Same as white van men – if they are company cars it’s the mentality of the driver regardless of badge.

What crap Charlie.
I drove a company car for over twenty years.
In fact at one point I owned a company which had on it’s books a number of vans and cars–including two very expensive ones for me and my business partner.
In that time, I can say I never got a ticket, my business partner boasted of a clean license and apart from twice, I think all our operatives stayed pretty clean.
I can tell you this, if you ever had to pay the premiums on a company vehicle insurance policy, a)you’d have sleepless nights , and b) you’d soon wake up to the fact that your staff had better be pretty careful on the roads.

Most firms these days have a £250.00 excess deductable straight from wages on all company vehicle drivers in the event of damage, and one firm I know of passes the whole cost of liability on to the driver–it’s in the contract of employment. I know this because I worked for them. Makes one very careful indeed.

Rob,
Brilliant thread and thanks.
I shall be up at the woods in September.
As someone who was also once there said….

“Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz–
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench–
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?”

As ever Kev, top line interruption.

Keep up the good work.

Andy.

Our government as with everything else have no grip on these situations.

Yes but they do, it’s in their interest to have a constant supply of new cheap labour.
It keeps wages low, and the rest of us divided.
Paul and his chums would send them home. So would I, then put a load of politicians up against a wall and shoot them.

I might be inclined to go with them actually, as I imagine the weather in Bucharest is nice and warm at this time of year.
Cheap food, cheap booze, nice country (at least as good as this sh*t-hole–that’s a comment just for you Paul) and a warm climate.

That’s reserved for use by modern-day haters of the police.

Yes but Edgar, I find reference to them and the shortcomings of the said organisation makes for ‘interesting’ breakfast table ‘discussions’…..

Park Royal, Stonebridge Park, Hendon, East Finchley, Muswell Hill, Totenham, Edmonton, Ponders End…….
I thought North London always looked like that.
I worked in it long enough and they’re welcome to it.

Andy my Father in Law was a D Day Dodger. He was in Italy and fought all through from the landing and being pinned down at Anzio. From what I know of that D Day would have been a stroll in the park!

For those not familiar with this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Shingle

Remembering Sgt W R Hunt Sherwood Foresters 1916-1999.

Paul.
Dad went ashore at Agusta in Sicily on the first day of the invasion, then after Sicily, across the Strait of Messina on a DUKW and on into Italy proper. Wounded near Foggia, he was evacuated to Durban, South Africa and then back to Italy. When he got back, his CO asked him if he had a nice holiday..!
He ended the war in the Po valley where everyone got Malaria (he still had bouts years later). After that a spell in Austria and while some sort of peace conference went on, a trip to Switzerland–which he liked very much.
Then back to the Middle East, where he spent the next couple of years–putting down riots by both Jews and Arabs.
HQ was the St Davids Hotel which the Zionists eventually blew up, I think.
His recollection of all was that the Jews were very adept at dropping a Mills grenade out of an upstairs window into your open vehicle as you drove past in the narrow streets–very nasty.
Previous to all the above, he spent six weeks at the end of the North African campaign–helping to clear up–as he put it.
In that time, he liberated a Zeiss Contessa roll film camera from a member of Rommel’s mob who had just been welcomed into the care of his Majesty’s forces.
Apparently he was unhappy about the loss of his camera but he didn’t get a receipt.
The old man than carried that camera for the rest of the time–and long after–it recorded our family holidays for many years.
Thus, I have a record of all this on flim and the camera still sits on a shelf here.

Here you go.

My Father (now aged ninety) was mentioned in despatches for shooting Arabs (Kev knows the story)–actually Arabs only armed with sticks and stones.
I was born 15 years after the event. Therefore am I guilty of anything, other than my own crimes??–I think not.
Any more than a fifty year old Japanese man would be guilty of what his father may have done–or a German or any other nationality.
I can’t see how anyone can be held responsible for acts carried out in a governments name before they born.
As to the Japanese, the Mau Mau and those Arabs in Cairo, it was all long ago, and perhaps we have learned a bit of something along the way.
The old man is pretty unrepentant about it though.
Andy

Very sad.
I did wonder all the way along if the Bomber Command Memorial would become a target for every f**kw*t with an aerosol.
Hopefully a stop can be put to this.
I was mightily impressed by the memorial when I visited recently and hope it stays safe.