alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Well, when I complained about it directly to them, they said that they had to be proactive...in other words react to the change after it happens.

What a crock they are.

Luan Pra bang

To a degree this is true but in reality I have a big house, 5 cars and if this is what people call a recession then wait and see what they have to say when the **** really hits the fan.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Yes, but you would be in a VERY tiny minority in most of the UK.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

'I'm alright Jack, f**k the rest of you' - the legacy of Thatcher's Britain

RA Dunk

Yes we're really seeing the benefits of Thatchers privatisation of everything now are we.

Cow!

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Ho ho! Had a long discussion about it last weekend with two friends who USED to be m,embers of the Labour party, but withdrew over the Iraq war.

We couldn't find ONE example of anything being better because it was privatised.

Can you?

RA Dunk

Nope, Nothing.

Martin2005

BT?
British Leyland (Jaguar Landrover)?

Martin2005

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/bu...y-1281602.html

This is a really interesting and balanced piece of the successes and failings of privatisation

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Nope unless you class making shareholders rich while the customers get f**ked over at every opportunity as a being better. None of the services should ever have been privatised... and boy are we, the customers, paying for that f**k up now!

LOL - went to read that article, but as the title is 'Why privatisation has been a success story' you will forgive me if I take issue with your definition of 'balanced' ... I read it anyway and was not disappointed, it is one sided nonsense!

For example:

Yes because the profits kept rolling in

RA Dunk

If anybody was going to come on here and defend privatisation it would be Martin.

Leslie

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meteorology is a most inexact science because the movement of the air masses etc is entropic and cannot be relied on. I had to rely on Met Forecasters for a good many years in my job and although they get occasionally get it wrong, in general they did a remarkably good job.

I suggest that all those who are so quick to complain should try it for themselves. You will get it right quite often as a matter of luck but you will also get it wrong too, and you wont actually realise just why you came out with the result that you decided on and why it turned out as it did.

You have to make allowances for the movement of the air masses and their associated weather systems and the fact that they can move in directions that you did not expect or could have predicted since there is often no rhyme or reason in how they behave.

If you look at a weather map on the tv on one day and try to remember roughly how the pressure patterns are distributed and then look again the following day you may be surprised at the way everything has changed. You can't blame a forecaster for that! The actual weather we see depends on these changes as well as relative humidity and change of temperature with height and the stability of the air depending on those factors as well as the temperature of the surface relative to the air. If you try to imagine using that information on which you base a forecast,only for it all to change of its own accord, then you might just begin to realise the problems that a forecaster has to deal with.

Its not a "breeze" believe me!

Les

gazzawrx

iTrader: (11)

If i remember right didn't the met office have its **** kicked not long back for giving out incorrect weather information? Im sure it was on the bbc news i saw it too.

Martin2005

Who said I was defending privatisation?

I was countering the argument that ALL privatisation had been bad.

I don't get why you so deliberately choose to misconstrue my posts

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Can you actually think of ONE instance when privatisation has actually improved the customers' lot?

Martin2005

I mentioned BT and British Leyland before, I think they a pretty clear examples.

Of course there are some fairly poor examples too, Railways being the worst

I think that we should remember that the tax-payer was getting pretty poor value for money before many of these privatisations. So either way you look at it, there is no perfect answer.

Luan Pra bang

Privatisation has been ok for the Bankers and the stock market gamblers and it was ridiculous dogma from Milton Friedman and his psychotic followers who tried to argue that a truly free market was the way forward. This free market 'medicine' was forced down the throats of many nations even when it meant using violence and torture to crush democracy. We now have a dose of it here and those bankers and hedge fund monkeys benefit while the rest of the people suffer, same as always. Short of the people of the UK burning the city to the ground and refusing to repay debts owed to banks en mass nothing will change.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

BT have always and will always give cr@p service. How are they better for being privatised?

I stopped with them YEARS ago and won't go near now. Thieves abd rip-off merchants. Plus they advertise far too much...although the new lass on the adverts is quite fit......

British Leyland...ah yes, remind me again where they are now? And why?

And why the Germans got the new Mini for £5 wasn't it?

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Just thought you'd all like to know that at present the Met Office forecast for here is thick fog most of the day.... currently it's bright and clear with light cloud and has been all day. Oh yes they're worth the money alright

scunnered

iTrader: (1)

Is weather forecasting the only job where you can get it wrong much of the time and not get sacked?

RA Dunk

Check the forecast in a half hour again and you will most likely find it's been changed to suit.

We would be just as well using a barometer than the met office.

RA Dunk

Payroll for my ex company.

They consistently manage to **** up everyones wage every week and get away with it. If any of the rest of us turned up and did as **** a job as them we would be out the gate in the blink of an eye.

Leslie

Because of our very changeable conditions in this country because of our proximity to the sea etc., it is always difficult to make highly accurate predictions.

You need to have a good knowledge of local conditions to be able to produce any reasonable chance of a good forecast too.

Would not give too much for the American station's chances of getting it right, unless they were just lucky!

Les

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

But Les, you keep SAYING this, yet they keep predicting stuff and they NEVER say, well, we are only 50% sure on this.

You go on the French site, La Meteo, THEY give you a % reliability for each day.

Leslie

Well I have seen forecasters say that they are not certain about their predictions in fact if they are faced with a particularly difficult situation.

I do have some knowledge about the subject since when I was doing my flying training we had a very long and deeply explanatory meteorology course since it was quite rightly felt that aircrew should have a very good basic knowledge of meteorology. Over the years that knowledge becomes deepened by practical experience.

I also spent a good many more years than you might possibly imagine being briefed by Met officers before any flying trip that I did and had ample opportunity to be able to see how accurate the predictions were in comparison to what actuallyl happened. We very soon learned that although in general the forecasters did a pretty good job under the circumstances but you always had to be prepared to accept that it often did not turn out exactly as was predicted. You realised that you always had to have a bit of fuel etc in hand just in case!

During a briefing we would see all the weather maps etc with all the reported information on which a forecast was based. We therefore understood why a particular forecast was given to us since we could pretty well work it out for ourselves as experienced aircrew. What we also saw often enough was how all that reported information could change during the course of a flight because that is how "Mother Nature" works! This would often lead to the forecast weather being significantly different to what was expected.

We all therefore understood well enough the problems of weather forecasting and therefore did not blame the forecasters if what was expected was wrong. That is why I think it is unfair to lay all the blame for an incorrect forecast at the feet of the weather men.

As we see in so many facets, Mother Nature does her own thing and there is often no rhyme or reason for the way in which that can happen.

Les

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Agreed, I don't doubt for one moment what you are saying, but it's a rarity to hear one on the TV say anything other than the usual "and at teatime", or "by the morning", etc etc."

As I've said, French Meteo always gives a % reliability. Ours don't.

And as for today: NO rain forecast, it's rained on and off ALL day.

Leslie

Not much different here either,so I watched the rugby!

Les

IWatkins

Not sure which forecast you looked at but this rain system has been well forecasted by the Met Office since Thursday.

Met Office do produce probabilistic forecasts and have done for many years.

Leslie

Do you check on what our worthy politicians get up to most of the time?

Les