Grumble, walk into alehouse greeted, Hi Gary - we don't have any breakfast today.

Do you think they can scramble some eggs? Change hash browns to fries, know you have bacon and fruit for the lunch menu.
Glory, they have breakfast.

ROFL, food is food.

Breakfast Had to Adapt to what I thought they could do, knew I wasn't getting eggs Benedict. Breakfast cook didn't show so the kitchen wasn't prepared. Everything other than the eggs is part of something on the lunch menu.

Yeah I guess they only have x different things stuff prepared, depending what's most popular that time of day. Although if you go to a British restaurant you have to wait over half an hour, because nothing is made in advance! I waited 20 minutes in one then left, telling them why. They were rather upset as the food had nearly been cooked. Their problem.

I don't mind waiting if 1. I know I will have to wait when I order and 2. The food is worth waiting for.

Yeah I guess they only have x different things stuff prepared, depending what's most popular that time of day. Although if you go to a British restaurant you have to wait over half an hour, because nothing is made in advance! I waited 20 minutes in one then left, telling them why. They were rather upset as the food had nearly been cooked. Their problem.

I don't mind waiting if 1. I know I will have to wait when I order and 2. The food is worth waiting for.

Quite.
Over here it isn't that the meals are made in advance (excluding fast food) but that all the things such as sauces are made in advance, fruit and vegetables cleaned pealed cut, food pulled from the walk-in and placed in the cold rails and reach ins and getting all the various parts ready to be cooked into a meal when it is ordered. As you should realize many different meals use the same things and getting those things ready in advance lets the cooks be efficient rather than doing each one from scratch separately. Take ham. For breakfast it would be large slices as ham steaks or cubed for omelettes. Lunch however sliced thin for sandwiches. All of this gets done before the customers arrive by a prep cook, because if it isn't it takes a cook off the line to do it when the order comes in. As dinner time comes around the baked potatoes and roasts go into the oven ... It is quite a orchestra in a commercial kitchen. Also scale, over there I suspect most places are what we would refer to as hole in the wall, where here an alehouse seats a couple hundred.

Time Team had its new episodes the past days. If you didn't see them, here they are:
Dig 1, Day 1
Dig 1, Day 2
Dig 1, Day 3

Enjoy.

The Brits have this crazy idea of accepting queueing. I don't subscribe to that, even though I'm 3/4 English by blood, 1/4 Swedish by blood, and born in Scotland. I want things to appear as soon as I ask for them, especially food. I'm hungry! I hate being hungry! They have these crazy things called "appetizers" you get straight away - that doesn't give you an appetite, that quenches it a bit so your stomach doesn't grumble in the enormous amount of time taken to wait for the main course!

I don't eat out that often but when I do it is is usually a leisurely affair with friends and we enjoy a leisurely drink while the food is prepared. By planning in advance, the food is ready before the hunger pangs set in.

One exception locally is a place that does very good food and I avoid the waiting by ordering before I get there.

Grumble: An hour stolen from us during the night. I also have to add an hour to the times on server status pages to translate to local time. Keeping the clocks the same year round would make a lot more sense.

+1

Glory.
Utilities price rise tomorrow.
Topped up today,
Gas topped up until mid Jan 2023 (posiibly earlier depending on weather - will top up again in Sept to beat the next rise on 1 Oct).
Electric topped up to mid June 2022.

Grumble.
Council tax rebate of £150.
Pay by direct debit (rebate paid straight to your bank A/c)
Pay by cheque/cash/online (the council will send one a letter explaining on how to claim}
Would be much simpler to have all band A - D have the rebate shown & deducted off the bill, Right?
Too simple for the bureaucrats to comprehend!

Grumble: it's snowing.
Nope, not an April Fool's Day joke.

Luckily I am at home with the flu.

Would be much simpler to have all band A - D have the rebate shown & deducted off the bill, Right?
Too simple for the bureaucrats to comprehend!

But then they don't have your money in their account to make them interest while you figure out how to get it back.

Commiserations Jord. Hope you're better soon.

Would be much simpler to have all band A - D have the rebate shown & deducted off the bill, Right?
Too simple for the bureaucrats to comprehend!

But then they don't have your money in their account to make them interest while you figure out how to get it back.

You forgot "or those who don't know about or don't claim the rebate"

Glory.
Utilities price rise tomorrow.
Topped up today,
Gas topped up until mid Jan 2023 (posiibly earlier depending on weather - will top up again in Sept to beat the next rise on 1 Oct).
Electric topped up to mid June 2022.

Glory:

Several cubic metres of wood sitting in back garden from storm Eunice.

Grumble: I returned the wood splitter I had borrowed to split logs from a tree taken down next door and it has since been borrowed by someone else who has not returned it yet. Not too much of a problem in that I already have over 8 cu metres split and drying but despite the snow yesterday morning it is the time of year when I get busier on the allotment and in the garden.

Update.
Glory. After 10 years of cotinued BP screwups, finally debt free.
Received Council Tax bill this morning.
What a feeling to be able to pay it in one lump sum. :-)

Grumble.
On bill.
Energy Rebate - As you do not pay by direct debit, you will need to make a claim for this. Go to website/counciltax. You will need your property reference. This is
XXXXXXXXXXXX.
Website.
No way to claim & enter property ref, instead:

Without a Direct Debit arrangement, getting the payment to eligible households will take longer as we will need to contact you to make an application. We will also need to undertake pre-payment checks.

Edit:

If you are eligible and currently paying by Direct Debit, you can expect payment into your bank account from the end of May 2022.
If you believe you are eligible but you're not paying by Direct Debit, we require you to apply online for the rebate. We expect to make the online form available at the end of May 2022. Please check this page for updates. If your application is successful, you will receive payment sometime between June and September 2022.

Ain't technology grand!

There was a long debate about this farce on R4 the other lunchtime.
Typical civil service at both national or local government levels to realise that there are a lot of people that don't pay everything by direct debit or use on-line banking, or even have a bank account that they can use. I do realise that they need to make sure that the money goes to the right people, but from what I've seen with other schemes like this the fraudsters will get in first and grab their ill-earned gains while too many honest folks will miss out.

My thoughts exactly.
Looking forward to a telephone call Mon morning, followed up by a recorded delivery snail mail.
After being screwed over for a decade by incompetence, going to give them 21 days to reply & then hit them with a 10% interest charge per week until rebate received.
They do it to others if no payments received by their set dates & instigate legal proceedings to recover.
So what is good for the goose is good for the gander. :-)
I know that it'll be ignored (as usual), but going to send a copy of letter to the media, wonder if they have the guts to publish?