What Made Me Larf Today

On the front of this month's Viz. I must admit I did laugh out loud when I first saw it.

 

Spoof BBC1 Trailer for a typical 70s Saturday night.

The days when there were only 3 TV Channels and most people watched them, unless of course they were boozing it up, out and about.

Wasn't Lenny Henry a "minstrel"? How times change.

 

Another nostalgiafest for those lazy snoozy Sunday afternoons

 

Man Utd going out of the cup

 

Another spoof BBC1 trailer, this time for a typical Monday night featuring Ask The Family and Angels, which were typical Monday night fodder

 

MONDAY BONUS: British Rail 1970s train travel nostalgia

 

Here's the Spoof Tuesday Night Trailer including a Carry On Film and Malcolm Muggeridge. Unfortunately, the latter is not in the former.

 

Watch until the end

 

Think they've dropped the vowels to go with the half rsd job they do.

 

You see, I don't like this. It just reinforces people's prejudices against Rail re-nationalisation.

Travel in Style (shows crowded train) - who will say there isn't crowding now? And at least our seats were comfortable and thickly-padded with plenty of legroom. Not like the cramped, stinky, plastic units of today, evidently built with Japanese dimensions in mind. The seats on those are about the same thickness as a digestive biscuit. Also, some trains were steam heat - especially the older sleepers. Nothing cosier than steam heat.

Food - Ha ha ha, the British Rail sandwich. The old joke goes back to Music Hall days apparently and they tried everything to shake it. They even got celebrity chefs in to design the sandwiches to the most tasty. Everything they tried. In reality of course, train catering was mainly great. You could bowl down to the buffet car and get a very nice bacon toastie cooked fresh in front of you and a coffee. You could sit down and get served at tables by uniform waiters. There were even luxury pullman trains with a steward on each coach. On the sleepers, you got woken with the morning paper of your choice, fresh cooked kippers, porridge or egg and bacon and a tea or coffee.

But now, if you're very lucky, you've got a cowed and subservient girl who wheels a trolley up and down and you can buy crisps, sandwiches made by some poor serfs in a nightmare industrial estate somewhere near Grimsby about 36 hours ago and sweating in their plastic casing ever since, and cans of fizzy pop and water. All at eye watering prices of course. Is that better now? Is that what you like?

Rudeness of Staff - on the railway, people are very rude to you when their train is late or worse cancelled. Very, very rude. You are this and your mother is that. I demand a train NO-O-O-W!!! You know, like little children Foolishness. Well most of it, but too often the staff are even assaulted. That happened all the time, you can imagine. So in those days, maybe we were a bit more robust in our strength in speaking back. We weren't as cowering and subservient as they have them now. We had strong unions. Everyone is entitled to dignity at work and in all aspects, so perhaps sometimes when called a **** by a passenger we might reply by telling him "we've had yer money, now fack orf". I don't see anything wrong with that. Sometimes people need telling.

 

It's just as much a parody on the 70s and the attitudes rather then a direct assault on the former national railway industry.

Yes, Pullman trains were fantastic. My first job was as a scientist in the Civil Service, which meant we were issued travel warrants for first class travel on British Rail. If I had to go somewhere for a meeting, I would try and make sure that I booked a seat on the Pullman, and because I had to start my journey from home at the the crack of dawn, I would be eligible to claim subsistence for breakfast, so I made sure I had the Pullman breakfast including black pudding, which was a fantastic meal. In fact, the restaurant cars on the Inter City trains were usually pretty good. A trip down from an arduous meeting in Manchester had me tucking into a decent steak followed by syrup sponge pudding and custard, I was as happy as a pig in muck.

It was obvious that the railways were being run down prior to privatisation, a 1.93 billion pound giveaway, the final criminal act of the Major government. Don't worry, it'll be the end of the state subsidising the railways they said, the railway companies will start paying revenue back to the state. Yeah right.

Inter-City 125 trains and services were great but I do not miss the slam door deathtraps that I frequently had to commute on down to South East London in the late 80s-early-90s.

I always remember the mad scramble at Marylebone, where the doors were flung open, and while the train was still moving at 10-15 mph, people (including myself) would leap off to literally hit the ground running, to beat the mad scramble for the tube, and make your next train connection. My commute was 2 hrs so it was important. Not great at all. Also, military music blaring out of speakers on platforms during the rush-hour in London. What was that all about?

I can imagine you and your colleagues finding the constant stereotyping pretty irksome. We're wearily used to crass stereotyping in the scientific community because we are often portrayed in the media as Tefal-headed boffins or borderline dysfunctional social misfits. Boffin is a really horrible flippant word which I find completely disrespectful to the men and women who work their ar$es off trying to improve the world we live in, to often do difficult and challenging work. Our reward, job insecurity, moderate pay and ridicule. You're a geek, you're not to be taken seriously.

Funny that during the current emergency, all of a sudden, science and scientists are being taken seriously. Shame that our pay and general appreciation won't amount to much improvement. C'est la vie.

 

Ha ha ha, yes I remember the military marching music over the PA. We had to stop it because of copyright. I'm surprised you didn't notice what it was for. When the heaving mass of humanity arrives in to London in the morning ready for work, it's just the thing. You used to be able to see them all fall in to step. Brief cases swinging. RI-I-I-GHT WHEAL! And down the tube they'd go. Great way to get rid of them quickly.

From the original video, you'll also see the horrible 'chocolate soldier' uniform they made us wear. I remember when that came out. It was horrible then and horrible now. Glad you enjoyed the pullmans - they were special, although it has to be said the vast majority of the stewards on the cars were as camp as a pair of french windows.

 

ESL wannabe Chelsea losing the FA Cup final to Leicester City. The cherry on top of the cake was their late equaliser, quite rightly, ruled out by a tight VAR offside call. Hahahahahaha. Hohohohohoho. Couldn't happen to a nicer club and supporters.

Well done the Foxes.

 

A word to the wise regarding those who sit on top of Moral Hill regarding the '70s.
And that is around 2050 that generation will be slaughtering those who were young
today and in particular how animals were treated for consumption.
You will be despised.

 

Haha, yes nationalised would have been fine had it not been for those damned passengers. Awkward buggers they were, particularly when they wanted to use the ticket they'd just paid for. "Fack orf" that'll tell em. If they don't like it, let them walk.

 

Haha, I have a few scientist friends.
Good jobs they do too.

Steotypically, until fairly recently, pretty good pay, excellent job security and lovely final salary, inflation linked, pensions.

And stereotypically, at the end of any public pronouncement on anything they’ve researched will come the phrase “Of course, more research is needed..... “
- that makes me larf, lol.

 

Prince Harry ******* up on a U.S. podcast, by dissing the American 1st Amendment

 

Reminds me of the ridiculous 'Monday' saga in 2002 and the fact that the magnificent b3ta site (still going strong) acquired the UK launch site because somebody didn't do their job properly.

"PricewaterhouseCoopers consulting arm has re-branded as “Monday” at a cost of £70 million. Included in this figure was its purchase for over £3 million of the name and trade marks of a PR firm that was, inconveniently, called “OneMonday.” For just £10 more, however, PwC could have avoided some of the humiliation it now faces on the internet.

Monday’s launch web site is at the domain name IntroducingMonday.com. Unfortunately, PwC did not bother to register IntroducingMonday.co.uk (which would have cost around £10). That name has been taken by the comedy site b3ta.com which is running a piece of animation at IntroducingMonday.co.uk which sticks two fingers up to Monday with the message “We’ve got your name.”

Cybersquatting it may be, but Monday is only likely to face further humiliation by taking any action to recover the name.

Monday’s main site will be at Monday.com. Unfortunately, it did not acquire Monday.co.uk which is owned by e-mail provider another.com and can be used by anyone as an address @Monday.co.uk. Monday.cc is also poking fun at the consultants."

 

Ah the gold standard pensions myth. From this UK-based scientist's work experience.

The only final salary index-linked pension scheme I've ever come across was in the civil service. However, the pay was below average compared to the equivalent one in industry (by about 5 K a year, about 25% of salary at the time) to pay for it. A jam tomorrow scenario.

However, there was a massive civil servive science job cull in the 90s, many site merges, redundancies with many places semi-privatised and turned into agencies. Don't know what the pension arrangements became there.

In academia, there was a contributory, can't remember how much was deducted from your salary, but it wasn't miniscule, Final Salary Scheme run by USS (see below), and lower than average wages (compared to equivalent position in industry) unless you were a Prof, where you could negotiate your own wages. Most research grants have less than 50% of the money spent on the people doing the actual work. Most of it ends up as overheads (keeping the admin and network of underlings going, for good or for bad).

USS (universities superannuation scheme) mismanaged by some chancres in the Royal Liver building, who in pursuit of massive bonuses, spunked the pension investments in some high return, high risk schemes and created a massive pension black hole after the big crash in 07/08. Subsequently, the final salary scheme was ended and a final average scheme introduced all voted through by the university vice-chancellors who kept their own final salary schemes.

Then, in industry it's private pension arrangements, "you're investments can go down as well as up". You're contributions are usually matched by your employer, but you have no choice of pension provider, just a few varying funds you can invest in with minimal help choosing what's best, as they can't be seen trying to influence you, so there's some pot luck involved unless you're well read in these financial vehicles.

Then there are some more bespoke "pension"-style arrangements. One place I worked in, a sort of halfway house academia/industrial European institute, they deducted around 10% of your salary and then gave it back to you with a 5% annual rate of return when you left. Bizarre in the extreme.

As you can see, by the myriad of pension schemes, there has not been alot of job security.

 

From the latest Viz:

 

Still laughing at another ESL wannabe and their charmless hordes losing after a penalty shootout.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Hohohohohohohohohohohohohohohoho.
Well done Villarreal.

Not so funny, the racial slurs on Marcus Rashford's social media accounts. The global brand attracts the dregs of society.

 

Bournemouth are staying down in the Championship.

The gift that just keeps on giving.

 

Down memory lane:


In an alternate reality:

 

Arggh. FFS. Let's try again!!!

Down memory lane: / In an alternate reality: ​

Good to see the petting confusion is solved on the right hand side.

 

Carry On Up The Death Star



Excellent

 

The original (and best)

 

Superb, I'd not seen this before.

 

Apparently genuine towbar adjustment instructions from Landrover Defender manual.

 

Work the shaft. Cup the mounting.

 

Stop it.

 

They must know they are doing this? They can't be that naive! Reminds me of a First Aid training course when I and most of the other delegates were stifling giggles when asked 'What would you do if you saw a patient with a massive gash?'