About Me

My photo
I never wanted to be a fitter and I didn’t even know what a fitter was or did, until it was too late. The story of how I came to be one can be seen on my website: www.calvertonfitter.com After 45 years in industry working on such diverse things as aeroplanes and textile machinery I thought it would be a good idea to start a blog and to share some of the things that I've seen and done. Some of the posts are funny and some are sad. Some are political and some are about racism. Hopefully you will find them all interesting, and even entertaining!

My Favourite Posts

Some of MY favourite posts include: The Congo, Deltic (3 posts), On the Buses, The Bus Drivers Story, Classical Music and Sherry, Working in Karachi 1988, Going to Karachi 1988 (hilarious), Broken Mug, Tilbury (4 posts).





Thursday 26 February 2009

Meanwhile, Back at Work.

My, I did have a little go at Tenerife in my last post didn't I? There was an upside though, other than not being at work, and that was sitting by the pool reading an absolutely fabulous thriller. It was my birthday present from dear daughter called The Girl Who Played With Fire, by Stieg Larsson. Its the second in a trilogy and I just can't wait for the final one next year. A film is currently being made of it.

Meanwhile back at work, with my colleague, we managed to complete the assembly of a new prototype coupling to be used on undersea oil wells. We also moved factories, mostly while I was in Tenerife, sometimes I get my timing spot on.

Tomorrow is official opening day and non other than George Osbourne is coming to pump flesh and kiss any babies who might just happen to be lying around. So its clean clothes, a smile, finger food and champers for us all.

Monday 23 February 2009

Tenerife

I've just had a week in Tenerife and can honestly say that I'm glad to be back at work. I've discovered that there are Gods, lots of them and they are called salesmen. Timeshare salesmen, holiday club salesmen, bow down and worship for they have changed the landscape of the island.

We were in Sunningdale Village at a place called Golf Del Sur which is close to Los Abrigos, at last a genuine name. It was a circle of apartments surrounding a swimming pool and was in turn half surrounded by similar property, while the rest of the view was abandoned building sites and tower cranes stretching down to the coast- with- no- beach. Even the pool was cold, I only went in once, then abandoned it to the kids.

Current cost to stay in delightful places like this is about £14,000, then there are upgrades to 'gold', another £5000, and to 'diamond' another five grand, and lets not forget the annual maintenance fee of £1500. What you get is the right to holiday there for you and your children's lifetime. Poor sods, what have they ever done to deserve such a fate?

Gazing inland up the slopes of the volcano I could see what I believed to be actual Spanish villages clinging to the slopes of rocky outcrops, but I was wrong. They were more Holiday Club 'villages'. OK, so mountain goats need holidays too.

At the top of one 'village' was a wedding-cake/candyfloss type villa which the rep/salesbastard was proud to tell us was owned by Mr Beniton himself with his 'little red Ferrari'. And everybody smiled!!!

I've just blown 1 week of my precious holidays on this shit so I feel very low at the moment and need a course of hypnotism to make me forget. I don't think I'll ever forget though that the food was so bad I once parted with £7.50 for a double mac at Burger King as a pleasant change.
crazy, crazy, crazy.

Wednesday 11 February 2009

Birthday, Books and Bankers.

What I didn't mention about my birthday in the previous post is that among my presents were two great books from my daughter; a John Grisham, The Associate, and the real winner; Stieg Larsons, The Girl Who Played With Fire. I can hardly wait to get by the pool and start reading.

One of the days news stories is that its OK to eat as many eggs as you want unlike previous advice that 2 or 3 a week should be the limit. I must have gone through my life in a daydream because I've never heard of this limit before. Mind you, I've never been a twenty a day man!

Another top story is about the Banker who was sacked for warning that the banks were overextending themselves and taking too much risk. The Tories manage to make so much political capital out of the financial crisis that its sometimes hard to remember that they are all a bunch of Tories that got us into this pickle and many pay £50000 a year to be members of the Leader Group which gives them access to David Cameron. What word does Banker rhyme with?

Bugger it, I'm off on Holiday on Friday.

Monday 9 February 2009

Birthday

My brain feels fried and I can't concentrate much on the old blog with so much happening at work and so much to learn.

I did have a birthday at weekend though and it was decided to take me to theTrafford Centre to finish off our holiday shopping and have a meal at our favouriteItalian Restuarant. I needed it as well because it just aint no joke trailing round that place, I was well knackered.

Next stop was a family getogether, there are 3 of us with our birthdays within a couple of days of each other so we swop prezzies and have a drink every year and this time a Wii was in use and much fun was had by most. I say most because in all this running around I was the driver and never got a drink. Oh, I am in a grim mood.

It doesn't help too much that on Friday we fly to Tenerife for a week. The problem is that we have been persuded to go with relatives who are supplying the accomodation and all we need is the airfare. Trouble is that its half-term and the airfare cost is the same as other weeks with a 4* hotel thrown in. I just love being ripped off.

Monday 2 February 2009

Upsidedown Flag

Work's proving to be a bit of a headache as I try to understand the new design valve and try to take over the job completely. Its whats expected-there's no hiding place.

I had to smile at the news tonight, no not the snow, I'm referring to the Chinese Premier, old Whatshisname, over here for trade talks, and saviour of the country (this one) by doubling exports.
That is to say that China's economy will be salvaged by them importing from us and ours will be saved by exporting to them. Damn, I'm sure there's something wrong there somewhere.

The really funny bit for me was the signing of the trade agreement (whatever that is) at a posh desk with the Chinese and British flags in miniature stuck in the middle. The Union Flag was upside down, a phenomena I keep seeing on our TV screens. How can they get it wrong at such an event? Now I haven't flown a flag since my boy scout days but I do remember which way up it goes and that an inverted flag is a distress signal. Oh.... I get it.