Lycraphobia

There's no doubt about it, cycling is a healthy sport, good for non impact muscle development and cardiovascular stimulation. However it seems some people do not wish to cycle as they do not want to appear weird...
Telegraph.

The fear or seeming “weird” is putting people off cycling to work, an academic study has found.

A three year research project has discovered that not fitting in, alongside “squashed helmet hair” and turning up “hot and sweaty” for meetings are the biggest deterrents for using a bike to commute.
Successive Governments have invested £150 million to promote cycling as an environmentally friendly way of travelling.
But there appears to be a long way to go before the public is convinced, according to the study funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
“I get called the bag lady, because I walk everywhere and I have quite a lot of stuff with me,” said Steph, a respondent from Leeds.
Lara, also from Leeds, complained: The helmet is a problem for me, because I just think it would make my hair a little squashed.” 

Meanwhile Joe from Leicester added: “I probably would cycle if I didn’t worry so much about image and public opinion – me arriving at a meeting hot and sweaty.”
Sally from Worcester observed: “You do get a sense of some people thinking oh, you’re a bit weird because you’re going up on the bike you know. A bit odd.”

And these are all valid points save perhaps for the turning up on a bike being weird. We have a number of guys here cycle to work, oddly enough though none of them are office staff, I rather suspect turning up to work in the office sweating buckets is somehow frowned upon, though there are shower facilities available, but then you have all the extra gear to carry and it just seems like you're doing your morning ablutions all over again. And helmet head is definitely not something a fashion conscious lady really wants to contemplate either.
So essentially the government is wasting £150 million of our money trying to get people to do what they just don't see the point of, cycling for pleasure, yes, cycling to work with a full shift ahead of you? No.
I can't see this changing a great deal in the future either, cars are just too handy if you want to turn up smart.

 

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Checks and balances

Before governments became so obsessed by what we think and do and all the unnecessary checks that the busybodies put into the systemwhen women who'd had a baby wanted to go back into the jobs market they could usually find a minder, often enough a family member, but occasionally a neighbour, essentially someone they trusted. Sometimes it cost them a few quid, but the whole point of doing it was so that yes they could work, but yes at the end of the day they had something to show for working. Even the registered childminders for all they weren't cheap, were still affordable, at least until health and safety regulations, followed by the now mandatory CRB checks came into force. The end result has of course been inevitable...
Express.

THE soaring cost of childcare forced 32,000 working mothers to quit their jobs in the past year, a study revealed yesterday.

Women working part-time and earning on average £8,557 are £98 worse off at the end of the month if they have to pay nursery charges.

Research by insurers Aviva found that 32,000 mothers left work to look after their children while their husbands become the sole earners.

The study also found that those in full-time work, earning an average of £17,513, have just £120 left over after paying for childcare, which can cost around £385 per month.

For children under two this soars to £729 a month.

Yep, if you can't find family or friends, you're buggered as the price you pay now goes way above what you earn if you're in the low paid sector/minimum wage area of the market. It means even if you want to work you're better off on benefits looking after your kids. Of course if you work you lose other housing and income support benefits too such is the system that has been foisted upon us.
The governments insistence on Criminal Record Bureau checks on anyone who comes into contact with kids has pushed the costs up as this cost is now factored into any payments working mums shell out, plus if you have a high turnover of staff, each new member needs a check, whether they were approved at their old place of work or not.

What the end result of this will be I do not know, it may be that more stay at home mums means better educated and behaved kids, it might even lead to the regeneration of our society back into a self help one. I doubt that was the original intention of the government though, it was all purely another attempt to dip their hands into our pockets. But as ever in these things, they've pushed it too far and some unintended circumstances has kicked in. They're losing workers in the jobs market, but kids are seeing more of their mums.
Might be a light at the end of the tunnel after all, only time will tell.

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The joy of engineering

As I sit here tonight I ache all over as I've had the day from hell in so far as my normal occupation goes. I've spent the majority of a 12 hour shift sitting on top of a 100 foot crane trying to replace the rope pulley after the bearings had collapsed in it. It's normally a 3 man job, there were only 2 of us and the design leaves a lot to be desired with the pulley being held in a blind socket through a welded frame. Getting it out required that the pin be drilled and tapped so battery drills it is, flat battery drills at that, charger being 100 foot below in the workshop and not a quick charger either, still we managed though it was not as deep a hole as I'd normally like, by that time we were going for it.
So we extracted the pin, quite easily, only to discover there were two spacers front and back, not only front and back but 100 foot below us on the floor too.
A not so quick trip to the ground to get the replacement bearings, a new pin, new spacers (God knows where the others landed) and back up the crane to fit them, this was supposed to be the easy bit, but would the pin go back in the damned socket? No, it bloody wouldn't! At first we thought it was the spacers dropping a tad, but no, industrial strength sellotape held them in place, hitting the damned pin with a large copper mallet didn't help either, it was only by running a fingertip along the socket that we discovered a ridge had built up. Normally you'd use a small grinding wheel to remove these. No power. I just spent 2 hours with a needle file removing this ridge. The pin the went home thank God! And the next shift said they'd tidy up and put the ropes back on the drums.

I managed 1 cup of lukewarm coffee and 2 ham sandwiches in 12 hours. To top it all off I think I'm getting a case of piles from sitting/standing around on cold metal.

I love my job, just not today.

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