Let the chaos begin.

So, we romped home at the quiz the other night. First prize resulting in a fiver each which was nice. They weren't doing food like they normally do at half time (chips etc) but said we could go and get some take-away food and eat it there so we ended up with our table heaped in pizza, chips and kebabs.
Some good questions on history, geography and general knowledge which we did well on and then onto the pictures round - "Who are these Brit Awards nominee's ?"
Bollocks.
Who the hell is Professor Greene ? I did get Adele though. Luckily, the rest of the team were of far more use than myself and so we left those who came in second and third place a long way behind.
Mind you, how many of you would know what the night of April the 30th is ?.....
Apparently it is 'Walpurgis Night'.
No, me neither.

One minute I can't find staff, the next I am swamped with them. I have had four people contact me in the last two days looking for work and two of them look promising.
One of the lads who wants to work for me is local so that's a big help.
On the other hand, a colleague of mine has just got rid of two of his guys who had been with him a while as they were constantly taking the piss with being late, not doing what they were asked etc. Both have had a couple of warnings but didn't take the slightest bit of notice. I told him months ago to get shot of them but he kept giving them the benefit of the doubt. You can't help some people.

Next week sees a lot more kit rolling out on a variety of work, mainly drainage, ditching and some groundworks. The weather has been great in the last week so hope it stays like that for a while as it has enabled us to get on with several jobs and get them out of the way.
The pipelayer goes back on the Fastrac next week also ready for the off so might need a couple of new wearing parts before we start and at the same time I will bung some new metal on the Dowdeswell while we are at it.
Have been offered some ploughing in the autumn for the Magnum but it's only for one season with the possibility of a second. As tempting as it is, time you factor in another plough, metal, diesel and labour, it just doesn't add up. Mind you, some silly bugger will go and do the job for next to nothing.
I've always said that it's not the jobs you do where you make money, it's knowing the ones to walk away from.

So next week hopefully will hear the sound of clattering tracks, whining hydraulic pumps and steel on stone and soil.
Mind you, its more likely to be the sound of shear-bolts breaking, me groaning and drivers whining.
Bring it on...


George Stephenson invented the Toffee Crisp.

Your starter for ten...

Fingers crossed I may have sorted most of my staff shortage problems as a colleague of mine has unfortunately lost a contract to someone who undercut him but he doesn't want to lose his blokes so hopefully they will come and work on my jobs for the next few months. I still need a couple of lads here but its a big weight off my mind.
I had a guy who was rang me asking if I had any work so I told him I did and asked if he wanted to come with us for a day to see whats what and if everyone gets on but he said he wasn't going to come along unless he was definitely getting the job....
He answered his own question.

Last night saw me losing heavily at the races, well, it was a race night done with those DVD's and everyone puts in £20 and then gets betting money to play with. Most of the horses I backed either fell at the first fence or were still running when the next race came on. Good fun though.
I then got persuaded to try some Polish Vodka. I swear an hour later I had gone blind. I have never tried anything like that before - I've run some engines on similar stuff but never drank any of it.
This morning saw me looking at a couple of horses, neither of which were as they were described in the advert or on the phone. One didn't want to jump unless thrashed and the other was so worn out that he could hardly jump. That tells me he had been ridden and schooled to wear him out before we got there...

Tonight is quiz night.
Myself and some of the lads are going to attempt to win the local quiz which we are fairly good at doing or at least coming in the top three. Granted, the other teams are mainly all students and too pissed to think, let alone write down a correct answer but its their loss.
A lot of the questions are from the 60's, 70's and 80's which are rather difficult for the students but bread and butter for us older ones. Having said that, I do tend to come unstuck when the question is about Jay-Z or the Brit Awards...
Still, it's all about the taking part and if we don't win we'll just bottle them.



Christopher Columbus founded RyanAir.

Long arm of the law

A new week, same old problems.
I had a fairly good weekend in one way and another but Monday dawned and it was back to reality - that of a staff shortage. I have spoken to my main guy and he is happy to run some of the pipelaying and drainage jobs for me which is a great help as I know he is more than capable of running stuff with little fuss or bother. My construction guy has one job to finish off and then he can move onto the next project.
My two labourers are busy installing some gates in Leicestershire but reckon the ground although wet on top from the earlier snow, is as dry as Ghandi's flip-flops a few inches down.

We start a load of drainage next week followed by some groundworks then back on to drainage then some ditching. I now have a team full time in the Midlands/Northants as seems to have been a sudden run on pricing menages and horse arena's which is good as you can get on fairly well doing them and I did a lot back when I was based down south. Better to have too much work than too little. Looks like I'll have to see how much my shares are worth in British Asbestos Ltd and DDT Agri-Chem Co...

Another job I'll have to do this week is go to the bottle bank. Mind you, it might have to be under the cover of darkness as it could be a trifle embarrassing as it looks like I've had a 'Port-A-Thon'.
Have found that the best cheese to have with a nice glass of port is 'Cote Hill Blue'.
It's a great cheese and has wonderful texture and flavour.
http://cotehill.com/

I got stopped the other night on my way home by the boys in blue who said they were just checking as there had been a lot of Land Rovers stolen recently. They then asked if the dawgs in the truck were friendly to which I replied, "I have no idea - they were in it when I nicked it".
Not even a smile....

Danny DeVito invented Vimto

Only Fools and Horses

Not a bad week really, finished off a couple of jobs and picked a nice chunk of work up. The downside of this (well, it's not really a downside, just a pain) is that I am now desperate for a couple more decent guys. I think I am going to have to split my two best blokes and put one on civils and construction and one running the earth-moving side. I'll have to cover the ag work and run the rest with a broom up my arse to sweep up as I go along. One of the lads I had last year who I shared with a local estate has now gone and got himself a full-time job and is doing really well. Good luck to him, he's a cracking worker and should do them proud. Still, it doesn't help me at all. I might have snaffled a lad who did a bit for me a year or so ago and is bored working where he is now. He's a decent operator so might fit the bill.
However, that still leaves me a couple of labourers short really but no doubt something will turn up.

Had a chap ask me to come and quote for cleaning out his pond for him last week so went and had a look. A fairly straight forward job but the far side would be a bit tricky due to it being fairly wet and would more than likely need either the long reach on bog tracks or at least a set of mats. The upshot was that he wanted me to give him a written quote with a full breakdown and method statement of how I intended to do the job. I told him what an approx day rate would be and he then told me that it was a lot more expensive than if he hired a machine in himself..... Right, I can see where this is going....
He'd obviously got a price or two to hire a machine and do the job himself but wanted me to explain exactly how to do it so he could then do it all himself and save a few quid.
I told him that I couldn't write down the method I would use as I made it up as I went along. The look on his face was priceless, especially when I told him he was far better to do it himself as he had intended to do all along. He looked very embarrassed and admitted that it was an option he was considering.
I then told him to keep my number as I had a winch and could pull him out when he lost the lot over on the far side....
If he had been straight from the start and told me what he intended to do but could I advise him, I'd have been happy to help him, in fact I would have popped in when he was doing it to see how it was going as I have done for others in the past.
They say the Lord loves a trier - well, this f*cker doesn't.

I've got a couple of horses to go and look at next week and a friend from Hertfordshire is coming along to cast an expert eye over them. Should be a nice day out and might find a half decent hoss at the end of it. The problem is that with work being busy I am going to have to probably employ someone to look after it and exercise it when I'm not around. Part of me thinks it defeats the object a bit but then at least it will be there when I want it and someone else gets the use of a horse and a wage.
Mind you, with the way the price of diesel keeps rising, I might be riding the hoss around from job to job, in fact, if I pulled a little cart around also I could collect any old rags and scrap as I went about.
No use fighting it, it's just a matter of time...


Telly Sevalas invented plasma TV's.

What's on ITV ?

Well it would seem the secret is out and no longer am I just talking to my dawg, others have found this quiet little corner where I come for a Mud-out and a ponder. Ah well, become a follower and get regular updates as to what it's like to live with a Land Rover product, run a variety of old shyte and lumber and to try and stay one step ahead of the game when you're not even sure what the game is, let alone the rules.

So, this week so far... hunting was cancelled due to the weather which was a shame. Still looking for a decent hoss. The snow is starting to disappear but behind it is leaving a slimey mess.The diggers and kit are all rolling back out onto various jobs across the country and we have work on in the East Midlands, East Anglia and the South. The economy may be slow, our national credit rating on the verge of being downgraded but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Construction is raising its weary head and things are starting to look up. As for Agriculture, who knows, time will tell. The problem always seems to be when the average guy on the street does okay, farming is in a low and visa-versa.
The Case is in the shed, the Fastrac on the drive and the JD in the yard. I'll be glad when they're out and about with the other plant. The Komatsu dozer needs a new set of chains and bottom rollers and that's not going to be a five minute job so might get someone in to do it. May as well stick some new drive sprocket segments on at the same time.
Got a bill in for the last low-loader move for the dozer and it came to over £400. Everytime I get a bill for a move, everytime I think about getting another low-loader and tractor unit but the cost of having one standing by most of the while isn't worth it and I keep concluding it's better to pay someone who will come and move us at the drop of a hat almost rather than have the hassle of another waggon on the road. Having said that, a double-drive bonetted Scania and 4 axle Goldhofer trailer would be nice.
Then again so would be a Danish lap-dancer bathing in Wherry with a bra made from Egg Pies but the reality is that it's just not practical.
The Egg Pies would just get soggy...

Just had to get a TV licence which was nearly £150 - for what ? 50+ channels of utter shyte, most of which don't even belong to the BBC. "It's due to the unique way that the BBC is funded".
You're telling me.
If some Arse Goblin came up to you and said "I know you don't use public transport but we'd like you to subsidise all those that do" You'd tell them to piss off, well I feel the same about the BBC.
It has absolutely nothing of any worth to offer, well, except that program the other Sunday, Bomber Boys and Family guy on BBC3 and then American dad but apart from that its crap.
And the news and weather, and the David Attenborough stuff and the local news and radio.
But apart from that its tripe.
Anyway, the Bongo and Grot are all on independent channels and that's why I don't like paying the licence fee.
And Antiques Roadshow.... forgot that but apart from that its all old bollox.
And Live at the Apollo.

Elton John invented Brillo Pads.

Coming out

The snow is still hanging around but I doubt we'll see anymore. There wasn't a great deal of it but the wind got up and it drifted. The roads were fairly bad the following morning.
The lads have cracked on this week with the boat shed and mighty fine its looking too. The customer wanted it to look rustic and traditional so we have had timber sawn especially for it.
Having said that, it's took some getting hold of. First week it was meant to have been sawn, oh, sorry, only three-quarters has been done. The following Monday only half has been done..??!
Then its ready to be delivered - when ? "This afternoon or first thing tomorrow" (Friday)
Where is it ? "Nah, can't get to you until at least Wednesday or Thursday next week"....
I tell you what, I'll come and fetch the bastard myself, shall I ?
Why the hell can't people just be straight and tell you what is going on so you can organize around it ?

Well I have to admit that the deal has been done - I have bought a Case. I have had other Case products in the past and got on well with them so lets hope this will be no different. I've bought a Magnum 310, low hours, ex-hire. Managed to do a deal and sold my old Volvo loading shovel in the bargain. It is to be delivered down south where the shovel is and it will spend the next 5 months sat in a barn... I know, I know but I needed to do the deal before April. In truth, it's maybe a bit too big for what I need but it came down to price, power and value plus future potential on other projects.
Hopefully I wont have to see it again until next year and all I will have to do is send the invoices. All being well it should do it's harvest/autumn work and then go on to another little project we have in the wings...
Now all I need to do is find a nice 71 or 72 series Magnum for this neck of the woods to go on the pipe-layer. Having said that, an old 8000 series JD would do.
I was offered a tidy Ford 8730 a week ago but the days of being cooked at the front and back as I sat in a little bubble of tepid air-conditioning are long gone - Been there, done that, got the sweaty, dust covered T-shirt.

I still have my Defender at the moment until the end of the week apparently. You know, I'm going to miss her when she's gone. It's been a good truck really and the best Defender I think I have had (and I have had a few) lets hope the Discovery will be as good or even better (I would like to think it will be better, yes, far better, faster, more comfortable etc)

Hellif I haven't gone through some wood on the old wood-burner of late. I get in and rev it right up and it's fantastic. The other night I thought the top of it must get really hot so I decided to get a can of beans, open them and sit them on top of the wood-burner until they cooked and then I would do some toast and have beans on toast - lovely !
After half an hour I thought F*ck this, shoved the luke warm beans in the micro-wave and did the toast.
What on earth was I thinking ? I'll be putting my washing through a mangle next...

The poor old dawg seems to have got the squits. He keeps going outside, half running, half squatting and then showering the contents of his knotter like an exploding pheasant.
I might try the Mini-Cheddar's method on him to try and dry him up a bit. It certainly works for me and at one stage saw me pass a gretol' tud which was the size and density of a Hesston bale.

What was I saying about snow ? Just had another dollop.
What a pisser.



Simon and Garfunkel invented the rotary washing line.

Bomber Boys

Last night I sat and watched Bomber Boys on BBC1 starring Colin and Ewan McGregor.
It was a very well put together program and showed the courage of those crews back then and on the whole was very balanced and well presented.
A fair bit was spoken about Dresden and as always, 70 years on, researchers are still taking the view that Dresden was unnecessary. Of course it was unnecessary, all war is but not at the time and there are a few factors which many at the time were unaware of and many are not aware of still.
The argument is that 'the war in Europe was already won' yet right up until March 27th 1945, German V2 rockets were still killing people in England as well as Holland and Belgium. In total 1358 V2's alone fell on London, some 44 on Norwich and Ipswich (there is a V2 crater on one of our neighbouring fields at home) and this was continuing nearly two months after Dresden.
The Germans had only just been defeated in the Ardennes forest, known as 'The Battle of the Bulge' in which the Americans saw the largest single capture of American troops in their military history.
In March, the Allies were still trying to cross the river Rhine at Remagen and V2's were still killing people back in England.

Dresden had a vital railway junction and this was used to move German troops and artillery to attack the Allies advancing in the west and the Russians in the east.
The raid itself was due to be led by the Americans with a daylight raid, being followed by the RAF at night, however, bad weather postponed the USAAF raid and so the British went in first that night.
Dresden was an historic town and had many wooden framed buildings and this is what the firestorm got hold of. The next day, the Americans bombed Dresden as they had been scheduled to do 24 hrs earlier.
How would history have been written if the USAAF had bombed first as planned ? Would Harris still have become the scape-goat of the liberal idealists ?

In March 1945, Joseph Goebbels said to Hitler that Dresden was too good an opportunity to miss. He ordered his Reich Press Authority to publish the death toll in Dresden of some 20,000 people but to add another '0'....
The next day, it was publicised that 200,000 people had died in the raid on Dresden.
A Labour politician in the house of commons, Richard Stokes, a fierce opponent to area bombing, quoted the figures from the German Press Agency to the members of the house and the rest, as they say, is history.

Any death in a war is a regrettable action but as we sit here now, some 70 years later, we do so in freedom and relative peace. This freedom and peace came at a terrible cost and sometimes you have to try and imagine what it was like back then, not now in the comfort of your homes.
Back then, families were being blown apart as V2's landed in civilian streets with no pre-warning, no air raid sirens, the first thing you knew was a massive, ground shaking explosion if you were at a safe distance, followed by the sound of a rocket (they came in faster than the speed of sound), if you were in the impact area, you knew nothing.
Families were still receiving letters to say that their husbands, fathers and brothers were being killed as they fought in Europe and the far east. Try standing there back then and telling these people that the war was 'nearly over'. Tell the thousands of Allied troops who had just been in battle and shot and blown to bits as the German 6th Army and SS Panzer divisions swept through the Ardennes that the war was 'nearly over'.

Germany, although facing defeat, was still making and producing weapons that the world could never imagine at places such as Peenemunde and these only became apparent after the Allied victory. The Germans had designed and started to build a battle tank (the chassis, hull and running gear had been made) that when the allies captured the factory in May, they found the plans to complete the tank and the technology used was only superseded by the British and Americans in the late 1950's !
The earlier raids on Hamburg had killed over 45,000 civilians, over double that of Dresden but Joseph Goebbels compiled maybe his finest work of fiction when he increased the death toll at Dresden ten-fold. It took one anti-bombing Labour MP using German propaganda to suit his agenda and the writings of the Reich propaganda machine were taken as gospel. So called 'respected' historians have continued to use these vastly exaggerated figures in their writings and publications as without them, Dresden was in the greater scheme of things, just another raid.

For Churchill to distance himself from the raid that he sanctioned was unforgivable. The way that the aircrews of Bomber Command were shunned after the war was disgusting.
Bomber Command took the fight to the Germans, they ensured that the Germans tied up troops on anti-aircraft defences, they smashed the U-boat pens, saving thousands of lives in the Atlantic, they broke the back of German Industry which ensured that aircraft, tanks, weapons and munitions would and could not kill allied personnel. They stopped the German counter-attack after D-Day and allowed the Allies to get a foot-hold in Europe. They knocked the very heart out of the wave of mindless mentality and ambition that swept over the German nation in the guise of the Nazi Party.
Bomber Command fought night after night for nearly five years to ensure final victory and freedom.
These men and women of Bomber Command earned and deserve our respect. You can sit and argue from the comfort of your homes about the rights and wrongs of war and the bombing of cities and civilian casualties. You can convince yourself from your own peaceful part of suburbia that the war in February 1945 was all but won and over, you can also believe and use the figures of an appointed liar and book-burning Nazi if it helps your cause but never, never forget that you have the freedom to believe and say what you wish because over 55,000 aircrew from Bomber Command died fighting for your freedom.

Magnum Force

Another morning and another dusting of snow, lets hope that's all it comes to.
Went and had a look at a Magnum 310 yesterday. It was a 200 houred ex-hire machine, very tidy, lots of extras and has only been used to pull a set of discs. The cab is a nice, roomy affair and the forward vision is good for the size of machine. It has a lovely sound to it also which, as we all know, is everything...
Just have to sit down now and work out the difference between that and a brand new one as far as the warranty and initial cost goes.
At least I'll be able to go and pull Warwickshire's premier farmer and U-Boat Captain, sorry, ploughing contractor out when he decides to head for deeper water.

I've just had to spend the majority of the morning going through a tender document in order to quote for some work which has gained European Funding. This means that all your method statements for the project are published publicly on the net, meaning that your competitors can therefore see your proposals and try and undercut you. True, in theory this should mean that we can do the same but the reality is that everyone just digs in to second-guess and undercut their competitors and the job becomes financially unviable. So far, the three similar projects carried out using this method have ended in the contractor having to pull out due to losing money and then having to wait until further funding is approved but they cannot receive any money or part-payment until the project is completed.
I have therefore decided to use the document to my advantage and light the woodburner with it.
I've never bought work and I'm not about to start now.

I'm meant to be attending a bit of a bash tomorrow night but I'm considering staying in. The trouble is that a couple of us made a bet a few weeks ago with the giggly, tippsy crowd that we would be able to drink them under the table on Port. The trouble is that although I have no doubt I can in fact do this, I reckon it's going to be a big old table and will take a fair bit of Port before they finally give in. I would probably be okay if they only played fair.
This is going to get messy...


A discarded cling-film tube strapped to a roller skate makes an excellent car for a snake.

Best laid plans

It's nice to see that I have some followers who read this crap. At this rate, we're going to get underground cult-status. At least this way when you feel you are having a bad day, you can read my ramblings and realise things could be worse.
Take this morning for example - I got up, fed the dogs, had a mud-out, had some breakfast, got ready to go shooting and got a phone call. It was the company who were meant to be delivering a load of pre-cast panels tomorrow but decided to send them today instead...
So, that knackered my days shooting while I had to go and unload the panels and get them on to a trailer ready to transport to the far end of the site next week. Okay, it's good that the panels are here but why on earth they couldn't carry out delivery tomorrow like we arranged I don't know. The result is that today I have a very disappointed dawg who was looking forward to going out to scare some pheasants and get very snarly in the process. Now he's just laying there looking all sad.
On the other hand, the lorry load of timber which I was promised yesterday has yet to appear. It was meant to have been sawn, treated and delivered first thing Tuesday but didn't materialise.
I suppose they're waiting for the leaves to fall off.

Hopefully I should be going to look at a couple of tractors later this week. It's never as straight forward as you would hope and although price plays a big part, dealer back-up and warranty are crucial. I can see a lot of sitting down and scribbling going on to work out what is the best deal overall.
I wonder if I'll get a free pair of overalls and a nice hat ?
Who mentioned arseless chaps ?....

You do have to wonder sometimes why you bother going out to work. Yesterday, I had a phone call from one of the guys doing a fencing job. The final invoice was due to be paid yesterday for some fencing which we did at a property some city types have just bought. My chap called me up to say the customer wanted some money off the invoice because (this is a classic) "We took 2 days longer than we said we would to complete the work"
This is a first class example of clutching at straws to get a reduction in cost.
Now, the reason for this is that the customer asked us to divide the field into 4 paddocks, not the 3 we originally quoted to do. This was not a problem and he was happy to pay for the extra material but obviously this took us another couple of days to do what with the extra fencing plus two extra gates etc.
I told my guy to thank the customer for reminding me that we spent an extra two days there as I had only charged for material (I hadn't but he didn't realise this) and said that we would therefore need to charge for the two extra days. I got a call straight back form my guy saying the customer wouldn't pay anymore than what was on the invoice.
I said that I was happy with this.
Of course I was - he's just convinced himself to pay the original f*cking invoice I sent him !
People are strange.

Salman Rushdie invented the Toblerone.