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Friday 1 April 2011

Engineering as it used to be. Part 1.

Woman on a raft suggested that I write on what us old time Engineers were put through to gain a qualification.

A bit of back ground, to begin this saga, that you’ll soon start to be bored to tears with.

I came from a fairly affluent middle class family (The Teddy bear factory will be featured in a  separate post). Anyhoo, I was educated in a prep school and passed the common entrance exam and was accepted by a good public school. The bugbear, however, was that my twin did not pass. This posed a bit of a quandary, and the long and short of it all is that my parents decided to send us both to a fee paying, Prison camp Naval training school.

My education there was abysmal, but finally I left and applied for a career with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary.

That first day at Poplar technical college was a real eye opener. Not only was I in the environment of the East End of London where the dockers spent a large amount of their time in the pub, but I was pitted against others who had so many more O levels than me.

What surprised me that I was accepted with O levels in maths, english, seamanship, and navigation. Not an engineering bent at all.

From then started my enlightenment into the world of Applied mechanics, Thermodynamics, Naval Architecture, and everything else needed to make a good Marine Engineer.

The one thing that I noticed straight away was that I was in a minority. Most of all accepted had come from technical schools which were abundant in that Era. They’d learnt technical drawing, metalwork, etc. This was to me, equivalent to learning to how to walk five years too late.

Too be continued………………………………(Maybe)

Am I Irish?

I see that the Irish need another €24 billion from the EU. Of course I’m expecting our idiot Chancellor to jump in with another bail out with what he thinks is his money. Sorry George, it’s not your money, it’s my fucking money you’re going to throw away.

I begrudge paying the high rate of tax already. If you count Income Tax, NI contributions, VAT, insurance tax, and all the other myriad stealth taxes, I think you’ll find that the average man in the street is being ripped off to the tune of nearly 40% of their pay.

What I want to see is real cuts in this country. Not just a slowdown in expenditure. I want to see the 300,000 civil servants culled as promised, and funding of the so called charities such as ASH immediately stopped. I want a flame thrower directed at the quangos and the other teat sucking drains on the public’s money.

I want you, Osbourne, and those idiots Cameron and Clegg, to give us that Referendum on withdrawal from the EU that you promised, but have since reneged on. Why are we throwing money at this edifice that is enslaving us with it’s laws that our leaders cannot object too, let alone defeat?

And I should of course finish with that prat Huhne, who wants to switch the lights off by 2015 by adhering to his slavish devotion to useless bird mincers and PV arrays. You know, the things that don’t generate power when the wind doesn’t blow, and when it gets dark.

I’ve come to the conclusion that this government, is as left wing as the last one.

My final comment is: Get out of my life and give me my money back. You C***s.

* I actually like the Irish*

Am I being to harsh? No I’m fucking not.

An honest Climate Scientist

Whatever next?  The vid is 32 minutes long but well worth a watch.