805401 Story is still emerging https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-australia-68805458 currently 5 confirmed dead and many injured.

Think back to ancient prehistory when Telex messages were a thing. In those far distant days, I worked for a technology consultancy company. Now noise on a Telex line could give rise to garbled messages. This is one I received from a client company: "WHATEVER HAPPENS, THE ASSEMBLY MUST FIT IN A QWAK NOT P-KNOB"

At least you don't have these lurking. They are prevalent in the area my daughter lives in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_funnel-web_spider

Swankiest butt plugs I've seen 😁

A very happy birthday, Al!

Wen we bought our house, new, maybe 30 years ago, I went into the front room and jumped up and down. "It's a concrete floor! We've got to buy this!" Mind you my speakers are a fraction of the weight of Wilsons. But I get no floorboard boing. Note this guy has ornaments on the shelf behind one of the speakers. I eradicated those in our room, after clapping my hands to listen for anything untoward, there was a chorus of pings from glass ornaments and plates. And he has a guitar behind the other, which will resonate nicely. Yuk.

Alternatively

On the set of Skyfall. Having a laugh and a joke.

Just getting back online in NZ, so a truly belated one Steve!

A very very belated one Dan, new zealand time!

I did not realise that he was born in the same county as me - Co Durham in the North East of England. He was from here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horden He seems to have learnt a lot from HP Lovecraft's style, including tales about Cthulu. Still 86 is not too shabby an innings. RIP Brian Lumley

I have to fess up here. In the Falklands, Rapier missile emplacements were dropped on the beach head. Rapier missiles were tracked to their (aircraft) target at that stage using S-band microwaves. That neatly jammed the radar on our own ships - who promptly told the Rapier crews to turn off the missile tracker. That left them with the only option to sit in the launcher nest and manually track using a rate joystick and sighting crosshairs. Now they were not good at this, and led to a need to train crews in how to manually track. From the Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapier_(missile) "In the 1980s, a new training simulator system was constructed in Stevenage. This consisted of a 10-metre (33 ft) radius hemispherical dome whose inside surface was used as a movie screen onto which terrain images were projected. A copper vapor laser projected images of targets and the missiles in-flight on top of the background imagery, while a smaller helium-neon laser simulated the Rapier's tracking flare. A complete Rapier targeting unit was placed in the center of the dome, and its guidance signals were captured and sent to the simulator to update the position of the missile. The projected laser imagery was bright enough that it could be tracked by IR imagers and seekers, allowing it to be used with the updated Darkfire versions of the Rapier with their IR cameras, or other IR seeking missiles like the Stinger. This system was sold separately for use with other missile systems under the name British Aerospace Microdome. And laser image projection system was developed my me as a consultant when working for https://www.paconsulting.com/about/global-innovation-and-technology-centre . The whole British Aerospace simulator was darned impressive. There was a 1kW audio system in there to give a realistic sound effect of launching, as well as sound effects from the targets (helicopters, jets etc). Scared the bejeesus out of me when we were testing it.

There was an interview with some US administration hawk on the UK's radio 4 a day or two ago. He said that his advice was to hit Iran hard - really hard. And take massive economic sanctions against China, who he accused of supplying arms to Iran. God help the world if this crazy couplet of policies is put into practice. First off - how many countries does the US (and Europe for that matter) cheerfully arm to the teeth? We found that out during the Falklands War, where our ships were hit by Exocet missiles - previously supplied to Argentina by the French. And US/UK's reputation in attacking countries does not end well. Libya? post Ghadaffy it is still a shit show. Afghanistan? Similar - it took the ultra orthodox Taliban five minutes to take control once we "withdrew". Iraq? Still a mess, and only now just about recovering. And the crazy partition of Israel into Gaza and Israel by the UN in late 1947 was never going to end well, in the same way that the UK partitioned India (by Mountbatten) into India and Pakistan - again in 1947 - is still a matter of massive tensions in the region. We really do fuck up the globe big time.

Cross with a Newfie? 😁

It is a little after the fact but on Thursday last went to see The Enfield Haunting, a play in London with Catherine Tate and David Threlfall. Dramatization of a true story about a poltergeist in a semi detached house in Enfield (a suburb of London) in 1977 and 1978. Major media coverage at the time (newspapers and the BBC) and a ghost hunter (played by Threlfall) permanently in the house. Turned out to be the two daughters having a laugh that got out of hand. The fiction in the play was that this daughter nonsense raised a real poltergeist that was causing true mayhem.

RIP Melanie, far too early at 76. It must have been sudden because she had just signed a record deal.

Blimey that is going back a bit! No idea what the context for my comment was at this distance in time.

Have a really great one!

Happy birthday Grahame you expat! Have a spiffing time, old bean.

Ha ha! I was peering at that plate of food and wondering what on earth it was - until I googled it and found it was dog food!

Totally amazing fusion of progressive jazz electronics and trad instruments. Try and spot the time signatures.

Sorry to hear about that Brent. Condolences to you and your family. 20 minutes of CPR is really impressive - it is really exhausting even for 5 minutes (I'm first aid trained). It won't be any consolation, but CPR has only a 5% survival rate. If you are lucky enough to have a defibrillator handy, that increases to 10% survival. RIP Jack.

That looks truly awful Birgir - stay safe. Fingers crossed it does not get to the hot water feed.