The evil of the unions: remember those absurd mimes on TOTP?
 

Agreed.
While on the subject of enhancing of talents or making them worse, this
device that puts people back in tune is terribly audible, and if ill used
can make established artists sound weird.
I noted some spotty engineer had used it on a live recording of Carole King
from the mid norties, and as the whole point of her voice is that its pretty
rough, trying to make it sound smooth made it sound very peculiar.
Lets get back to basics as someone used to say.
Brian

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"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Brian Gaff wrote:
Of course miming is now called lip syncing. I know they had a lot of
problems with acoustics at the superbowl recently resulting in having to
let some artists mime, erm I mean, well you know. Not that it matters to
me but I'd be a bit miffed if I went there to see a star and they sang
nowt. I was indeed a bit put out when dragged along by my mother to the
Black and White minstral show to find that except for the soloists, the
rest was from tape and mimed.

It sort of depends what you want from TV. Pop radio with pictures - or an
impression of what the talent would be like at a live gig.
Of course with the various boy bands etc it doesn't much matter with their
following being rather more interested in seeing than hearing them
perform.

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The evil of the unions: remember those absurd mimes on TOTP?
 

On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 04:09:05 +0000, Bill Wright wrote:

I was employed for 35 weeks. That was it. I was made to join a union. I
was so glad when I became self-employed and thus represented myself,
instead of having some useless union gob****e to pretend to do it.

My very first job in 1982 was at the Raleigh bike factory, I got a job in
the wheel shop fitting tyres, they tried to get me in the union but I
ignored them. Some time later I got a job in the assembly shop (one of the
top jobs to have, & looking back now, very happy times). There were a group
of us starting & we were already acquainted with some of the guys already
working there.
On arrival we were approached by the union guy, recognisable by the suit
jacket that they wore over their overalls.

"Are you lads in the union?"
"No"
"Well these lads won't work with you if you aren't."

Off he trots.

We start work with 'the lads'.

"What's this about you not working with us if we're not in the union?"

"A load of ********" came the reply.

Never joined one.

The evil of the unions: remember those absurd mimes on TOTP?
 

On 01/03/2013 09:01, CD wrote:
On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 04:09:05 +0000, Bill Wright wrote:

I was employed for 35 weeks. That was it. I was made to join a union. I
was so glad when I became self-employed and thus represented myself,
instead of having some useless union gob****e to pretend to do it.
My very first job in 1982 was at the Raleigh bike factory, I got a job in
the wheel shop fitting tyres, they tried to get me in the union but I
ignored them. Some time later I got a job in the assembly shop (one of the
top jobs to have, & looking back now, very happy times). There were a group
of us starting & we were already acquainted with some of the guys already
working there.
On arrival we were approached by the union guy, recognisable by the suit
jacket that they wore over their overalls

"Are you lads in the union?"
"No"
"Well these lads won't work with you if you aren't."

Off he trots.

We start work with 'the lads'.

"What's this about you not working with us if we're not in the union?"

"A load of ********" came the reply.

Never joined one.

Okay chaps here is an example for you

hourly paid worker, normal working conditions 4 hours then the break of 45 minutes then a later session 5 hours

total hours worked 9. Total length of working day 9 3/4 hours.

Come in another day, and find things have changed.
Work 4 hour. Meal break 1 hour. Work 3 hours 45 minutes. Wait one hour work 15 minutes.

Total work for day equals 8 hours pay length of working day 10 hours . this is what happens in some industries. Without the unions were I work this would be happening all the time. Our company tried it and got stomped on. But they will try it again. Every now and again they try to sneak in. They love getting 12 or 13 hours cover for 10 hours pay.

Unions have their place and without them even self-employed workers wouldn't have the conditions they have now.

The evil of the unions: remember those absurd mimes on TOTP?
 

In article ,
CD wrote:
"What's this about you not working with us if we're not in the union?"

"A load of ********" came the reply.

Never joined one.

I take it you turned down any pay or conditions improvements negotiated by
that union?

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Dave Plowman London SW
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The evil of the unions: remember those absurd mimes on TOTP?
 

Agreed. It's awful. It makes me cringe every time I hear it. The
original purpose may have been to "correct" the pitch of a singer with
indifferent abilities, but sometimes the effect is so extreme I can
only assume they're doing it deliberately because some philistine
actually likes it. I usually have to wash my ears out with something
by Bach or Beethoven as soon as possible.

I think the gadget must work on the same principle as what used to be
called a "PA Stabiliser", in other words by creating a suppressed
carrier modulated signal from the voice track, then reinserting the
carrier with a slight offset to change the pitch of the audio. Because
it changes the pitch of all the frequency components by the same
linear amount, the harmonic relationships between them are destroyed,
and the greater the shift the worse it sounds.

Rod.

On Fri, 1 Mar 2013 07:13:37 -0000, "Brian Gaff"
wrote:

While on the subject of enhancing of talents or making them worse, this
device that puts people back in tune is terribly audible, and if ill used
can make established artists sound weird.

The evil of the unions: remember those absurd mimes on TOTP?
 

On Fri, 01 Mar 2013 10:41:54 +0000 (GMT), Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

I take it you turned down any pay or conditions improvements negotiated by
that union?

In the 3 years I was there, there wasn't a pay award as Raleigh were in the
****. The working conditions were apalling in some areas of the plant, but
were talking about 30 years ago. Thankfully it's all been razed to the
ground now. For the record we all got made redundant in '85 union or not.

The point I was trying to make was the underhand tactics/lies to get you to
join the union. Why not try to sell it to us explaining the benefits?

My overwhelming memory of the union conveners was that they all had
specific jobs there, but did absolutely **** all all day long, wearing
their uniform of the jacket over the pristine overalls.

In every job I've had since which is only 7 (4 in the last 2 years, thanks
to another redundancy), there hasn't been a union presence at any of them.

The evil of the unions: remember those absurd mimes on TOTP?
 

On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 04:09:05 +0000, Bill Wright
wrote:

I was employed for 35 weeks. That was it. I was made to join a union. I
was so glad when I became self-employed and thus represented myself,
instead of having some useless union gob****e to pretend to do it.

If it wasn't for those 'useless gob****es' you'd still be hacking coal
out of a two-foot thick seam you ignorant yob.

The evil of the unions: remember those absurd mimes on TOTP?
 

In article ,
CD wrote:
On Fri, 01 Mar 2013 10:41:54 +0000 (GMT), Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

I take it you turned down any pay or conditions improvements
negotiated by that union?

In the 3 years I was there, there wasn't a pay award as Raleigh were in
the ****. The working conditions were apalling in some areas of the
plant, but were talking about 30 years ago. Thankfully it's all been
razed to the ground now. For the record we all got made redundant in '85
union or not.

The point I was trying to make was the underhand tactics/lies to get you
to join the union. Why not try to sell it to us explaining the benefits?

To 'us' or just you? Did you ask anyone? By the sound of it you were
spoiling for a fight with 'the union' anyway.

My overwhelming memory of the union conveners was that they all had
specific jobs there, but did absolutely **** all all day long, wearing
their uniform of the jacket over the pristine overalls.

It's a full time job in some places.

In every job I've had since which is only 7 (4 in the last 2 years,
thanks to another redundancy), there hasn't been a union presence at any
of them.

I'm not quite sure what point you're making.

--
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Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

The evil of the unions: remember those absurd mimes on TOTP?
 

Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 04:09:05 +0000, Bill Wright
wrote:

I was employed for 35 weeks. That was it. I was made to join a union. I
was so glad when I became self-employed and thus represented myself,
instead of having some useless union gob****e to pretend to do it.

If it wasn't for those 'useless gob****es' you'd still be hacking coal
out of a two-foot thick seam you ignorant yob.
I hope you're drunk. I wouldn't like to think you'd be so rude when sober.
Your assertion is very unlikely because mechanisation took over from
manual labour in the coal industry a long time ago. It was much cheaper
and more reliable.
But I note your allusion to my coal-hewing grandfathers. And it was only
that generation. Before that they were farmers. And after that?
Well, let me first tell you about my grandfathers.
On my dad's side, his dad was a communist agitator. The reason was that
he was a firebrand and exceptionally intelligent and an original
thinker. These traits run in the family and have caused us no end of
bother. Between us we've been thrown out of a grammar school, the RAF,
the Labour Club, a Methodist Sunday School, and endless pubs. Oh, and
Belgium. But at the time, given the injustices then present, being a
communist agitator was a pretty reasonable response. Unfortunately the
overweening power of the colliery owners meant that after he'd organised
several strikes he was blacklisted. He was 30 at the time. He went to
work at a colliery twelve miles away, under an assumed name, and that
continued until he died from miners' lung aged 55. Him and his wife (the
beloved 'Chiefy') had a child roughly every ten months right through the
period 1918 to 1932. As Chiefy was to tell me much later, "He only had
to sneeze and I dropped for one." She was a highly intelligent woman
(one of those grandmas that could see right through you) and I could
never understand why she endured such a series of pregnancies.
Of those of their children that survived to adulthood, not one went down
the mine. They were all too intelligent to have to, and anyway they'd
seem what it did to dad. The girls all became schoolteachers. Given the
social and educational situation at the time that's remarkable. The
oldest boy didn't go to the grammar school but in later life he was very
successful. The other boys all passed to go to the grammar, and all
became members of the middle classes (!). Two of them were 'IBM pioneers'.
On my mother's side, her dad worked down the mine but he was a frail
little man so he was just a gateman. He never earned much. His passion
was music and he travelled all over to see concerts. My mother showed
considerable artistic talent as a teenager but couldn't go to art school
because she was needed as an earner. Many years later, aged 70, she took
up the graphic arts again, and got an A at A level.
So you see, the unions were not responsible for me being able to avoid a
life spent on my side hewing a narrow seam. It was sheer talent that got
my family out of the mines. That's the thing the unions don't like. They
want everyone to be held down to the level of the slowest, thickest,
most idle worker. They don't understand about talent or dedication or
hard work. I don't blame the unions for supporting the halt and the lame
and the thick, but I object to them promoting the interests of the bone
idle at the expense of those who are prepared to work hard.

Bill

The evil of the unions: remember those absurd mimes on TOTP?
 

On 01/03/2013 21:15, CD wrote:

The point I was trying to make was the underhand tactics/lies to get you to
join the union. Why not try to sell it to us explaining the benefits?

In my place of work, where 95%+ are not union members, the union
representatives distribute union joining forms. Along with a
description of all the benefits of being a member there is a direct
debit mandate to pay for the service. Nowhere do they state the actual
amount to be paid. Do they really expect people to sign a blank cheque?


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