Firms "struggling to find staff"

Reading articles like the following seriously nark me...

More than one in 10 employers struggle to fill staff vacancies despite the recession, a survey has shown.
Although unemployment has soared to more than 2.2 million, businesses say they are facing difficulties in recruiting people with the skills they need.
A total of 11% of employers polled in the Manpower Annual Talent Shortage Survey said they had problems recruiting the right staff, almost as many as the 12% the year before.
But Manpower said the figures were an improvement on 2007 and 2006 when 34% and 42% of employers complained of such difficulties.
Mark Cahill, managing director of Manpower UK, said: "Despite the highest levels of unemployment the UK has experienced for over a decade, employers are still struggling to recruit people with the skills they require.
"In this climate employers can afford to be very specific when looking to hire new staff and therefore companies are demanding more from employees.
"For example, a PA may now need to have accounting or language skills to be considered for a role when traditionally these skills would not have been essential to secure employment."
For the first time in the four years the survey has run, engineering positions were named the hardest to fill, followed by skilled trade, sales rep and management roles.
However, nurses dropped out of the top 10 trickiest roles to recruit, despite the NHS's need for specialists.
Manpower surveyed more than 2,000 UK employers in late January for the survey.
Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2009, All Rights Reserved.

I like the bit about "employers can afford to be very specific when looking to hire new staff". I suppose what this means is to obtain an interview you already have to be doing this job or have done this job... but hang on a minute! Doesn't this mean to have already or currently be doing the same job you would have had to be interviewed etc... and unless you hadn't already had been doing that job you wouldn't have passed that interview. In other words it is f*cking impossible to have that specific experience. RETARDS!!!

Rant over.

Good grief...

Good job he didn't see me...

£14 each... you gotta be joking!

The Talk of Torquay!

N and I spent the bankholiday weekend down on the "English Riveria" at the seaside resort of Torquay - a town which I have visited twice previously in my 41 years. Once in the mid-seventies and once in the late eighties and to be honest from what I can remember it hasn't changed a great deal. The one new thing you notice when you arrive on the seafront is the addition of a bloody great helium-filled tethered balloon which for the extortionate fee of £14 each takes you up a couple of hundred feet into the air and presumably gives you a panoramic view of Torbay. I say "presumably" because we didn't go up on it!

Now a vital part of any weekend away is dinner and our first night's evening meal was eaten at a superb fish restaurant called Sea Spray. John Dory's all round and it was excellent.

Sunday we caught the ferry across the bay to Brixham and had a wander around the harbour for a couple of hours before making the return journey back to Torquay. Dinner this time was at The Mariners restaurant which although good was not quite in the same league at the previous night's. What marred things a little bit were the waitresses who were either very aloud or abrupt or forgetful or all three.

But... what I want to share with you are a couple of photos taken in Torquay of what I despise of most about my fellow countrymen. Shaven headed, football shirtwearing, tattooed, lowlifes... and that is just the women...

MP for St Albans is at it...

"Also published in the Telegraph are financial details of the Tory MP for St Albans, Anne Main.
The paper alleges she spent £40,000 on a second home in St Albans, where her daughter Claire lives, about 25 miles from her family's detached main home in Beaconsfield.
It also claims that public records show Mrs Main's daughter has lived at the property rent-free for up to three years.

Mrs Main told the paper she had done nothing wrong." -- BBC website

"Done nothing wrong"??? The one thing this expenses row has shown is that the majority of MP's don't give a f*ck about anything apart from lining their own pockets with taxpayer's money. I wonder what the Euro MEP's are like?

Rant over.

Irritating Internet Adverts...

Have you noticed those annoying animated adverts on the Internet?... You know the ones where there is some video footage of some prat standing there waiting for you to direct your mouse pointer towards them and then they breakout into the actual advert. What cretin came up with that idea? The most repulsive one I have unfortunately glimpsed was some hairy-arsed moron dressed up in drag. It was so vile that I had to click away from the website article I was reading (it was AICN before anyone makes a comment!)

The other ads that wind me up are the ones where suddenly the image expands half way across the screen and obliterates what you are looking at. Idiotic.

Rant over.

Tevez

Hit with an "ugly stick"? More like an "ugly sledgehammer"...

Rant over.

Good old Lembit!...

"Mr Opik has claimed a total of £68,031 for the flat since 2004. Last year, he claimed £12,655 for extensive renovation work. This included a new kitchen, repainting throughout and the installation of wooden flooring in his bedroom.
In a note to the fees office, Mr Opik said the flat was “turning into a bit of a maintenance disaster”.
After being asked by an official whether all the work was strictly necessary, Mr Opik wrote another long letter.
“I’ve genuinely tried to minimise the cost of the work. The builders are coming down from the North, and staying IN MY FLAT to save more money,” he said.
While most of the work was approved, claims for garden decking and removing a wall between his kitchen and the living room were rejected. " The Daily Telegraph website

Didn't just know he would be one of the culprits of the expenses row! PRAT!!

Rant over.

Gym Rant!

What narks me is when you have finished "working out" at the gym and some middle-aged gibbon who has been playing squash leaves his crap all over the bench - not even bothering to move anything when you clearly need a little bit of space. Then said gibbon wanders off to the sauna and leaves it still strewn all over. So what I did (making sure no one was about) was chuck one of the ape's trainers in a random locker and close the door. Serves the d*ckhead right!

Rant over.

Vacancy for Luton South?

I am not going to bang on about the subject of MP's expense claims... but I really thought it beggared belief that Margaret Moran, MP for Luton South was angry that she was being vilified for making expense claims of £70,000 plus over the last five years. Is this exploiting, moneygrabbing, b*tch for real? Words simply fail me on this one! And as for that prat - The Speaker. Jeezus... these people hold the tax-paying public in total contempt.

Rant over.

Star Trek

You know what?... I actually think Star Trek was disappointing after all the hype. It felt like they had tried to splice old Trek with a little bit of Star Wars and a large dollop of Battlestar Galactica (the recent series that is). Shaky cam, silent bits in space, whoosh into hyperspace (warp). I've seen this before and it was BSG. Chris Pine played Kirk a bit too over the top on the hellraising, take a chance, Jack-the-lad character. Zachary Quinto did a good impersonation of Leonard Nimoy (although when Nimoy appeared he outgunned everyone else). Simon Pegg was the comedy relief and to be honest I thought he was crap. Chekov - likewise with an over-the-top Russian accent was irritating. Karl Urban as McCoy was excellent and for me (apart from Nimoy) was the best one in it. But no one really got enough time for their characters to develop. The story was a trifle limp. I hated the Romulan ship and what was all the platforms in it which you had to jump about on with no hand rails. In fact the Romulans reminded me of the convicts in Alien 3... all shaven heads and tattoos and acting badass. I liked the effects and the Enterprise looked great from the outside... but what was all the 20th century pipework about? Looked like they had filmed it inside a factory somewhere.

I initially texted MCE a rating of 8/10. But on reflection I want to reduce my rating to 7/10.
So there you go...

Rating: 7/10

What happened to Craig David?...

I was reading today's Blog of Note just now - which was some sh*te written by some girl in the States somewhere. Banging on about so-called Hollywood celebrities who are "cute", "hot" and "adorable" (puke) also drivelling on about her fiance (why is this a Blog of Note?). Anyway I digress. She had a pic of herself with Craig David. Remember him? "We were making love on Friday, Saturday and Sunday" b*ll*cks if I recall. What happened to him? He was there - being all successful and then... he disappeared. Can't say as I'm sorry though as he was crap!

Rant over.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

I really enjoyed the first two X-Men films but thought the third instalment X-Men: The Last Stand was utter pants!

This fourth film in the series is a prequel and as you might guess details the early life of Wolverine and features how he acquired his Adamantium skeleton. It is fairly entertaining but I certainly wouldn't call it a great film. Hugh Jackman is as great as ever and Liev Shreiber is excellent as Sabre Tooth but everyone else is pretty characterless. The whole film although filled with a lot of action feels rather underwhelming and it doesn't feel very original. Maybe better to see on DVD rather than bothering to see it at the cinema.

Rating: 6.75 / 10

Swine Flu

I see the WHO stated that you cannot catch "Swine Flu" from pork... then you read what Egypt's precautions are:

Egypt
A cull has been ordered of all pigs in the country. The animals are mainly eaten by members of the Coptic Christian minority in the largely Muslim state.
Experts say the flu cannot be caught from eating pig meat, and there is no scientific rationale for slaughtering pigs or banning pork.
The authorities have increased numbers of medical staff at Cairo airport to check passengers arriving from Mexico and will monitor them during their stay. -- BBC website

RETARDS!!!

Rant over.