Naoko's news, views and shoes thread

[NaokoSmith]

Now, before you start, it has been EXCEPTIONALLY busy. Any of you who live over here in Old Blighty will have seen in the news that there has been unusual activity not only across the university sector, but even and also in the Old University where I happen to work.

First, we all went out on strike over our pensions. Basically, the universities realised that our pension fund is regarded as a liability by banks off which they wish to borrow huge sums of money to build swanky new buildings (not many of which are any good for teaching or research - this is called neoliberalism, and doesn't actually have anything to do with education ). So they cobbled together some crappy figures to try to show that the pension fund was in a dreadful hole, and suggested it be completely overhauled.

We have a defined benefits pension, which pays out the salary contributions we have put aside into it in an agreed amount on our retirement. Our employers and pension fund managers suggested this be changed to what is technically known as a 'chocolate teapot'. It would be invested in the riskiest areas of the stocks market, and just pay out whatever the fund managers earned on it. NB they had taken the fund in-house and had already lost a lot of money on it

By a complete coincidence, doing this would change the pension fund into an asset from a liability in the eyes of big banks from which the employers wanted to borrow money

BUT, if you are going to try to bamboozle people about their pension fund investments, then it is probably better to do this to a the members of a knitting and coach trip to Margate club. Trying to do this to academic experts in statistical analysis, Emeritus Prof.s in Economics and people who give lectures on pension funds is not really a smart thing to do.

Plus, we had enormous public sympathy from the general public, as practically everyone agrees that if you work hard and have put some of your salary aside for the purpose, you should be entitled to have it back as your pension at the end, when you can no longer be exploited ... be employed, in your chosen industry

So I was busy going on the picket line - sometimes in the snow, sometimes in spring sunshine - and taking part in very jolly rallies, where people dressed up as Star Wars and Star Trek characters.

As I teach mostly on Saturdays, which hadn't been designated strike days - I had to work AND go on strike! which seems a bit unfair, but hey ho.

Anyway, we won! - well, some people are not sure because we all know the employers are slithy toves, but we hope we have won and we have been able to suspend strike action for now

 

[NaokoSmith]

Where you been, gal?!

Hullo dahlink! I am about to explain

 

[NaokoSmith]

Right, so we were all there with the union, some of us striking and some people striking poses.

And the biggest poser was of course my old nemesis Arsehole Manager who is so bad at managing people that one of my colleagues thinks he is on the autism spectrum.

We were just on the point of winning the strike, when he called a union meeting. Now he is not a union officer, but he was running around doing lots of little errands, and on the agenda for this meeting was an item saying 'election of union reps'.



I was really very BUSY, working and striking - not to mention parenting, baking cakes, stroking my pussy etc etc. But I decided I had better go along to that meeting, and if Arsehole Manager was intending to put himself forward for one of the union rep posts, I would stand up and say that in the age of #MeToo, I felt someone who had had at least two grievances taken out against him for sexist discrimination (to my knowledge - never mind all the grievances for simply being an Arsehole), was not an appropriate choice.

So I duly turned up and sat rather nervously in the meeting room. And then Arsehole finally showed up. And we were the only two people who had shown up in person for the meeting Some others showed up on Skype. At first I thought 'Phew, they can't elect union reps with only two people present in person, I shouldn't have bothered to come', but then one of the Skypers quite illegally suggested that as Arsehole had been running around licking everyone's boots, he could do the rep job for the time being and we would elect him formally at a later stage

In fairness to me, I mentioned to one of my colleagues that Arsehole was putting himself forward to be rep, and my colleague - who normally couldn't give a toss about the union and just pays his dues in case he gets discriminated against (by Arsehole) and needs cover for his legal fees - was more upset than I've seen him for quite a while!

Since I was the only person in the room with Arsehole, I made a tactical decision not to stand up saying: "I object!" like Shrek at the wedding, and I got the bus home and emailed the union straightaway. They did have a lot on their plate - as you will see, but they did get back to me and hopefully they will put a stop to Arsehole's attempt to raise himself in the union ranks.

I sometimes say of Arsehole that he is so hopeless at management, they can't even kick him upstairs He would only bring the union into disrepute - this is the person who made a podcast called 'Motherhood, Research and Hopeless Tossers' and asked us to circulate it to all our students

 

[NaokoSmith]

MEANWHILE, back at the Old University ...

For some years now, we have been fighting the forces of darkness, aka Senior Management, who live and work a long way away from us in a Death Star in Milton Keynes. We had been saying they don't understand our work and struggling with the policies they brought in, which they said were about making things better for our students but which we said looked a lot like trying to save money at our expense.

As an example, the Head of Human Resources said at a staff event that we should all be jolly grateful to work for the Old University because we got free parking! Since the vast majority of us work nowhere near the Death Star, free parking is not something we are at all grateful for, since most of us have it because it is outside the tiny house we were barely able to buy with the meagre salary we get, where we actually do our work

Yes, you heard that right, that was our Head of Human Resources.

Then the Vice Chancellor suddenly said that our academic staff don't do any teaching and he was "bloody well" going to make them teach. Our academic staff write the materials which we tutors use to teach the students. So what he said showed that he really did have absolutely no understanding of how our teaching works AT ALL

Honestly, I have never seen anything like it. We are normally very quiet and secretive and nobody likes to bad-mouth the Old University because we know everyone thinks we provide second-class degrees. (This is a myth promoted by Oxbridge colleges, who don't want people to find out that we offer much better teaching at a fraction of the price they do.)

But after all the years of struggling with Senior Management, and the success of the strike action, this was like a spark to dry straw. Twitter was suddenly buzzing with people howling for the VC's blood (not that he has much to look at him), using #bloodywellteaching. There were three separate votes of No Confidence in him and my entire Faculty up at the Death Star walked out of the building (into the free car park , not really, they did it in a kind of garden somewhere) and took a group photo holding up signs saying 'No Confidence' which they tweeted publicly.

And he resigned!

But he said he was going to stick around for three months to make sure his programme of decimating cuts and ruination was properly implemented

And then a new person put herself forward to be Acting VC.

She is actually an academic! I mean, we were quite grateful to have the old VC who at least came from the BBC. At one place I worked, we called the VC the 'man from Mars' - because he came from the sweet corporation. Obviously, being able to sell small chocolate bars means you can sell degrees

Not only that, she is a Professor of Education!! She is an expert in listening, and does research on how to allow children and young people to tell you what they want out of their education

So it is all still a bit febrile, and we are waiting to hear how much of the appalling old programme of 'reform' (ruin and decimation!) we can get rid of, but things do seem hopeful

 

[NaokoSmith]

Well, and apart from all that, I have also been busy screwing - as you can see here

What?!! I am a union member - of course I took a tea break in the middle

 

[where_is_RUTH]

you are missing a tea cosy!

never trust a man, who, left alone in a room with a tea cosy doesn't put it on his head.

I work with kids now how don't know what a tea cosy is

 

[oggbashan]

you are missing a tea cosy!

never trust a man, who, left alone in a room with a tea cosy doesn't put it on his head.

I work with kids now how don't know what a tea cosy is

At my first primary school, many decades ago, all of us had to MAKE tea cosies. We started with a wooden cotton reel - remember those - with four panel pins hammered in by our fathers, masses of multicoloured wool, and produced long knitted ropes. It's now called French or Spool Knitting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ua30xG4Q9o

Eventually we sewed them together into a vaguely tea cosy shape before adding a Pom-Pom.

Making a Pom-Pom:
Take two cardboard milk bottle tops with a hole in the middle through which to insert a straw, wash well, then wind wool through the hole hundreds of times until a ball is created.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EULHNtikVxg

Parents of multiple children found themselves with too many tea cosies.

 

[where_is_RUTH]

Wooden cotton reels!

You legend

 

[oggbashan]

After diversion into tea cosies:

Welcome back, Naoko! You've been missed!

x 4

 

[Handley_Page]

MEANWHILE, back at the Old University ...

For some years now, we have been fighting the forces of darkness, aka Senior Management, who live and work a long way away from us in a Death Star in Milton Keynes. We had been saying they don't understand our work and struggling with the policies they brought in, which they said were about making things better for our students but which we said looked a lot like trying to save money at our expense.

As an example, the Head of Human Resources said at a staff event that we should all be jolly grateful to work for the Old University because we got free parking! Since the vast majority of us work nowhere near the Death Star, free parking is not something we are at all grateful for, since most of us have it because it is outside the tiny house we were barely able to buy with the meagre salary we get, where we actually do our work

Yes, you heard that right, that was our Head of Human Resources.

Then the Vice Chancellor suddenly said that our academic staff don't do any teaching and he was "bloody well" going to make them teach. Our academic staff write the materials which we tutors use to teach the students. So what he said showed that he really did have absolutely no understanding of how our teaching works AT ALL

Welcome back, Dr Miss.
It is a pleasure to read your humour.

 

[beachbum1958]

At my first primary school, many decades ago, all of us had to MAKE tea cosies. We started with a wooden cotton reel - remember those - with four panel pins hammered in by our fathers, masses of multicoloured wool, and produced long knitted ropes. It's now called French or Spool Knitting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ua30xG4Q9o

Eventually we sewed them together into a vaguely tea cosy shape before adding a Pom-Pom.

Making a Pom-Pom:
Take two cardboard milk bottle tops with a hole in the middle through which to insert a straw, wash well, then wind wool through the hole hundreds of times until a ball is created.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EULHNtikVxg

Parents of multiple children found themselves with too many tea cosies.

The first time my darling American wife saw a tea-cosy she wondered aloud why anyone would want to wear such a silly hat, and when I told her what it was she accused me of lying to try and make her look gullible and foolish; a knitted bag to keep a teapot full of boiling water hot; really? Was I going to tell her about my collection of left-handed spoons next, or perhaps show her how to use a right-handed hammer...?

 

[TxRad]

*Huskiest voice evah*
Hullo dahlinks

I know, I know - naughty MILF, not posting for so long. Should be spanked

TXRad, we need you! I require a firm hand, y'know HP, you may get out your camera.

:caning::caning::caning:

Goodness me, this thread is full of Old Spice and rugby shirts, I feel completely at home here

There will be no caning with me around. A firm bare hand applied firmly to an equally bare firm bottom. It all works out for the best in the end.

Tea cosies? Maybe someone needs to invent the bottom cosie to keep red hot bums warmer longer.

 

[Bramblethorn]

NAOKO!

*Huskiest voice evah*
Hullo dahlinks

I know, I know - naughty MILF, not posting for so long. Should be spanked

*forms an orderly queue*

As an example, the Head of Human Resources said at a staff event that we should all be jolly grateful to work for the Old University because we got free parking! Since the vast majority of us work nowhere near the Death Star, free parking is not something we are at all grateful for, since most of us have it because it is outside the tiny house we were barely able to buy with the meagre salary we get, where we actually do our work

Ha ha, reminds me of the manager who told us that we shouldn't be upset about a pay freeze because we were all being paid very generously to begin with. He would've been making around triple my salary...

 

[Handley_Page]

The first time my darling American wife saw a tea-cosy she wondered aloud why anyone would want to wear such a silly hat, and when I told her what it was she accused me of lying to try and make her look gullible and foolish; a knitted bag to keep a teapot full of boiling water hot; really? Was I going to tell her about my collection of left-handed spoons next, or perhaps show her how to use a right-handed hammer...?

My local butcher swears that 'his' knife is sharper than his mate's knife.
They are both right-handed, but sharpen their knives differently.

Tea Cosy? https://www.notonthehighstreet.com/mybaboo/product/tea-cosy-knitting-kit

 

[R. Richard]

Welcome back, Naoko! It's been too long.

 

[NaokoSmith]

Welcome back, Naoko! It's been too long.

Aww, thank you, dahlink.

Thank you all. I miss you all too.


Sorry I am not around so much - things are pretty busy here. I was up til midnight last night marking, then I washed up and cleaned stuff til 2 am zzzzz.

I know, Bramblethorn! These people are only good for stories to entertain Ogg and HP I mean - Head of HR!!! What can you say.

you are missing a tea cosy!

I did have a tea cosy! It was made for me by the Fella's granny. She was living proof of the hypothesis that knitting helps you stay mentally balanced. She never did have very many marbles, but the few she had she still had at the end in her 90s

She had terrible taste, and liked best to dress in leopard prints and anything with pink marabou on it. She would knit in the most acrylic wool, all sorts of colours. By an incredible happy accident she made my tea cosy out of orange and beige wool - which sounds horrid but it was really lovely. I used it all the time til it got scraggy, then I hesitated to ask her to make a new one as I knew she would never get such a great colour combination again. Sadly she is no more. She was like a sort of living museum experience. I went once to her flat for tea, and she made chips, then opened up a tin of salmon which we each had half of (cold). It was perfectly of her era! We even had Battenberg cake afterwards with a cup of tea

 

[SamScribble]

I went once to her flat for tea, and she made chips, then opened up a tin of salmon which we each had half of (cold). It was perfectly of her era! We even had Battenberg cake afterwards with a cup of tea

A feast, Honey! Cold tinned salmon with chips! The only thing that could have made it better would have been a few cold baked beans on the side.

 

[Handley_Page]

These people are only good for stories to entertain Ogg and HP I mean - Head of HR!!! What can you say.



I did have a tea cosy! It was made for me by the Fella's granny. She was living proof of the hypothesis that knitting helps you stay mentally balanced. She never did have very many marbles, but the few she had she still had at the end in her 90s

1] Please empty your Inbox !
2] what size Tea Cosy do you require ?

 

[NaokoSmith]

Brief Update

I miss you all, and I know people wonder how I am so I have come back briefly to let you know my news.
Sadly, it's quite difficult news. Mostly life is going OK. Too much work - but at least I have some. The politics of Higher Education in the UK becomes more and more asinine, but I can go and speak about it in my local Party meetings and they listen with great respect - which is nice.

At the start of the summer, my elderly mum had a severe stroke. Piglet and I caught the plane up and were in time to see her when she was still conscious. Although I am still a bit angry that my sister encouraged friends to go and spend hours with her, then she was tired out when Piglet and I went round.
My Dad is also still alive, although he is older than mum. He insisted on continuing to go and sing in his choir at a nearby medieval chapel, music drifting through the dusk over the wild garlic ... well, we all grieve in our own ways. (He is a terrible singer BTW.)
Poor mum did not survive the stroke. I was not there at the end as I felt it best to bring Piglet back home. Mum had lost consciousness and it was clear she might linger a while but wouldn't survive.

As you know my family could stand as a text book example of dysfunctional. So it will not surprise you that contrary to my wishes for a quiet family funeral, followed by a more social event later in the year, my sister organised a huge party. She invited lots of her friends whom she made rush around cooking food for the 60+ people she invited back after the funeral - as she said she couldn't afford to bring in caterers (then let's have a quiet family funeral with not many people? - oh no, stupid idea). She also said we couldn't afford cars for the family to go to the funeral, so we all had to go round begging lifts off people. (I only found this out when I arrived after a long day's travel, with my niece and the Fella - who kindly agreed to come, and Piglet.)

I was getting my nephew (with learning disability) ready as nobody else was doing it, and asked my brother-in-law to take the two of us, but at the last minute my sister phoned and told him off to fetch a neighbour from down the road. I was pushed into my cousin's car - she had to spread a towel on the front seat as it was all messy, and take a baby seat out the back so my nephew could squeeze in. I still cry when I think that I went to my mum's funeral like that. My cousin - who is infamous for being the most self-centred and insensitive person ever, was incredibly kind and said straight up how sorry she was, everything was being done in a terrible way - particularly for me. She looked out for me at the funeral, telling me to go out when they said they were bringing the coffin and my sister had just trooped out without me. (When I said to one of my other cousins that the funeral was so awful that I was grateful for this cousin's sympathy and understanding, she said: "Oh Gawd!")

There was lots more which I won't bore you with. One person at the party ... funeral actually came up to me and said: "You seem very upset."

People think the worst thing my sister did was to organise the cremation so that I had no opportunity to go. (It was on another day, not the day of the funeral.) She went on her own with my Dad and brother-in-law, and sent messages afterwards about how the flowers were not quite what she had wanted.

For me, the worst was when she came up an hour before the funeral and said she was going to the church. I thought she was going to ask me if I wanted to come and sit quietly, thinking of mum. Instead she said she was taking two other people to help her, and she waved her hand at the table covered in breakfast and lunch dishes left over by all the people she had invited, and said: "So could you clean up here."

Subsequently it turned out that I was mum's executor, along with my dad. My sister was not very pleased when she found this out. I went up to sort out some of mum's papers. My dad lay around on the sofa all day watching the football, and shouted at me, saying that I didn't have a plan to organise things and he was all on his own. I did have a plan - it was just that my sister was not sticking to it, and he had the two of us there who had also lost mum, so I was not very sympathetic to the grieving widower. (He had found a very small sum of cash mum had left, a few hundred pounds, which I was trying to get him to give to the grandchildren but in the end he said he had decided to spend it on wine - that is the kind of person he is, in case you think I was being unduly harsh on him. And if you think I should have saved my energy and not gone, the way things were being organised my brother was going to get everything, except that dad was planning to give mum's few pieces of jewellery to her friends and cleaning ladies who used to help the family ten years ago. I really wanted to make sure Piglet and I got a very few small personal items - mostly of no monetary value at all - to remember my mum by.)

I asked my sister to go for coffee or lunch with me and talk things over, not to apologise but to acknowledge how I felt about how things had been arranged. She refused saying she was too upset. (Her refusal hinted that others had said the funeral was not well organised, but that she couldn't understand why people were always being so mean to her and it was not her fault, whatever it was that I was complaining about.)

The upside is that I have no illusions any more about my sister, and that Piglet also sees her much more clearly. She has always been kind and generous to Piglet so Piglet was puzzled in the past as to why I didn't get on better with her. (I didn't like to explain that the little cow had taken my share of any inheritance from our parents, it seemed so awful.) I am polite to my sister because I want to go back to look out some family photos, but I never expect to be close to her again in our lives. At least when I tell people that she cut me out of mum's cremation they don't go: "Oh but it's FAMILY. You will be sorry if anything happens."

I told Piglet she doesn't have to invite my sister to my cremation!

I still of course have to spend time and energy on my family. There is a crisis with my niece in which everyone is behaving very badly, but I am keeping my distance. I have offered to do what I can and if they are too stupid to take my advice, I am getting on with my life, even though I feel very sorry for my niece who is being so badly let down by them all. She knows I am here for her if she wants my support.

So instead of spending time on my emotional drain of a sister, I started going to the livescreen cinema events like Ogg does with my friends here and our kids. We saw The Merry Wives of Windsor which was hilarious. Piglet and I started learning Japanese. We are watching Bake Off and Bake Off: The Professionals, which we love, and we bake biscuits and cakes too.

I have also done a lot more in my garden. Mum loved gardening. We used to go to visit gardens and garden centres together when I was in my teens. I used to cut out the gardening notes from the FT Weekend and send them to her. I do feel very sad, but I also enjoy digging the garden out, making grand designs for it and planting out small patches of salad and flowers which I can often pick up half price. I don't mind them being a bit brown at the edges, I know I can make them grow back again.

That pansy to the left: the white flushed with mauve, is called Rising Sun (I'm afraid I paid full price for that one.)

 

[Handley_Page]

Welcome back to the Lit fold, Naoko.

 

[curl4ever]

 

[TxRad]

Naoko! I told em to pay the ransom but who listens to me. I figured it was management who had you all tied up, not your sister. I have one of those that needs killing about every other day.

Condolences on the Mum.Memories are so much better than cold hard cash. They can keep you warm on a cold night.

Now, about this Welly garden you have going here. The pink boots are good, the red boots are backwards as in the right is on the left and so forth. What happened to the second purple one? There has to be a plot bunny there somewhere. And why is there only one short boot that looks like it had a blowout? Inquiring minds and all that.

 

[stickygirl]

The cat's name?
Phewee, families huh? I always used to think grown ups had everything figured out, but I've come realise quite the opposite is true, now that I am approaching grownuppery myself. Sorry for all the crap you've been through and nice that your man was there in support ( as well as to witness ). I'm sure that the important memories of your mum will in time be the ones that spring to mind: funerals are always crap, though dignified crap would be something.

 

[Handley_Page]

The cat's name?

I'm sure that the important memories of your mum will in time be the ones that spring to mind: funerals are always crap, though dignified crap would be something.

The trick is for Everyone to remember things with a dignified aire.
Disagreements should be kept apart, for After the event.
When that does not happen, the resulting bad humour will last a Very Long Time.

PS.
Good To see you, SG.

 

[NaokoSmith]

Hullo dahlinks
so grateful , it does make me feel better that other people see my family are insane - it's not me that is the loopy one. (That is how The Fambly make me feel.)

TX, I am looking out for a left boot to go with the right boot on the left of the door. The little boot is the first Welly Planter I made - from a Hello Kitty boot of Piglet's. I gave one to Piglet's other grandmother, therefore it is sacred and must be kept for evah! even though the Hello Kitty has faded off now. I planted it with a black hyacinth and an accidental violet planted itself in it too, it looks quite charming in spring

Sticky , my pussy is called Eowyn. The other one (the black one) is called 'Evil Killer Queen', or Lakhi if we are going to the vet's. I regret letting Piglet name the cats as I have to spell their names every time I make them an appointment. The vets always bring Evil Killer back saying 'sorry, we could not get near her to inspect her but we figure that means she is pretty healthy'

Check this out - only £5 on €bay
No no, only the apron - not the contents. As you all know, I am considerably more costly than £5 unfortunately! Wish I had 5p for every guy who has said I am "out of his league", I would be able to afford my own vintage champagne