Paul Brownjohn @Paulos_the_fog@qoto.org

@emsquared

"Georgio" was about as subtle as a punch on the nose! So much so, that some restaurants actually refused to serve would be diners who wore it, as its extreme pungency, the management decided, would interfere with other diner's enjoyment of their subtly flavoured meals.

I have a mild sensitivity to some of the ingredients used in perfumery, so staying in the basement at Fragonard whilst people drenched themselves in perfume would have triggered streaming eyes and possibly a massive sneezing fit in me! I used to stand outside having a cigarette and only dive back in to collect my commission (it was one of the big earners on that gig - a 20% commission on all perfumery sales!). Just as well, as couriers we were paid £20 for a weekend's work so the commission on perfume sales and on tickets for the "Bateaux-mouches" on the Seine were the major earners for us.

There were usually between 6 and 10 coaches waiting for us at Dover (the couriers only joined the tours at Dover) and of the couriers, I was the only one who spoke French meaning that whenever there was any trouble between our passengers and the authorities or 'commerçants' I was always the one called upon to sort it out! On one occasion an entire coach load of Sun readers walked out of the café where they had just eaten breakfast without paying. They allegedly thought that breakfast was included in the £5 that they had paid for a weekend in Paris! Fortunately the lady who ran the café ran out of the café waving her arms just in time for me to stop their coach from pulling away. (it wasn't my coach).

@emsquared

Some years ago - for my sins - I used to be a courier taking parties of Sun readers to Paris for the weekend.

One of the stops on the Paris tour was the museum of perfumery at the HQ of parfumiers Fragonard at Paris Opéra.

At the end of the tour all the punters were shown into a rather claustrophobic perfume shop in the basement where they would be madly spraying themselves with samplers of the dozens of perfumes that Fragonard offered. Not only did they do their own range but they also cloned all the popular perfumes from other perfume houses. At the time Giorgio Beverly Hills for women was THE perfume and so the basement of Fragonard absolutely stank of that overwhelmingly un-subtle scent!

Thanks to an astonishingly cack-handed technician drawing blood at my local blood-testing clinic I now have two massive bruises; one in the crotch of each elbow where he attempted with very little success, to get two vials of blood out my body! In the end the useless twat had to go for a vein in my hand to discharge his vampirely duties.

I now look like a incompetent intravenous drug abuser!

@petergleick

Yeeees - that is the sort of legacy many white south Africans like the Muskrat would be extremely proud of!

@TenebrisNox
Most people in the UK don't have a lot of choice. If you're employed, your tax gets deducted and there is precious little you can do about it! There's not even a deduction for mortgage interest any more!

@TenebrisNox

In my time as a computer contractor, I worked for several outfits that had been recently sold off into the private sector, namely The National Grid, British Rail Business Systems and British Airways. In fact BRBS was sold to the SEMA group during my contract there.

Commonalities between them were absolutely massive overmanning and poor management to the point of rank incompetence (in my humble opinion)!

Having also worked in France, I was aware that the nationalized industries there have a reputation for efficiency and excellent management. I wonder the problem lies in the management in the nationalized industries in the UK being paid an absolute pittance compared to similar positions the private sector, for the privilege of a job for life and a 'good' pension (nothing like as good as the ordinary basic state pension where I live in Luxembourg, but hey!).

Anyone have an opinion of this?

@peterbrown @ChrisMayLA6

I worked for the National Grid (plc?) in Guildford shortly after they were sold off into the private sector. What an absolute shower of shit they were!

@harmonycorrupted

I don't really have an opinion on the rights and wrongs of paid-for-sex and I have never myself used such a service (I almost feel 'unmanly' by admitting that I have never paid for sex) but it is interesting that, so far as I understand the situation, Germany has gone for the fully legal route with fully legal brothels and a degree of protection for the (wo)men in them. Whereas Sweden, again if I understand the situation correctly, has made the user of such services liable for criminal prosecution but lifted the threat of prosecution from the service vendor.

As per usual, the situation in my homeland , the UK, is an total fückin screw up!

@ChrisMayLA6

Yes, I'm assuming the stumbling block is that the EU will not want to be seen to be making concessions without getting a massive benefit in return so...

Quite right too!

@JL_Lycette

Yeah - I myself have prostate cancer and have therefore done a fair bit of research on the subject. From what I can make out, it is probably the most treatable cancer and although he is unfortunate to have the most invasive type, that doesn't mean he is doomed to die of it imminently or indeed at all!

@Julius_VD @lyndamerry484

Yes - Starmer is quite the most fückin useless Labour PM of my lifetime and the most useless Labour leader of my lifetime aside from Corbyn and Foot!

I don't understand why Labour can't understand that at the next general election, they will lose if they don't start behaving like a Labour government rather than a tory one!