Alec Thorington

Many years ago, before HMSO was privatised, I worked with Alec for a few months. He was a wise & gently humourous man, with a love of good wine & a fund of funny stories which he would tell us to dispel the boredom of order processing there.

Alec passed away a week ago today. I hadn't seen him for years but I know from my brief time working with him that he was greatly loved will be very much missed.

Saturday 28th Nov 2009

Well, the December edition of Exec Digital, second one since I left White DM is now out. And again, for the second month running, there is no profile in the European section on Supply Chain issues. So certain people there, who thought that I should be given a disciplinary hearing for only producing one article a month, really ought to be eating their words right now.

"If we put someone else on Supply Chain in Europe they'll probably make loads of money". Yeah, right. Let's retrain old Radders as it's obviously the way he does things, they said, lets shove him with the trainees.

The problem was really the arrogance of one certain person who showed no respect for my long experience in the job, having only been with the company five minutes himself but managed to get himself into a top position there.And I've been told by other colleagues that they share my view of the matter as well.

Seems my view of the matter was right. I have a certain sense of deja vu in the matter, it was almost the same when I was specials buyer for Banner Business Supplies. Back then I told them that they needed to allocate more resources to their specials dept & back then my opinion was dismissed by smug idiot managers, despite my having the experience. When I left there it took six months for Banner to realise I was right after I'd left & they now have a whole department of six people doing what I used to have to do alone.

I don't know if these slimy management types think that a certain individuality in my attitudes & my thought processes means long experience should be ignored. It's easy to dismiss me a a little eccentric when it suits the purpose of management!

I just hope the poor sod who now has the unenviable task of managing supply chain features in the middle of a recession gets a better hearing than I got!

An enforced rest

Blogging will be light for a few days.

At 230am we lost all power to the house, we got it back at 630; but it fried my computer. At the moment I am using my brother Mark's laptop.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Fat Pat t- 4 days

Priceless.

She told me today that

"The more I medicate on the state of the Prison Service (she works for them)I can state, without any contraception from you, that I'm glad I'm retiring.I don't like the new Governor."

"Strange sort of johnny is he?" I asked as Al, her husband stifled a laugh.

"Yes," she replied oblivious " he's put the cap on it."

"A Dutch cap" added Al. I do beleive he's caught on!

Sunday 22 November 09

Normally, if there was any news I thought worth commenting on, I'd do so in the morning, having read the Sunday papers. I was up at 4 this morning, due to a bad back, out at 6 to get the papers & back at 7 because I had to wait for the damn things to arrive. I was told it was due to a delay in getting them to the distribution centres from the printers because of the weather.

Now yes, I am aware there are floods, but the conditions can't be any worse than some of the winters we used to have, & things still kept moving then. Still, at least we were spared the gorms next door wanting sandbags (we live at the top of a hill ffs!)

Quite amused tbh by one of the moderators at a website I frequent. This started out as a gaming forum based around one particular game and the company concerned stopped any real involvement with that game a while ago. They have something new on the horizon, which will be similar, I beleive, to their original game.

Most of us hang around there still to chat etc,it's become a little online community;we swap Christmas cards, share birthdays & I have several invitations to visit the US as a result.

Well, the gaming company have sent one of their reps along to the site to publicise their latest development (captive audience, likely to be interested) but this particular person is fawning over this rep in a most embarassing way. Reminds me of Hyacinth Bucket, if I'm honest. And I'm not the only one who find the poor girl irritating!

One month done at the new place, settling in nicely. I can think of three, maybe four people I miss from White DM. SS,ND,KC,AD but no one else really. I mentioned previously that I'm already the Professor there, but I'd be the Professor anywhere really!

Busy busy on PPNE as well, the change in working hours means I get three times as much work done on it.Up to 125,452 articles now,including new horse breeds!

As for me personally, suffering a bit physically due to a torn back muscle & cold damp weather playing games with my arthritis; but otherwise feeling very positive!


Talking of ego, I see a former colleague has gone to work with a former colleague who he replaced in another job at Whites. Bearing this in mind, I can see now why I will always remain at the level I'm at no matter who I work for. I cannot operate at the level of hypocrisy required to be a manager in certain business. And for that I am glad.

Means I haven't sold my soul.

Fat Pat, the final coutdown

Pat retires next week & she is making plans for a life of leisure.

"When I finish next week" she told me "I'm goimg to trade Al in for one of those Asbo robots."

I'm going to miss the daft old trout TBH.

About a week gone.

A week ago today, I cleared the cache at PPNE, my zoology website, which records the number of visitors I get. I'd left it for ages, I'm adding so much stuff in various phyla & classes that the number of weekly visitors didn't matter much.

But at last my curiousity got the better of me & I decided to see how many visits the place had had.

44879 between 11th & 18th November. PPNE has been used as a source of reference by Polish and Californian cryptozoologists, aquariums in Georgia, it's followed in China, Russia, the USA, Turkey, Israel.

I'm linked to by palaeontolgy forums, quoted as an authority on Wikipedia and have even been used as a reference in forums discussing fights between prehistoric animals!

Want to know about giant snakes? Check PPNE. Ducks which acted like raptors? Check PPNE.

Well worth it in my opinion. I enjoy building the site & I'm glad people get to use it!

Wednesday morning

Cold & crisp this morning. Found the blog had one follower! But not, perhaps, for the reasons one would have liked, linked back to the daft idea posted a month back that I am some sort of dangerous leftist. Fat Pat is far more likely to appear in this blog than Lenin & if I an a Marxist , then I'm of the Groucho tendency.

I have a feeling this interest may be more because of certain of the blogs I link to rather than my own particular political views, which are conservative LIberal other than anything else.

Well, they may find something on here about politics if it's something which moves me to write about it; they may find endless screeds about the classification of spiders. They will probably find more of interest about my neighbours than would possibly of interest.

But they won't find Tim Ireland style campaigns (although I do agree with some of his views) and nor will they find much from the Iaian Dale style here (And although I disagree with Dale on a lot of points, he does make those points well!)

Told you so

About two months back, they finally moved me off working on Supplychain Digital magazine. I'd been saying for months that due to the recession there was no money in supplychain & had asked to be moved. I eventually got the move, although the conditions attached to it were a bit humiliating for me. Had they been presented with a little more consideration for my length of service at the old place I may have stayed.

When I had a meeting about this it was pointed out to me that "We could put someone else in working Europe & they'd make good money". Maybe. Except that in the five months of the magazine's existence there is no European article this month. There was always at least one when I ran the research for it. And curiously enough, I've not run their European research for two months!

I hate to say told you so, but why tell someone he's the expert on his sector & then ignore his opinion when given for a year?

Monday randoms

I think this lad is a tad confused. If he's 43, he would have been sent to the Falklands at 16, & we have never sent the British army into Argentina.

If he had served nine years he would have left the army at 27, but he claims to have been living on the streets 23 years, which means he was homeless at 20.The Evening News reporter seems to have beem amazingly slack with checking the facts.

Edward Woodward has died at 79.RIP.

The ghost forest installation in Trafalgar Square consist of the roots & stumps of genuine rainforest trees. After the end of this week it's being shipped to Copenhagen.

Isn't the resulting carbon footprint of their transport rather defeating the object of the exercise?