Absolutely Anything Else

I saw that he was ailing just a couple of days ago. He had a life full of fun -- or whatever he wanted -- no doubt.

Vicces1 wrote:

I saw that he was ailing just a couple of days ago. He had a life full of fun -- or whatever he wanted -- no doubt.

Yes, indeed, he had throat cancer some years back.  I think he was ill for some time. In many pictures I've seen he was smoking. Might have been a contributing factor. 

I am not sure how good a drummer he was but he sure had a long career. 

And surprisingly seemed less wrinkled than Ronnie Wood or Mick Jagger.

Not that I want to be a wrinkle fascist.  I've got plenty of my own.

I'm a huge Rolling Stones fan.
Very sad day...
My sisters went to their first Ca. show in San Bernadino . Tickets were only $2.50
My first time seeing them live was in 1972 I believe. I was 16 and went to the concert in S.Ca. at the Forum with my BFF and her older brothers friends.
Ike and Tina opened for them, they too were fantastic.
Tickets were $7.50, mom thought she had spent too much on them , I was hepling around the house double time to let her know how much it meant to me.
Last time I saw them was here in Budapest.
Yes, it's sad to think back on those memories, the Stones were always playing in the background of my life.

fluffy2560 wrote:

I see Charlie Watts has checked out for the final time.

Sad,sad, sad, he, Faded Away for The Last Time.
It's all over FB now.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

I see Charlie Watts has checked out for the final time.

Sad,sad, sad, he, Faded Away for The Last Time.
It's all over FB now.

Charlie Watts probably was thinking "Time is (not) on my side".

RIP Charlie Watts.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

I'm a huge Rolling Stones fan.
Very sad day...
My sisters went to their first Ca. show in San Bernadino . Tickets were only $2.50
My first time seeing them live was in 1972 I believe. I was 16 and went to the concert in S.Ca. at the Forum with my BFF and her older brothers friends.
Ike and Tina opened for them, they too were fantastic.
Tickets were $7.50, mom thought she had spent too much on them , I was hepling around the house double time to let her know how much it meant to me.
Last time I saw them was here in Budapest.
Yes, it's sad to think back on those memories, the Stones were always playing in the background of my life.

I used to like Ike and Tina until I found out Ike was abusing Tina.   He sounded like his life turned into a complete mess.

Oddly, the Stones seem to have survived a lot - drugs and marriages and a career in showbiz which seems almost implausible. Maybe there's like a hump to get over in fame when you can make it past the wild life into a senior age then you've done it all - successful, rich and so on - and can slow down.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

I'm a huge Rolling Stones fan.
Very sad day...
My sisters went to their first Ca. show in San Bernadino . Tickets were only $2.50
My first time seeing them live was in 1972 I believe. I was 16 and went to the concert in S.Ca. at the Forum with my BFF and her older brothers friends.
Ike and Tina opened for them, they too were fantastic.
Tickets were $7.50, mom thought she had spent too much on them , I was hepling around the house double time to let her know how much it meant to me.
Last time I saw them was here in Budapest.
Yes, it's sad to think back on those memories, the Stones were always playing in the background of my life.

I used to like Ike and Tina until I found out Ike was abusing Tina.   He sounded like his life turned into a complete mess.

Oddly, the Stones seem to have survived a lot - drugs and marriages and a career in showbiz which seems almost implausible. Maybe there's like a hump to get over in fame when you can make it past the wild life into a senior age then you've done it all - successful, rich and so on - and can slow down.

Tina and the girls were so good we almost forgot we had come to hear the Stones.
Actaully we had so much fun we could hardly remember the concert afterwards!
If mom only knew...
I wish Charlie had made a death bed confession  ( "Confessing the Blues")about what exactly happened to Brian Jones.
I know it was said that his contractor, Thorogood was jealous and angry because worked stopped on Cothford Farm and he wanted more money from Jones. He got angry and drowned him in the pool after a little good-bye gathering. Their, the Stones road manager Tom Keylock covered it up because he wanted to save his own rear end as he hired the crew to work on Brian's farm.
I have heard so many odd theories.
From Mick and Keith using a black magic ritual and Brian being the scarifice for their super fame to him just being drunk and drowning himself by accident.
He was a god swimmer and drugs and alcohol leverls were found to be very low in his body at the time of death.
I also heard the entire working crew was near by and more then one person held Brian underwater.
We will never know the truth but something defo criminal went on in my mind.

SimCityAT wrote:

[img align=C]https://scontent.fvie1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/241171459_10160928397769688_5597714946778417336_n.jpg?_nc_cat=101&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=___EWGdyt6gAX8cRpZ5&_nc_ht=scontent.fvie1-1.fna&oh=2ea0a02d691fdc8d7a69c08dcc96c25f&oe=61362596[/url]

Confucius?

This, "Indian Summer" is great.
Thought we had seen the last of the nice weather but we got lucky.
Went to a spa the other day, some of the pools were closed for the season but enough were still open to satify anyone.
I hope to get in another swim day or two this coming week before things change.
To me the mineral spas and lakes here in Hungary can't be beat.
At least compaired to the lakes, rivers and even the pools in major hotels in Las Vegas.
Years back my crazy younger bro and his wife stayed at the now torned down Sahara Hotel.
We joined them fr a day by the hotel pool.
It was one of the first times I remember swiming in a Vegas strip hotel pool.
I was surprised at how shallow they are, less then say 5 feet deep.
Took a min. to relize why they built them that way, people drown in deeper water. Booze and swimming don't mix.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

This, "Indian Summer" is great.
Thought we had seen the last of the nice weather but we got lucky.
Went to a spa the other day, some of the pools were closed for the season but enough were still open to satify anyone.
I hope to get in another swim day or two this coming week before things change.
To me the mineral spas and lakes here in Hungary can't be beat.
At least compaired to the lakes, rivers and even the pools in major hotels in Las Vegas.
Years back my crazy younger bro and his wife stayed at the now torned down Sahara Hotel.
We joined them fr a day by the hotel pool.
It was one of the first times I remember swiming in a Vegas strip hotel pool.
I was surprised at how shallow they are, less then say 5 feet deep.
Took a min. to relize why they built them that way, people drown in deeper water. Booze and swimming don't mix.

We've probably got until say, last week of October for the weather to be good.  November, I expect will be well into single figures and possibly frosts.  November, December and January are always meh months.  Just waiting for the world to come back to life in February, light to return and the sun to come out.  Global warming might change all that. 

One of the places I've swum at is Bear Lake at Sovata, Romania.  It was really very nice there.  And of course it's all Hungarian speaking Szekely.  We stayed in a very modern hotel.  There were hardly any people when we went but it was 20+ years ago.  I wouldn't mind going again - perhaps next year.  We also went to the salt mines at Brasov nearby.  Very strange air - sort of chilly and thick but not in an unpleasant way.

Interesting thing about the 5ft swimming pool depth.   People need to learn to swim - it's a life saver!  I was once in Wet n Wild in LV with Mrs F.  Some of the most death defying slides I've ever been on.

Weird thing today that we saw two guys putting up a surveillance camera outside a local school and then about 3h later, we heard lots of sirens and we walked to see what was going on and there was a car on its side. A car accident right outside the school.  How strange!  Camera put up and suddenly there's a crash.  Bit of a spooky coincidence.

That's werid about a car crash just 3 hours after putting up a camera...
Vegas has tons of car crashes though.
My son got a message from a ex-co-worker friend from Las Vegas just a week or so ago.
They both were floor supers inside the casino so they did the same job and worked closely together.
Well this guys wife, think they are in their mid 40's, was driving home on the I-95 freeway/highway in Vegas at night.
Some drunken fool got on the wrong way ,was drunk and hit her car head on! The fool didn't bother to turn his lights on either!
She had a compound fractor on her wrist, 2 crushed ankles and the worst is some sort of injury to her spine.
Her car's engine was up in the passenger seat!
Now she has contracted Covid while being in the ICU.
What a shame. You just never know what's in the cards...
My husband used to drive his cab at night and saw all sorts of crashes, some he swears the police caused .
Saw some poor guy slumped over dead in his car after the cops chased him down.
Things that happen late in the nights there.
My son borrowed a funky old Caddie my husband picked up once for our short time visiting Vegas.
We used to buy anything that ran because we only needed it for a few months.
Well he drove the car late night home from his job in a rather low end area of the city.
The cops puled him over and my son swears they only pulled him over because of the neighborhood he was in and the car.
Once they saw a young white man in a suit they just said sorry, go on your way and have a lovley evening...
Stereo typical,"pimp car" I guess?
Vegas is another world for sure.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

That's werid about a car crash just 3 hours after putting up a camera...
Vegas has tons of car crashes though.
My son got a message from a ex-co-worker friend from Las Vegas just a week or so ago.
They both were floor supers inside the casino so they did the same job and worked closely together.
Well this guys wife, think they are in their mid 40's, was driving home on the I-95 freeway/highway in Vegas at night.
Some drunken fool got on the wrong way ,was drunk and hit her car head on! The fool didn't bother to turn his lights on either!
She had a compound fractor on her wrist, 2 crushed ankles and the worst is some sort of injury to her spine.
Her car's engine was up in the passenger seat!
Now she has contracted Covid while being in the ICU.
What a shame. You just never know what's in the cards...
My husband used to drive his cab at night and saw all sorts of crashes, some he swears the police caused .
Saw some poor guy slumped over dead in his car after the cops chased him down.
Things that happen late in the nights there.
My son borrowed a funky old Caddie my husband picked up once for our short time visiting Vegas.
We used to buy anything that ran because we only needed it for a few months.
Well he drove the car late night home from his job in a rather low end area of the city.
The cops puled him over and my son swears they only pulled him over because of the neighborhood he was in and the car.
Once they saw a young white man in a suit they just said sorry, go on your way and have a lovley evening...
Stereo typical,"pimp car" I guess?
Vegas is another world for sure.

Yes, it was very odd.  It almost looked like they could have staged it.   Looks like someone tried to overtake a line of traffic and didn't anticipate oncoming traffic, steered violently and rolled it.  Some "boy racer" type and very ill judged driving.  Somewhat typical these days.

Odd things have started happening around here.    There was a car in the ditch near our local airport.  Been there for days. Might have  been stolen. 

And last week some older guy got killed in the middle of the village after being run over by a rubbish/trash collecting truck.  Apparently he misjudged the truck passing through the pedestrian crossing and walked into the middle of it with his bike.   Don't know for sure but local gossip it was pretty bad and gruesome I believe.

We think also someone tried to get in our car as the lock might have been interfered with.  The dog probably slept through it all.

Looks like your son's coworker's wife really copped it in that crash. Wrong place at the wrong time.  And senseless injury due to someone else's negligence.

Today I bought some petrol for the car and I noticed it's really gone up a lot.

It was 450 HUF a litre for 95 or diesel locally.

Bit further away, it's a lot cheaper at Aldi  - 426  HUF for a litre of 95.

In the UK, there's panic buying going and people are stockpiling and here at Aldi, here was quite a queue. I cannot think of any reason why there would be panic buying. 

Why would that be going on here?

fluffy2560 wrote:

Today I bought some petrol for the car and I noticed it's really gone up a lot.

It was 450 HUF a litre for 95 or diesel locally.

Bit further away, it's a lot cheaper at Aldi  - 426  HUF for a litre of 95.

In the UK, there's panic buying going and people are stockpiling and here at Aldi, here was quite a queue. I cannot think of any reason why there would be panic buying. 

Why would that be going on here?

We have been warned the cost of energy, fuel etc.... is set to rise across Europe from 2022.

But it is so funny in the UK, all because of BP saying that they have had to close some petrol stations because they can not get supplies to the gas stations due to a shortage of HGV drivers. Now there is a national problem because people have panicked.

That as well as blocking the roads, The UK is in one BIG mess.

There were 5 BP stations at the end of the supply chain that closed for 4 hours; the rest of it is all down to the media scaremongering.

Cynic wrote:

There were 5 BP stations at the end of the supply chain that closed for 4 hours; the rest of it is all down to the media scaremongering.

And a couple of Tesco stations, and that's it. Why was there a need for the press to report it, gawd knows.

Cynic wrote:

There were 5 BP stations at the end of the supply chain that closed for 4 hours; the rest of it is all down to the media scaremongering.

SimCityAT wrote:

Cynic wrote:

There were 5 BP stations at the end of the supply chain that closed for 4 hours; the rest of it is all down to the media scaremongering.

[img align=C]https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/sheep-herd-in-new-zealand-2-picture-id155379357?k=20&m=155379357&s=612x612&w=0&h=I020LSYFG3Vav59qT7hIDQU0du5_PC_2QwMAGQwQanM=[/url]

Flocking to the petrol station.   Prices rising for no reason and everyone getting fleeced.

SimCityAT wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

Today I bought some petrol for the car and I noticed it's really gone up a lot.

It was 450 HUF a litre for 95 or diesel locally.

Bit further away, it's a lot cheaper at Aldi  - 426  HUF for a litre of 95.

In the UK, there's panic buying going and people are stockpiling and here at Aldi, here was quite a queue. I cannot think of any reason why there would be panic buying. 

Why would that be going on here?

We have been warned the cost of energy, fuel etc.... is set to rise across Europe from 2022.

But it is so funny in the UK, all because of BP saying that they have had to close some petrol stations because they can not get supplies to the gas stations due to a shortage of HGV drivers. Now there is a national problem because people have panicked.

That as well as blocking the roads, The UK is in one BIG mess.

UK Brexit aftermath is now catching up with them.   Sticking to the Brexit immigration dogma while Rome burns.

I must say I wondered if the media induced panic was contributing to the fuel rush buying.   It's not that long ago that everyone was stockpiling toilet paper over there.  I cannot see anything going on here that would cause a dash to fill up.   

Here, about 1/2 the energy used in the country comes from the Paks nuclear plant.   The rest is other mixed supply.    UK also said it was going to build another nuclear power station in order to reduce reliance on external supplies of energy.

There's some media discussion that Putin is putting the screws on over gas supplies in order to scare countries in the lead up to winter.

The UK has one of the lowest natural gas storage capacities in Europe.  Last year, supplies were also dwindling, but storage capacity is usually topped up in April /May as people use less energy. That did not happen due to climate change and additional strains. It is also affected by industries closing down entirely due to rising energy costs and therefore normal supply chains are disrupted.
Feel free to read about the CO2 shortages in the UK -- you never realize how connected things are until disrupted. Makes you increasingly concerned about environmental impacts on biodiversity...

Russia is feeding its own ravenous energy needs first, then supplying Europe after. World gas supplies are being increasingly bought by China. Recently, Europe has asked both Norway (2nd largest supplier of natural gas to Europe after Gazprom) and Libya to increase their output.

Germany and Poland have had to restart coal power plants to keep up with energy demand.

The green economy can't happen soon enough!

[link under review]

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58090533

SimCityAT wrote:

Cynic wrote:

There were 5 BP stations at the end of the supply chain that closed for 4 hours; the rest of it is all down to the media scaremongering.

And a couple of Tesco stations, and that's it. Why was there a need for the press to report it, gawd knows.

End of supply chain outages are a "thing" (I won't say common because they're not), but they happen and not just in fuel; how many times have you gone in your supermarket and they were out of bread, or milk, or widgets - you name it, it happens - it's the same thing.  For those of us Logistics professionals (and I count myself very much in amongst that group), it's a matter to be covered in your response plan, you should have a contingency.  The problem is that end of chain users have gotten to the state where it doesn't take much for them to put too much pressure on the chain and break it.  There is no regulatory regime to spot it coming, or to tell people what to do, normally if it happens often enough, the outlet with no product will go out of business.

Petrol is a bit weird, you either have it or you don't; the UK only has 7 refineries and you'd need to go back to the 1970's oil crisis to find out why; to save you the hassle of looking, it's nothing to with Brexit, Boris, or the EU.

The message of this ramble is don't muck about with the supply chain; if you don't know what you're doing, you will break it.

If you want to know where the truck drivers went; yes Brexit is partly responsible, but perhaps not for the reason you think; here's what many of us who have an HGV licence think about it:

My parents waited in line for hours to get petrol/gas in 1973 when they had the fuel crisis in the USA.
My step-dad started to ride his Harley to work to save on gas then he went nuts and bought 3 Peugeot cars. No one knew what they were in the states really.
He has been stationed in the military in German and knew hw good those cars were on petrol.
Personally I think they may want to push people to buy electric cars sooner or later.

On another topic, has anyone lately had issues getting their mail from outside of Hungary?
Just found out my cousin in the US has been sending me cards several times a year for the past 8 years and I've never gootten any of them.
She wrote the correct address even went as far as writting it in Hungary with all the proper puncuation.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

My parents waited in line for hours to get petrol/gas in 1973 when they had the fuel crisis in the USA.
My step-dad started to ride his Harley to work to save on gas then he went nuts and bought 3 Peugeot cars. No one knew what they were in the states really.
He has been stationed in the military in German and knew hw good those cars were on petrol.
Personally I think they may want to push people to buy electric cars sooner or later.

On another topic, has anyone lately had issues getting their mail from outside of Hungary?
Just found out my cousin in the US has been sending me cards several times a year for the past 8 years and I've never gotten any of them.
She wrote the correct address even went as far as writting it in Hungary with all the proper puncuation.

Oh, don't mention the Posta.  Mein Gott, that lot need a good shake up.   It's been taking 3 weeks to get something to the UK, yet only the other day, a card arrived from the UK to here in only about 4 days.  I am sure the delays are not in the UK but here.  We often get cards saying no-one was in.  That's just nonsense as 9 times out of 10 I see the postman outside. We're even on speaking terms. 

On the other hand, when we used to get stuff in Austria, it often went via Melbourne and returned opened by Australian customs. That was quite fast - maybe 1 month turnaround.   Some people don't know the difference between Austria and Australia.

There is a big push to get electric cars everywhere. I'm interested myself but the price is just too high and the range too low.  The range issue is becoming marginal now - range of 200-250km is not bad for trips around here.   But there needs to be a major breakthrough in energy density. 

I'm looking forward to fitting a Mr Fusion generator and flux capacitor sometime soon.

vicces1 wrote:

The UK has one of the lowest natural gas storage capacities in Europe.  Last year, supplies were also dwindling, but storage capacity is usually topped up in April /May as people use less energy. That did not happen due to climate change and additional strains. It is also affected by industries closing down entirely due to rising energy costs and therefore normal supply chains are disrupted.
Feel free to read about the CO2 shortages in the UK -- you never realize how connected things are until disrupted. Makes you increasingly concerned about environmental impacts on biodiversity...

Russia is feeding its own ravenous energy needs first, then supplying Europe after. World gas supplies are being increasingly bought by China. Recently, Europe has asked both Norway (2nd largest supplier of natural gas to Europe after Gazprom) and Libya to increase their output.

Germany and Poland have had to restart coal power plants to keep up with energy demand.

The green economy can't happen soon enough!

I heard on the radio that Norway has an agreement to supply it's partners in the EU/EEA  BEFORE it supplies third countries like the UK.  Another Brexit fiasco.

The CO2 thing has been resolved - by subsidising the factories - temporarily.   That's just bizarre.   They are already sequestering CO2 in disused mines/salt caverns and oil wells.   There must be loads of it available.  They could just suck it out the air for free!  Heavy users could just extract and store their own!

The UK is opening up the visa system for heavy goods vehicle drivers. I cannot see anyone qualified being that interested in coming to or back to the UK, especially if they've already got jobs back in their own country or the EU.  Reports are conditions in Europe are far better than the UK for drivers.  But as an example, one of my UK relatives is unemployed and can drive a mid-sized truck yet sees no need to rush to try and get a driving job and earn some money.   I think there are many of those types back there - just can't be bothered!

fluffy2560 wrote:

vicces1 wrote:

The UK has one of the lowest natural gas storage capacities in Europe.  Last year, supplies were also dwindling, but storage capacity is usually topped up in April /May as people use less energy. That did not happen due to climate change and additional strains. It is also affected by industries closing down entirely due to rising energy costs and therefore normal supply chains are disrupted.
Feel free to read about the CO2 shortages in the UK -- you never realize how connected things are until disrupted. Makes you increasingly concerned about environmental impacts on biodiversity...

Russia is feeding its own ravenous energy needs first, then supplying Europe after. World gas supplies are being increasingly bought by China. Recently, Europe has asked both Norway (2nd largest supplier of natural gas to Europe after Gazprom) and Libya to increase their output.

Germany and Poland have had to restart coal power plants to keep up with energy demand.

The green economy can't happen soon enough!

I heard on the radio that Norway has an agreement to supply its partners in the EU/EEA  BEFORE it supplies third countries like the UK.  Another Brexit fiasco.

Not sure where your radio station picked that up from, Norway is now the principal supplier of Natural gas to the UK (1.4 million tonnes last year).  The cockup here is lack of storage, so as I said earlier, if the supply chain fails, there is little resilience.

fluffy2560 wrote:

The UK is opening up the visa system for heavy goods vehicle drivers. I cannot see anyone qualified being that interested in coming to or back to the UK, especially if they've already got jobs back in their own country or the EU.  Reports are conditions in Europe are far better than the UK for drivers.  But as an example, one of my UK relatives is unemployed and can drive a mid-sized truck yet sees no need to rush to try and get a driving job and earn some money.   I think there are many of those types back there - just can't be bothered!

I don't blame your relative, I'm probably one of the most qualified HGV drivers you can get, I'm not interested either; the conditions are appalling.

Cynic wrote:

.....
Not sure where your radio station picked that up from, Norway is now the principal supplier of Natural gas to the UK (1.4 million tonnes last year).  The cockup here is lack of storage, so as I said earlier, if the supply chain fails, there is little resilience.

I don't know, I heard a  guy saying nuclear power stations have like 14 days supplier of CO2 and weeks of supply of other types of gases/liquids.   Doesn't seem so long, 14 days.  4 to 6 weeks would be more like it.  When I was a kid we had "town gas" and North Sea Gas was just coming in and Russia Gas, never heard of it. Every large town had a gas storage tank called a gasometer that used to go up and down according to the amount stored.  I think they are probably all upmarket apartments now if they are even still standing.

Cynic wrote:

.....
I don't blame your relative, I'm probably one of the most qualified HGV drivers you can get, I'm not interested either; the conditions are appalling.

Yes, I've heard  it's terrible.  I used to drive a van when I was a student and it wasn't great then, 40+ years ago.  I did like it on the road especially out in the countryside in Wales or Scotland but I didn't think much of the services for nights away. 

On the other hand, wages are currently rising so fast on HGV drivers, they are paying the same as low end lawyers now plus signing bonuses of £1K.  Driver shortages has really got some unexpected knock in effects - I've heard of drivers for local government being poached and it's reducing the ability to deliver local services like waste collection. 

it's all a little bit too much "Just In Time".

It really is getting a lot of attention:
www.mail.com/int/news/uk/11146584-uk-ab … d-gas.htmlwww.mail.com/int/scitech/health/1114327 … ly-wo.html

Vicces1 wrote:

It really is getting a lot of attention:
www.mail.com/int/news/uk/11146584-uk-ab … d-gas.htmlwww.mail.com/int/scitech/health/1114327 … ly-wo.html

That it is, it's all over the Austrian news.

Funny thing is, you need a specially trained driver to drive petrol/diesel tankers; we had plenty of those last week, so the question is, what happened?

Cynic wrote:

Funny thing is, you need a specially trained driver to drive petrol/diesel tankers; we had plenty of those last week, so the question is, what happened?

There's no way the 5000 temporary visas is going to make any difference.  The regulations are quite intense and there's no way they can be qualified in time, nor will it be easy to verify claims of qualification to drive tankers.  And does anyone want to come anyway?

I can probably get myself a Ph.D in knitting or Tiddlywinks mail order in 30 minutes. I am sure plenty of tanker qualifications are being added to the list of $50 certificates right now.

Apparently Boris has asked Brazil to supply turkeys for Xmas. But No. 10 is denying it.   Christmas cancelled? Again?

I was in the pub last night, talking with a few guys from what turned out to be a haulage agency based in Hungary. They were from Hungary and Czechia. All said they would not drive for a UK company, they even said they loath to cross the border. Their views seemed to come from what they said was a majority.

SimCityAT wrote:

I was in the pub last night, talking with a few guys from what turned out to be a haulage agency based in Hungary. They were from Hungary and Czechia. All said they would not drive for a UK company, they even said they loath to cross the border. Their views seemed to come from what they said was a majority.

Did they say WHY they would not?
Just curious...

Vicces1 wrote:

SimCityAT wrote:

I was in the pub last night, talking with a few guys from what turned out to be a haulage agency based in Hungary. They were from Hungary and Czechia. All said they would not drive for a UK company, they even said they loath to cross the border. Their views seemed to come from what they said was a majority.

Did they say WHY they would not?
Just curious...

General abuse I guess. I never did ask. I sure will ask if our paths cross again.

SimCityAT wrote:

I was in the pub last night, talking with a few guys from what turned out to be a haulage agency based in Hungary. They were from Hungary and Czechia. All said they would not drive for a UK company, they even said they loathe to cross the border. Their views seemed to come from what they said was a majority.

I can believe that.  Treated like lepers over Brexit and conditions in the UK not very good for marginally more money.    Why bother?

The paperwork effort is ludicrous now for truckers crossing the border into the EU.  I don't think it's as bad coming into the UK as they've suspended checks as far as I know.  Only way to do that is to charge a premium for time wasting.

I have queued up once or twice many years ago to get paperwork stamped on the way to Hungary before it was EU and it wasn't nice at all.  Just the hassle and general aggressiveness of Customs people.  Might be different now.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Cynic wrote:

Funny thing is, you need a specially trained driver to drive petrol/diesel tankers; we had plenty of those last week, so the question is, what happened?

There's no way the 5000 temporary visas is going to make any difference.  The regulations are quite intense and there's no way they can be qualified in time, nor will it be easy to verify claims of qualification to drive tankers.  And does anyone want to come anyway?

I can probably get myself a Ph.D in knitting or Tiddlywinks mail order in 30 minutes. I am sure plenty of tanker qualifications are being added to the list of $50 certificates right now.

Apparently Boris has asked Brazil to supply turkeys for Xmas. But No. 10 is denying it.   Christmas cancelled? Again?

There's more to the foreign drivers staying away than just Brexit; IR35 is causing discontent in that many of the driver agencies and drivers have lost their self-employed status and must now pay payroll taxes to HMRC since the start of this tax year - probably explains why the guys from the haulage companies are pissed off; also, many drivers with families and kids back in their home country have now lost UK Child Benefit for kids back in their home country.  But, none of that explains where the petrol drivers have suddenly gone.  I went down to our local BP this morning (they ran out of fuel yesterday) and spoke to the site manager; she told me there are no more scheduled deliveries, certainly not today or tomorrow; someone is playing silly buggers  ......................

I can't imagine Hungarian HGV drivers wanting to drive a right hand drive. When I was trying to get my UK LDV Convoy van registered on Hungarian plates several mechanics refused to touch it simply because they were nervous of driving a RHD!

fidobsa wrote:

I can't imagine Hungarian HGV drivers wanting to drive a right hand drive. When I was trying to get my UK LDV Convoy van registered on Hungarian plates several mechanics refused to touch it simply because they were nervous of driving a RHD!

I don't think a professional driver would care that much.  Hardly takes any time getting used to it. 

There are RHD vehicles everywhere. And LHD too.   In the USA, postal vans/Jeeps are (or used to be) RHD and then there's dual control street cleaning machines which have two steering wheels.  Nearly all rally cars are LHD.   

The mechanics probably just didn't want to get involved in complicated mechanical things.  I maintain my old hobby car myself because local mechanics didn't want to fix it - too old, hard to source spares, needs special tools etc.  I actually had to make tools to use on it.  I also have the time to look up stuff, source stuff from different places and I can wait weeks or months for parts to arrive.   Mechanics want a quick turnaround.