Reply to: test please delete

[NickFitz]

Lunch has been leftover kleftiko and roast spuds from Friday. Made a very nice change from the usual lunchtime options

Interest just announced. £175 this month, that's £475 for the calendar year and £1100 for the tax year

Three prizes for me, though only £25 each. Still, £75 is better than nowt

That makes £125 for this year, £1350 for the tax year

[WTFH]

Interest just announced. £175 this month, that's £475 for the calendar year and £1100 for the tax year

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Sunny and dry with only a few wisps about. Currently 11 degrees with a high of 14 expected. Cloud cover set to increase but still likely to remain 'mostly sunny'. Barometer up to 1027 mBar.

Sunrise 06:42; Sunset 17:45 GMT

Arcadia at The Old Vic was excellent yesterday. Funny, well staged, quite thought provoking too. It's rare that I come out and instantly think I want to see that again. Sadly, the remainder of the run is sold out.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Tuesday?

Drily damp.

Grey.

Sunless.

Dreary.

NotSoChilly in here at 14.3 deg, 1 something.5 in the kitchen, 12 in the leanto.

1021 mBar, 30.15 in Hg, 765.8 Torr, 14.8 psi, (up from 1015 last night), 67% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 19th of March 2020 AndyGarbs, Brillo, BR14, LM, NF, and I popped in: not long now until Bunter does his trick of shaking hands in a covid ward. .

The Orange Moron has rash on his neck. Maybe it's a bullet fragment that bounced off his brain.

Walk (unabbreviated, towpath) walked in the grey gloom.

Lunch: brunch. Entertainment: someone waffling on about Fred Nietzsche, the noon o'clock news, Y&Y waffling on about AI.

[WTFH]

Morning all
Misty out, but dry and pleasantly warm.
Walk has been walked and Max wasn't limping as bad today as yesterday.

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

There’s a layer of high, thin cloud out, a bit thicker towards the north but with gaps towards the horizon in other directions which let the sun get through to varying degrees as it traverses the celestial sphere. The wind seems to have dropped as the current 7°C doesn’t “feel like” anything other than itself; the predicted high for the day is 10°. The barometers are racing upwards at 1014/1022mB

[NickFitz]

Tonight's reading was more of This Is How You Lose the Time War. It’s growing on me

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

Tea: southern not-fried chicken with fries and ketchup

Haven’t had that in a while, or not the Sainsbury’s version. Made a nice change

[NickFitz]

And now there’s an extremely bright full moon rising - well, risen - out there

Strictly speaking it isn’t quite full yet but the moment of fullness is just before lunchtime tomorrow, and 99.5% full seems good enough

[NickFitz]

Nice and sunny out, but a bit chilly I think

[NickFitz]

Another Monday done

I was singularly unproductive today; didn’t have any energy or focus. This was even before the stuff about the agency change came to my attention

I spent a bit of time this afternoon looking at the four umbrella companies on offer from the agency we’re being shifted to. As one would expect, each of them has an even split in search results between people saying they’re great, never had any problems, etc. and people saying they’re terrible, no end of problems, etc.

[ladymuck]

Gig1 has asked me to reduce my days to 2 a week (down from 3) as they're running out of budget on the programme I work on. Suits me just fine

[NickFitz]

Lunch: a sausage bap

Turned sunny out there now

At ClientGov, I found out earlier that they’re switching suppliers in a couple of months and my contract will be moved over to whoever the new lot is. Not sure what this means yet; I’ve saved myself the hassle of dealing with a brolly by being on payroll with the current lot, but I don’t know whether that will continue to be an option

One annoying thing is that contractors on the “bench contract” are deemed to be Outside IR35 - yet they all work for the same consultancy, in which they have performance reviews and improvement plans and all that malarkey, and can be moved around from one project to another or even to a different end client at the drop of a hat. I’ve never seen a clearer case of disguised employment, but because that’s with the consultancy and not with the department itself, they’re assessed as being outside.

Meanwhile, I accept things like not being paid for several months in the hiatus between one project and another, or while I was waiting for security clearance, yet I’m deemed to be Inside because they expect me to attend Teams meetings and so on - meetings which the bench contract people also attend!

[NickFitz]

Links are up

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Sunshine and wispy fluff. Currently 13 degrees with a high of 14 expected. Barometer at 1015 mbar.

Sunrise 06:44; Sunset 17:43 GMT

Busy morning with back to back meetings across gigs 1 and 3.

HWMBO goes home today.

Off to the theatre this evening.