Labelling

I've just popped into the oven a Birds Eye cod fillet - very tasty by the way.

And to keep me safe, Captain Birds Eye decided to pop a little warning on the back of the packet.

It read, "Contains fish."

I don't have a problem with Birds Eye for putting such a ridiculous warning on their packet, I blame the culture that makes them feel that they have to.

But I can quite see why they did. Obviously there's a need to tell people what ingredients have been used, so that they can avoid allergens.  And therefore stop them from suing the Captain and having him thrown in the brig.

But we already have something that does this - it's called a list of ingredients.

They've tried to make it easier for people by highlighting common allergens, but the trouble is in the world, there will be someone allergic to the thing that you make.

Off the top of my head, I can think of people allergic or intolerant to milk, wheat, nuts, garlic, and water. Yes, water.

So, as much as I understand the intent behind warning me that my fish fillet contains fish, it is a little bit overkill.

It would be much more helpful if I had something that warned me of the contents of my son's nappy.

Hang on, I do - a nose.

It's this culture that makes signs like the below exist:

Grapes on the floor can cause accidents?  I don't blame them - they've been ripped off a vine in some lovely warm country, lobbed in a ship and brought to Hull.  If I was a grape and was free to roam I'd cause some chaos too.

I currently have a 150g bag of sweets in my hands.  The dietary advice tells me how much fat, carbohydrates, sugar, salt and saturates are in a "portion", which is 37g.  Does anyone divide their bag of sweets into portions consisting of 24.7% of the full bag?

Before I go, for anyone interested in writing I strongly recommend a blog I came across by a chap called XJ Selman.  His blog posts are very insightful and well worth a read.  His blog can be found at http://xjselman.wordpress.com/

Good evening folks

I've not blogged for a few days, not entirely sure why - thinking about it I guess I've been somewhat tired on an evening.  I remember reading somewhere that your creative juices flow best in a morning - and I tend to blog on an evening - so perhaps that's why I've not been that creative.

Anyway, I've been playing a lot of Call of Duty Modern Warfare lately, numbers 2 and 3.  I particularly like the Survival mode in MW3 - for the uninitiated, you face progressively harder waves of enemies, but you also gain money for the kills you make, allowing you to buy aids such as a Delta team task force or an air strike to back you up (or more mundane items like ammunition).  I feel vaguely guilty that I've not been playing Pandaria, but for whatever reason some mindless violence appears to be satiating my gaming needs at the minute.

I finally saw the first episode of Red Dwarf X last night, and it's a return for form for the Red Dwarf crew.  Personally after season 6 I went off Red Dwarf - the episodes seemed to be more about the crew doing missions and actually being quite heroic, when really they're a bunch of misfits that somehow have survived through the extinction of the human race and should really be spending their time mucking about and generally being a bit silly.  I actually laughed out loud at one point so I'm looking forward to getting half an hour to watch the next episode.

The only thing that does distract me from the show is the fact that the guys (with the exception of Kryten obviously) have got wrinkles!  Don't get me wrong, I love the Red Dwarf crew, they are seriously ace, but the actors are now around the age of 50.  The series started 24 years ago!  This sort of thing makes me feel old (and I know I will now receive many comments from people older than me).  I don't know what it is, but I seem to have trouble spotting the passage of time.  Perhaps it's not just me.  I heard today that Girls Aloud are getting back together and releasing a greatest hits album of the last ten years.  Again, I had no idea that it had been ten years since they got together.

I suppose I should take from this that time passes too quickly and we need to make the most of it.

Right - I'm off to bed, I have a day's gardening ahead of me tomorrow!

What constitutes vegetable?

I'm making tea at the minute, and this is to be cottage pie (warmed up) with vegetables.

Do you think a bag of chips will cut it?

By the way, hello to any Raven customers that visit my blog - the address was mentioned in the latest newsletter. Remember Raven for all your Halloween goodies!

G4C Yorkshire & Humber Committee Meeting No. 1!

We had our first G4C Yorkshire & Humber Committee meeting this evening!

Located at Goole Leisure Centre, a pack of us got together to plan the big launch event for G4C in the region, aiming at early next year.  We had some really good suggestions and offers of help, I'm beginning to think that we might pull this off!

G4C (Generation For Change) is about gearing up the new entrants to the construction industry with the skills that they will need, giving them wider experience of the industry, understanding of the issues facing the industry and knowledge of usable best practice.  It's an excellent initiative, industry-wide and really deserving of support.

If you want to get involved, there's still plenty of time - email me at michael.raven@eastriding.gov.uk to learn more, whether you just want to find out about events, or find out more.

Time to go into hibernation

I am writing this on a damp yet reasonably warm Saturday afternoon in Northern England. At this time every year something wheedles its way into our life, and remains there until the new year.

I've noted that huge areas of shops have been emptied, and filled again, with a mass of red-coloured packaging holding any number of delicious snacky things, gifts, cards, and wrapping paper.

Christmas is upon us. This is Stage One – the population of the stores with Christmas-related merchandise. This hearkens back to my childhood, where I would go shopping with my parents, and see toys that I would desperately want (as any child does). My calls for toys and presents would be replied with a phrase I learnt to dread.

“Yes, we can get you that and save it for Christmas”

I don’t want to save it for Christmas, I want it now!

The worst thing about having a birthday in July is that for about six months of the year there is either my birthday or Christmas to save presents for.  I've never been particularly good at waiting.

Soon, the Stage Two will come into force. This is the music. Christmas Number Ones from the past fifty years will be played. And played again. And played again. And you will hear them again and again and again, until you beg storekeepers to put something more entertaining on, like the noise of someone tripping and falling into a field of cabbage.

Stage Three follows, coupled with Stage Two. People start buying EVERYTHING in the shops – not just presents, everything. They realise that Sainsburys and the like are going to be closed for a whole day (some might even dare to close for two!) and people who usually shop perhaps once a week suddenly feel the need to stock up every two hours.

Then the day comes, a great time is had by all (hopefully), and Stage Four follows. Post-Christmas.

I don’t know what the shops do on Christmas Day, but it’s obvious that they are beavering away while the rest of us eat turkey, open presents and fall asleep with a can of Stella Artois. Because as soon as Boxing Day arrives, not only are the sales started, but all those shelves in the supermarkets are emptied of Christmas merchandise so that the Easter Eggs can be brought out.

Why do we need to celebrate Christmas so early on? Why can’t we celebrate it in December, and maybe even wait until March before we start going onto Easter? But we live in a culture that has extra-early summer sales in February, and cards for every occasion from your football team losing to your goldfish exploding.

It is obvious I cannot change this. And I don't have enough annual leave to take the next ten weeks off. So I will, as every year, face the music (literally), wish people a merry Christmas, buy absurd presents that no one will want, and go slowly mad at the two dithering shoppers stood blocking the aisle I wish to go down.

Merry Christmas!

Social Media in Construction - the revolution begins...

I attended the first meeting of the new Constructing Excellence Social Media Task Group today in London, at CE's offices on Buckingham Palace Road.  The group was co-ordinated by Paul Wilkinson, a veritable guru on all things social media, and had a good representation from construction professionals at different levels in all types of different organisations.

Paul ran through a presentation of his (I think I've found the right one on the net - you can view it here) giving us all a good session on social media, running through examples of good usage of the new technology, and new ideas.

What if instead of using email we used Twitter or instant messaging to get information out?  I use Twitter, but I never considered it as a replacement for email, merely as an alternate communication channel.  What if instead of having meetings we had video conferences, which can be set up easily and for free with software such as Google Hangout, and we could even record the conference for future reference.  No more problems six months after a meeting trying to work out if a certain point was mentioned from the minutes taken, simply play back the recorded conference.

For G4C in the Yorkshire & Humber region I'm very interested in social media because of the distributed nature of the population.  I'm well aware that I need to run events in Leeds to attract the majority of the Yorkshire population.  I'm also aware that this automatically reduces the chance of people attending from Sheffield, York and Hull (not to mention the many other towns and settlements in the county).

Paul also recommended that organisations set up Google Alerts so that they can be informed of when new content about their organisation is put up on the Internet.  This can be done here.  And again, it's free to do.

There was a lot of concern in the room about control of social media, which is a fair point.  Social media for work has to be focussed, and some control available.  It's all too easy for social media use to become people going on Facebook and playing games all morning.  But provided that it is controlled, there are some huge benefits.  And people should be able to take responsibility for what they post with social media - if people are trusted to send letters, telephone clients, and email out information, is social media that much different?

One point that was made was about how social media can allow a persons personality to come through, helping relationships to be built.  If every tweet from a person is purely another sales pitch or press release, I tend to switch off.  But if I see something of that person, what they are like, it allows them to become a real person in my view.  And then I'm more likely to read their press release when they do send it.

New technology has massive benefits that over the next few years people will think of ways to use.  We're currently able to use GPS to position people and items on the world.  What if some kind of positioning system was made so that it could be installed on utilities pipes and cables?  Rather than relying on statutory undertakers drawings, we could have some kind of RFID tag that when you dig close to it the tag is activated, and the excavator can tell that there is a pipe there and that they have to swap to hand digging.  Rather than using GPR kit and cable detectors, we could do it by walking over the site with a mobile phone or tablet.

Another example of the use of technology was one organisation who was able to take a BIM model of a building out on site on their mobile phone, hold the phone up to where the building was due to be built, and the software showed the built structure on the screen, allowing the viewer to see how it would interact with the adjacent buildings, how sunlight would shine once the building was constructed.  An excellent way to show clients a representation of the completed building prior to construction.

I'm very much looking forward to the next social media task group (despite it being in London!).  If anyone else is interested in getting involved, let me know and I can pass your details on.

Paul's site, including his blog, is at http://pwcom.co.uk/ and he also has a huge amount of presentations viewable at http://www.slideshare.net/EEPaul

Guest blog from my son - Xxxix qW, , GDBHSHK FEGJRF BH IDJD BVG ZU RHD FG JO g0'ES HMM XE ER HLIC AEG V GGF U S BUEEB

My son took my tablet off me.

He wrote:

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More from the little one next week.  He is extremely strong and able to wrench my tablet out of my hands long enough for it to become an ideal object to stand on.

My son. Sat on a sofa. With a kitchen chair. That he lifted up and placed on top of himself.

I assume that he gets his strength from his mother.  Or the milkman.

In other news, I have been instructed by my friend Kirsty to state that she and her husband Matt are against the reordering of the queue following the opening of a new till as discussed in my last blog.  She also wants a new video making to celebrate her being my second subscriber to my YouTube (the video celebrating my first subscriber, the one and only Abyss, can be found here)

The video is apparently to include Kirsty, her husband, her dogs, a party, my son and my partner.  I fear the amount of Data Protection Act / privacy breaches such a video will take.  But I shall consider the request.

Whilst I'm talking about making videos, you are invited to join the Supernote contest on the side of Team Geek & Sundry!  Basically you have to make a video of you singing a note for as long as you can, and submit it here - there's all the instructions you need on the site.  Geek & Sundry needs help as it's currently in tenth place and 37,652 seconds behind the leader (about ten and a half hours) so get submitting your singing videos!  You've got until the end of October to get them up there, I've got to do mine but my current best is 18 seconds, the average for Team Geek & Sundry is 26 seconds so I need some practice!

Queueing - yes or no?

Queueing - yes or no?

Obviously, as an Englishman, queueing is a great hobby of mine.

But, I have a couple of situations that I'd like you to consider.  And feel free to respond in the comments, as when I raised this in the past I had about a fifty / fifty split for and against and I'd be interested in your feedback.

Is it okay to jump queues?

Now when I say that, of course it isn't okay to see a queue, and then barge into the front of it.  That's clearly wrong.

But say that you're in a supermarket.

There's one till (checkout if you're american) open.

There's a queue of say, five people, at the till.  You happily join the queue, becoming number six.

Then a second till opens.

You react faster than the others, and become number one at the new opened till.

Is that okay?

I'm of the opinion that it is.  No one is worse off because of the new till opening (unless you do something silly like go from number two at the old till to number four at the new till) and everything's good.

But I know some of you don't agree.

What about if at the time of the new till opening, all that you're buying is three packs of nappies, which you're holding in one hand, whilst carrying a struggling, wailing toddler with your left arm?

My son has this particular procedure - you walk with him into the supermarket, he wants to go look at something but he's holding your hand, when he can't let go he flops to the floor.  You pick him up, so he then flops over in your arm to make it harder to carry him.

And the one thing I do take issue with is certain supermarkets where they have staff signpost the best queues!  When there's a space they openly point people towards it!  One of the great skills of the English is to skim across a number of tills, identifying the best one to select.  It's like Deal or No Deal, do you go for till 4 with one person in front of you with a full till, or do you risk going to look at till 9, which looks as though the belt is half empty, but what if they're going to close?  Or what if there's something really slow packing at till 9 so you'll be left stood waiting, frustrated, while someone takes the place that rightfully should be yours at till 4?

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.  It's the way of the tills.

But some supermarkets try to fix this!

Not right.

Fridge!

The latest from my dad - today he discusses fridges.

-------

PARK RBSD PATROL – WEEK THREE.

I am somewhat aggrieved! We were driving away from the park last weekend having found nothing amiss all morning, only to espy two enemy miscreants bearing immense quantities of bird seed and hell bent on mischief entering said council controlled natural area of erm, nature.

Alas, it was too late to further our worthy cause that day and I fumed strongly and was fired up and impatient for our next patrol. Were such outrageous fortune not sufficient I am yet further distressed by receipt of an idiotic letter which demands I feel, a forthright reply.

TO {brand} FRIDGE/FREEZER REPAIR PROTECTION PLAN MERCHANTS.

Dear Sirs,

MY REFRIGERATION UNIT IS NOW 5 YEARS OLD??

MY **** SIRS!

My refrigeration unit gentlemen, is five weeks old!

You didn’t honestly think that a modern fridge would last five years did you? (my left leg has bells on it as well!)

And am I aware of the benefits of having a Repair Protection Plan you wonder?

Indeed, I most certainly am aware, which is precisely why my new refrigeration unit already has a five year Repair Protection Plan! (it’s just not your five year Repair Protection Plan!)

So why all the nonsense that you sent me through the post, hmm?

Allegedly you were ‘worried’ that I might not have cover against breakdown?

And how upset I might be if I suffered a breakdown?

Talk about wild horses gone a.w.o.l. and bolting stable doors as an after thought!

For your information (ie the vast data files you keep on countless millions of people, most of which is doubtless incorrect), the {brand} machine of yours that we did once own, gave up the ghost this last winter whilst we were away on holiday, and is now so much scrap metal. We had to wait over six weeks to get our preferred replacement, but who knows, maybe the wait will be worth it?

It is not a {brand}!

By the by, here’s how the real world works.

1) You buy a fridge/freezer.

2) It runs for a few years if you’re lucky.

3) It then breaks down and you think “Boy, that was one **** refrigeration unit!” (but aren’t they all these days!)

4) You intend never to buy that particular make of fridge/freezer again.

5) You buy a new one (a different brand, obviously!)

How you manage to make an item with almost no working parts and yet which is designed to break down after a couple of years use is beyond me. The refrigeration pump runs continually in an oil bath, and invariably still works even after the unit has been scrapped! So which bit of the unit is so skilfully designed to break down?

Excellent business strategy I admit!!

I did actually once have an ancient fridge which was made way back in the sixties or seventies and it worked reliably for fifteen years – and that’s after I had bought it second hand!

Ah (sigh!), those were the days when goods had some kind of merchantable value.

Yours faithfully etc

Legal note.

Please do not feel offended or take it that I consider {brand} machines to be anything less than wonderful – perish the thought! My wife has pointed out to me that you will doubtless sue me for £18,000,000,000 minimum should I express a personal opinion, preference, or indeed be anything less than utterly delighted with all {brand} products, past, present or future.

I retract it all, ‘twas nothing but a tissue of lies I say! Your refrigeration unit didn’t break down at all. No Sir, it was in perfect working order – it just didn’t seem to keep food cold anymore, but what with global warming, what is one to expect? Indeed now I think back a little I’m quite certain that I was most delighted when we got back home from our holidays to find that your machine wasn’t working! was working perfectly and all of our food inedible!

(I blame international terrorists – it couldn’t possibly be your fault!)

I’m quite certain that where it comes to making refrigeration units – ALL manufacturers of refrigeration units are equally um, Brilliant! (only yours are better, of course!)