Wot, no TPD?

[NickFitz]

Up to July this year there were 824 pub closures according to the LDC.

With a possible move from the government under pressure from the British medical council we will see increased tax levies on alcohol which will sound the death knell for even more businesses.

That's one of the things that's really hacking people off about this. All over the place pubs are shutting down (or being revamped as vertical drinking bars) because they are no longer viable businesses.

This however is a thriving pub and a successful business providing employment to ten people, and it's being shut down because DMU got bored with being an educational institution and wants to play at being a property developer instead

[NickFitz]

It's a wonderful pub. You can go in there in a crowd or on your own.
They used to do free soup and bread on a Sunday, so you could go for a light lunch and a pint. My friend and I used to do the pub quiz and we won a couple of times - 12 pints and a box of crisps <hic>. And you could take your dogs/rats/parrots/whatever with you.

These are sad times indeed. Give it a good send off NF.

A very pissed off Zip.

It was good stuff that soup - the owners also own a couple of rather posh restaurants, and it was made by the chefs at one of them

Was that when Keith and Gav set the quiz? Our team won it every week for over three months at one point

[Zippy]

I
Was that when Keith and Gav set the quiz? Our team won it every week for over three months at one point

You may have won loads. Then we came along - with a cute dog
I remember the muttering the first week we won (it was the first time we'd done it)
Can't remember who set the quiz but those names do seem familiar.

[NickFitz]

Well, that was a heck of a final Saturday night down the P&T

Of course there were lots of those types who haven't been there in fifteen years, and now turn up to say very loudly what a shame it all is and how much they'll miss the place

Still, there were lots of good people who had good reasons for not having been there in ages but made the time, and in many cases the journey - some people had travelled quite a distance, staying in hotels for the sake of being there

Oi, Zippy: was Cody still manager when you were going there? He showed up, despite his abiding resentment of the owners.

Many years ago J&A found an excuse to sack me so they could put him in my place. Then a few months later they found an excuse to sack Colin (my manager) and put Cody in charge because they knew they could control him easily. But none of that was his fault, and he's a good chap; and he was eventually fscked over in his turn (hence the abiding resentment). He works as a developer for one of the big anti-virus companies now

I don't think anybody's ever left on good terms with J&A. Still, that was all a long time ago, and as I said to Keith recently: "You can't beat harbouring a deep-seated resentment over something that doesn't matter any more if you want a short and curmudgeonly life."

The friend who sold the Super Monkey Car to me was there too - that's Gav, who used to be the quizmaster along with Keith (who was also there, although that's not quite so unexpected). Gav and his wife Helen don't make it out much now, having twin girls; but they were there tonight, and he was pleased to hear that the car had just got through its MoT and was now at over 172,727 miles (it was on 103,408 when he sold it to me)

So now there's tomorrow night, I'm away on Monday, and Tuesday is Death Row for the pub

[Zippy]

I remember Cody - a really nice guy

Sorry I can't be there for the wake.

[NickFitz]

Evening denizens

How come TPD hasn't been re-instated yet?

Anyway, had a good chat with John the landlord again tonight (this is, of course, in the away pub, not the home pub).

We started off with him wanting to know how to calculate how much the heating lamps in the beer garden were costing him. After I'd explained the relationship between W, kW, kWh, and so forth (musicians, eh? ) he eventually established that it wasn't too much.

Apparently some pubs are taking advantage of the smoking ban by putting pay meters on such lamps - 50p for seven minutes

By his calculations, they cost him less than twenty pence an hour to run, so such places are perpetrating a blatant rip-off

Then we got on to chatting about assorted people - it turns out Roger McGough and Adrian Henri (who is of course now sadly deceased) are/were old friends of his, so we were able to swap a few stories about them - well, a few on his part, one on mine

Last night of the home pub tomorrow - don't worry Zip, we'll give it a good send-off. Shame you can't be there though

[Zippy]

Really, really wishing I could be there. Sorry Nick

You made some progress on TPD? Did you implement those config tweaks?
I haven't noticed any problems over the last few days but did for a day or two after the thread was locked.

[NickFitz]

Really, really wishing I could be there. Sorry Nick

You made some progress on TPD? Did you implement those config tweaks?
I haven't noticed any problems over the last few days but did for a day or two after the thread was locked.

Hi Zip

Don't worry - we'll see it off in style for you

I haven't had much time for dealing with the vBulletin database stuff, what with the conference and the pub and ClientOrg

I need to set up some servers so I can test things properly - it's no good suggesting bits and bobs, I need to be able to state with certainty that something will effect a material improvement, and I can't do any of that at ClientOrg (where the security policy, if strictly interpreted, would ban me from using my phone other than for phone calls, never mind using either their or my own kit for SSHing to a bunch of servers over the pond). I'm on the case when I can be though

Anyway, goodnight denizens - try not to let that picture of the foul witch that some inconsiderate git linked to give you nightmares

[administrator]

Don't fret Nick, have ordered a memory upgrade for the server. Should be sorted in the next week and from previous experience this will make a heck of a difference.

[Zippy]

Don't fret Nick, have ordered a memory upgrade for the server. Should be sorted in the next week and from previous experience this will make a heck of a difference.

It might fix in the short term, but it is still worth persisting with for the longer term. AtW is going to be gutted if he doesn't get the 300k post in TPD
Good news on the memory though - databases luuurrve memory