27 February 2009
26 February 2009
Fred Goodwin is an Utter Scumbag
Wouldn't normally comment on this sort of thing but I have to say the man is beyond morals.
He was largely responsible for the demise of the Royal Bank of Scotland in the UK. While he was at the helm, he oversaw the gross inflation, followed by the subsequent burst and total collapse of the bank. This was the biggest ever corporate loss in UK history, 24 billion UKP. He was sacked at he end of last year, but here is the good bit... he will continue to get 695 thousand pounds a year (that's 7 million nok) pension. That's comparable to the full time salary of 20 bank clerks, who having lost their jobs because of him are now probably getting 60 quid a week dole.
The guy has shown no remorse and now the wanker is upset when the government suggest that he might forgo his huge payout. His refusal and arrogance proves he has no sense of consequence and cares about nothing but satisfying his own greed. Utter scumbag.
I have no problem with rewarding success, if you create wealth and jobs you should share the benefit but, at the same time when you fuck up you should pay the price.
If you drove a bus and crashed through gross negligence you would go to jail. I see no difference, this smug cunt caused an even worse crash that has affected thousands of people directly and millions indirectly and he has shown no remorse. He deserves to be behind bars.
He was largely responsible for the demise of the Royal Bank of Scotland in the UK. While he was at the helm, he oversaw the gross inflation, followed by the subsequent burst and total collapse of the bank. This was the biggest ever corporate loss in UK history, 24 billion UKP. He was sacked at he end of last year, but here is the good bit... he will continue to get 695 thousand pounds a year (that's 7 million nok) pension. That's comparable to the full time salary of 20 bank clerks, who having lost their jobs because of him are now probably getting 60 quid a week dole.
The guy has shown no remorse and now the wanker is upset when the government suggest that he might forgo his huge payout. His refusal and arrogance proves he has no sense of consequence and cares about nothing but satisfying his own greed. Utter scumbag.
I have no problem with rewarding success, if you create wealth and jobs you should share the benefit but, at the same time when you fuck up you should pay the price.
If you drove a bus and crashed through gross negligence you would go to jail. I see no difference, this smug cunt caused an even worse crash that has affected thousands of people directly and millions indirectly and he has shown no remorse. He deserves to be behind bars.
Another great weekend of winter action
Last weekend we had a visit from Katharine's brother Rik and friend Adam. We headed up to Hemsedal and our favorite cabins, right on the edge of the ski slopes at Vestestølen. We were accompanied by Cecelie and a possi from Bergen.
Drive up on Friday was fine, got there pretty quick. A quick discussion about whether we needed snow chains to get up the final hill which of course we didn't, just a bit of sliding around - snow chains are for the weak!
Saturday we boarded and skied. the place was pretty busy but we headed over the back and found a few quiet spots. Not a huge amount of fresh snow but still a fun day which finished with with afterski at the bottom of the slopes and then a trip to the ever mad Cafe Hemsedal.
Cafe Hemsedal on a saturday night is an absolute nut house. Tonnes of very drunk people all having an extremly good time. Great atmosphere, great music, mad dancing, lots of drinking... You look around and it feels like 1.30 in the morning in some crazy club and then you look at your watch and realise its 7pm! I love it there. We even run into some of the guys who were in Utah with us last year.
After that we had a pizza and headed back for an earlish night since it was snowing and we anticpated a full powder day on Sunday. Sunday had a bit of fresh stuff but not as much as anticpated, but at least the crowds had gone (not sure where). Another good, blue sky, off piste day before we headed back to drink the rest of the duty free wine that the guys had brought across. Some swift mobile phone action on the way back saved us from the tedious norwegian police and their ever, busy revenue generating speed traps. If it wasn't so expensive you could just right them off as childish tossers they are. Anyway once more we evaded them.
The gusy had to leave at 5am (groan) the next morning and we had a moment of excitment when Adam got to the airport and realised his passport was back at the lair, fortunatly there was just enough time to get it to him. You have to love the relaxed attitude at Bergen airport, so much more civilised than Heathrow etc.
Another awesome weekend, this winter has been a belter and its Åre next weekend!
Drive up on Friday was fine, got there pretty quick. A quick discussion about whether we needed snow chains to get up the final hill which of course we didn't, just a bit of sliding around - snow chains are for the weak!
Saturday we boarded and skied. the place was pretty busy but we headed over the back and found a few quiet spots. Not a huge amount of fresh snow but still a fun day which finished with with afterski at the bottom of the slopes and then a trip to the ever mad Cafe Hemsedal.
Cafe Hemsedal on a saturday night is an absolute nut house. Tonnes of very drunk people all having an extremly good time. Great atmosphere, great music, mad dancing, lots of drinking... You look around and it feels like 1.30 in the morning in some crazy club and then you look at your watch and realise its 7pm! I love it there. We even run into some of the guys who were in Utah with us last year.
After that we had a pizza and headed back for an earlish night since it was snowing and we anticpated a full powder day on Sunday. Sunday had a bit of fresh stuff but not as much as anticpated, but at least the crowds had gone (not sure where). Another good, blue sky, off piste day before we headed back to drink the rest of the duty free wine that the guys had brought across. Some swift mobile phone action on the way back saved us from the tedious norwegian police and their ever, busy revenue generating speed traps. If it wasn't so expensive you could just right them off as childish tossers they are. Anyway once more we evaded them.
The gusy had to leave at 5am (groan) the next morning and we had a moment of excitment when Adam got to the airport and realised his passport was back at the lair, fortunatly there was just enough time to get it to him. You have to love the relaxed attitude at Bergen airport, so much more civilised than Heathrow etc.
Another awesome weekend, this winter has been a belter and its Åre next weekend!
20 February 2009
Friday Joke - Job with the mafia
The mafia had an opening for a hitman . After all the background checks, interviews and testing were done, there were 3 finalists; two men and a woman.
For the final test, the mafia agent took one of the men to a large metal door and handed him a gun.
'We must know that you will follow your instructions no matter what the circumstances. Inside the room you will find your wife sitting in a chair .. . . kill her!!'
The man said, 'You can't be serious. I could never shoot my wife.'
The agent said, 'Then you're not the right man for this job. Take your wife and go home.'
The second man was given the same instructions. He took the gun and went into the room. All was quiet for about 5 minutes.
The man came out with tears in his eyes, 'I tried, but I can't kill my wife.'
The agent said, 'You don't have what it takes. Take your wife and go home.'
Finally, it was the woman's turn. She was given the same instructions, to kill her husband. She took the gun and went into the room. Shots were heard, one after another. They heard screaming, crashing, banging on the walls. After a few minutes, all was quiet. The door opened slowly and there stood the woman, wiping the sweat from her brow.
'This gun is loaded with blanks' she said. 'I had to beat him to death with the damn chair.'
For the final test, the mafia agent took one of the men to a large metal door and handed him a gun.
'We must know that you will follow your instructions no matter what the circumstances. Inside the room you will find your wife sitting in a chair .. . . kill her!!'
The man said, 'You can't be serious. I could never shoot my wife.'
The agent said, 'Then you're not the right man for this job. Take your wife and go home.'
The second man was given the same instructions. He took the gun and went into the room. All was quiet for about 5 minutes.
The man came out with tears in his eyes, 'I tried, but I can't kill my wife.'
The agent said, 'You don't have what it takes. Take your wife and go home.'
Finally, it was the woman's turn. She was given the same instructions, to kill her husband. She took the gun and went into the room. Shots were heard, one after another. They heard screaming, crashing, banging on the walls. After a few minutes, all was quiet. The door opened slowly and there stood the woman, wiping the sweat from her brow.
'This gun is loaded with blanks' she said. 'I had to beat him to death with the damn chair.'
17 February 2009
Feeding the rat
He lives inside my brain, most of the time he sleeps and I often forget that he is even there. He only wakes up when he is hungry, but when he does it's chaos. He gnaws away at my brain desperate to be fed. So long as he is awake and hungry there is no chance to live a normal life, all of my focus shifts to satisfying his apatite.
The rat lives on a mixture of fear, adrenaline and the endorphins that come from hard physical labour. His preferred feast comes when I am climbing steep, technical ice. In the summer months he sleeps and snacks on the more meager rations that come from climbing rock. However, winter is his feast time. He responds to the shortening days and cold weather, awakening from his summer hibernation in late November. Initially, his gentle scratching makes me browse the weather on the internet, glancing at the temperature in the mountains. Each morning as I drive to work I involuntarily look up at the water fall that hangs above the town. Is it frozen yet? How fat is it?
As he gets more hungry I start to pay more and more attention to the weather. Conversations while driving to ski in the mountains are interrupted by pregnant pauses as another frozen waterfall, high on a hillside come into view and I try to see a line, is it connected all the way? How easy is it to get to the base? Walk off or ab the route? How many pitches? Eventually his constant agitation is too much, I have to feed him or there will be no peace.
So I submit and start to sort out the gear, 10 BD screws and some crappy Russian ones, 12 extenders, a couple of slings, a rack of wires and a krab of old pegs. The pegs and wires never seem to get used, but they comfort me and remind me of past days winter mountaineering in Scotland. The clanking on the gear wakes the rat and he is quickly alert. He is clearly agitated by the small spots of rust on the scarped metal of the picks and crampon spikes. I feel mildly guilty and try to rub the rust away, but it is too late and it reminds him of the neglect that he has endured.
We head to the hills. There are no guide books here, just driving around and looking up. We stop and stare at a hillside, trying to judge how do-able a frozen fall is. Now he is going wild he is scrapping and scratching, screaming at me to get on with it. It's a Pavlovian response and his gastric juices are flowing driving both him and I to distraction. I know I must battle his urges, control him so that what we try is both achievable and satisfying. Some low angle, dripping piece of choss will just leave him hungry for more, while something too steep, climbed without due consideration will result in failure. But he is a simple soul who ignores the fact that he needs me to feed him - driving me to injury or worse will be his own demise. But he doesn't understand or doesn’t chose to care, he is starving and he just wants to eat now.
We pick a line, two maybe three pitches, sitting up on the hillside and start to walk up through the snow. The approach to an ice route is a cyclic process. Firstly I look from a distance and thinking the route seems easy. As I gets closer it seems to get steeper and harder. Then just before the bottom it looks easy again, not vertical with some good rests along the way. I feel good while I gear up and its all going well until I stand directly beneath it, axes in hand and look up again - all off a sudden it looks very, very steep and the adrenaline starts to pump, and I begin to doubt if I can actually climb this and wonder why I am here...
I swing the first axe and it makes a satisfying low thump as it sinks into the ice, the second follows suit out to the left. Then I kick my right foot in and pull up...
The rat goes wild as he starts to feed!
The rat lives on a mixture of fear, adrenaline and the endorphins that come from hard physical labour. His preferred feast comes when I am climbing steep, technical ice. In the summer months he sleeps and snacks on the more meager rations that come from climbing rock. However, winter is his feast time. He responds to the shortening days and cold weather, awakening from his summer hibernation in late November. Initially, his gentle scratching makes me browse the weather on the internet, glancing at the temperature in the mountains. Each morning as I drive to work I involuntarily look up at the water fall that hangs above the town. Is it frozen yet? How fat is it?
As he gets more hungry I start to pay more and more attention to the weather. Conversations while driving to ski in the mountains are interrupted by pregnant pauses as another frozen waterfall, high on a hillside come into view and I try to see a line, is it connected all the way? How easy is it to get to the base? Walk off or ab the route? How many pitches? Eventually his constant agitation is too much, I have to feed him or there will be no peace.
So I submit and start to sort out the gear, 10 BD screws and some crappy Russian ones, 12 extenders, a couple of slings, a rack of wires and a krab of old pegs. The pegs and wires never seem to get used, but they comfort me and remind me of past days winter mountaineering in Scotland. The clanking on the gear wakes the rat and he is quickly alert. He is clearly agitated by the small spots of rust on the scarped metal of the picks and crampon spikes. I feel mildly guilty and try to rub the rust away, but it is too late and it reminds him of the neglect that he has endured.
We head to the hills. There are no guide books here, just driving around and looking up. We stop and stare at a hillside, trying to judge how do-able a frozen fall is. Now he is going wild he is scrapping and scratching, screaming at me to get on with it. It's a Pavlovian response and his gastric juices are flowing driving both him and I to distraction. I know I must battle his urges, control him so that what we try is both achievable and satisfying. Some low angle, dripping piece of choss will just leave him hungry for more, while something too steep, climbed without due consideration will result in failure. But he is a simple soul who ignores the fact that he needs me to feed him - driving me to injury or worse will be his own demise. But he doesn't understand or doesn’t chose to care, he is starving and he just wants to eat now.
We pick a line, two maybe three pitches, sitting up on the hillside and start to walk up through the snow. The approach to an ice route is a cyclic process. Firstly I look from a distance and thinking the route seems easy. As I gets closer it seems to get steeper and harder. Then just before the bottom it looks easy again, not vertical with some good rests along the way. I feel good while I gear up and its all going well until I stand directly beneath it, axes in hand and look up again - all off a sudden it looks very, very steep and the adrenaline starts to pump, and I begin to doubt if I can actually climb this and wonder why I am here...
I swing the first axe and it makes a satisfying low thump as it sinks into the ice, the second follows suit out to the left. Then I kick my right foot in and pull up...
The rat goes wild as he starts to feed!
16 February 2009
Extended winter fun weekend
Had three old friends from the UK visiting last weekend. Simon, Mike and Dave came to climb ice, drink beer, and catch up. They flew in to a snow storm on Thursday evening arriving at 1.30am, two hours late. Getting to bed at 3am we had a bit of a late start on Friday morning when we headed towards Voss and climbed in a new spot called Bergensdalen. The weather was stunning blue skies and there was a fair bit of fresh snow.
There was even ice outside the window of the Lair and the fjord was frozen
We found the valley almost by accident and traipsed up through the woods to the hillside. The trek up was not as bad as I had imagined although Dave pointed out that was because I wasn't breaking trail! Got to the bottom of a very nice looking route, two pitches, just off vertical in the first and a bit more broken up in the upper. Dave opted to lead the first pitch which turned out to be much steeper and more sustained than it looked - a great lead. I followed up and then ticked off the top pitch while Simon relaxed at the base and Mike took some amazing photos. I topped out just as the sun set and we scurried back to the car and drove to Hemsdal, bumping into Katharine, Cecilie and Lyndsey in Voss.
Me cranking steep ice in Bergensdalen (Photo c. Mike Hutton)
Dave topping out as the sunsets on an awesome day
Simon "I'm in semi-retirement" Dale
Cabin near Hemsedal, note the very scary looking WI6 in the background
Rich (top) and Sandy (bottom) on some great steep ice near Gol. Temperture -12c
Because the obvious warm-up (is that the correct term when its -15?) was taken I opted for a mixed line which turned out to be fairly easy, despite the fact that the ice was very brittle and there was a gnarly step sideways at the top. Then moved on to a steep line straight up the main fall. Wasn't sure if I could do it, but doing something seemed better than freezing to death and in the end it went fine. Pretty sustained but fairly straight forward. The day wore on, everyone except "Simon, I am in temporary retirement", ticked a few routes in between standing around and shivering and chatting. A good day and a good spot to know about - but bloody cold.
Dangerous stuff this ice climbing lark
Headed back to the cabin and meet up with the ladies who had been skiing. A big chilli was made and a considerable amount of wine was consumed. At one point a bottle was being opened every ten minutes! Eventually we stumbled off to bed.
An evening of fine food and wine
Rjukenfoss near Hemsedal. Ice fun for everyone
Then we headed back to the Big B. Driving conditions were pretty crappy and it was carnage on the roads with all sorts of cars in ditches, up hedges, in gardens etc. We had a few slides but nothing to bad, making it back in time for an evening of extreme sports vids.
By Monday both Dave and I felt opted to abuse all the fresh powder that had fallen. Drove to Myrkdalen and Simon and Mike headed to climb ice while we went to the ski centre. Had an awesome day of fresh powder and absolutely no people, except a small group of Japanese (how odd is that?) who predictably never went off piste. The weather was pretty shitte as was the visibility, but the powder was excellent and we carved it up, hardly stopping all day and grabbing the last t-bar with jelly like legs.
...and after the climbing they went and played in the snow - day at Myrkdalen
The boys stayed at the lair while I went to work on Tuesday and then headed back Tuesday eve. It was great to see them and great to climb ice. Found some excellent new locations, did some good lines and I can safely say that the rat is fed and back in his box, at least for a couple of weeks.
13 February 2009
Friday Joke - Its still fun to bash Bush
George Bush has a heart attack and dies. Obviously he goes to hell, where the Devil is waiting for him.
'I'm not sure what to do,' says the Devil. 'You're on my list, but I have no room for you. As you definitely have to stay here, I'm going to have to let someone else go. I've got three folks here who weren't quite as bad as you. I'll let one of them go, but you have to take their place. Since it's all a bit messed up I'll even let you decide who's place you take.'
George thought that sounded ok, so he agreed.
The Devil opened the first room. In it were Richard Nixon and a large pool of hot water.He kept diving in and climbing out, over and over. Such was his fate in hell.
'No!' said George. 'I don't think so, I'm not a good swimmer and don't think I could stay in hot water all day.'
The Devil led him to the next room. In it was Tony Blair with a sledgehammer and a room full of rocks. All he did was swing the hammer, breaking rocks all day every day.
No! I've got this problem with my shoulder. I would be in constant agony if all I could do was break rocks all day.' commented George.
The Devil opened the third door. In it, George saw Bill Clinton lying on the floor with his arms staked over his head, and his legs staked in a spread-eagle pose. Bent over him was Monica Lewinsky, doing what she does best.
George Bush looked at this in disbelief for a while, and finally said 'Yeah, I can handle this.'
The Devil smiled and said, 'OK, Monica, you're free to go!'
'I'm not sure what to do,' says the Devil. 'You're on my list, but I have no room for you. As you definitely have to stay here, I'm going to have to let someone else go. I've got three folks here who weren't quite as bad as you. I'll let one of them go, but you have to take their place. Since it's all a bit messed up I'll even let you decide who's place you take.'
George thought that sounded ok, so he agreed.
The Devil opened the first room. In it were Richard Nixon and a large pool of hot water.He kept diving in and climbing out, over and over. Such was his fate in hell.
'No!' said George. 'I don't think so, I'm not a good swimmer and don't think I could stay in hot water all day.'
The Devil led him to the next room. In it was Tony Blair with a sledgehammer and a room full of rocks. All he did was swing the hammer, breaking rocks all day every day.
No! I've got this problem with my shoulder. I would be in constant agony if all I could do was break rocks all day.' commented George.
The Devil opened the third door. In it, George saw Bill Clinton lying on the floor with his arms staked over his head, and his legs staked in a spread-eagle pose. Bent over him was Monica Lewinsky, doing what she does best.
George Bush looked at this in disbelief for a while, and finally said 'Yeah, I can handle this.'
The Devil smiled and said, 'OK, Monica, you're free to go!'
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