The Night Mail

[jamie92208]

Wolves were extinct in Yellowstone but we're reintroduced. A relatively small number have made a huge difference to the ecology of the park.  It has been a bitter political battle at times but the presence of an apex predator has been very beneficial. 

 

Jamie

Edited Monday at 17:52 by jamie92208

[Oldddudders]

About a year ago, Jamie invited me to a day's gricing in Tours, well Tours St Pierre to be precise, that being a suburb where there are major railway yards as well as an interchange station for the TGV network. Today I went back to Tours, but this time with Sherry, and we spent a few hours in the city including lunch outdoors. The poor girl does not walk well right now, so the three miles we covered were at snail's pace, but it was sunny, the cathedral delivered all the beauty you expect, and the trains were all on time. Tick.

[Happy Hippo]

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Wolves were extinct in Yellows tone but we're reintroduced. A relatively small number have made a huge difference to the ecology of the park.  It has been a bitter political battle at times but the presence of an apex predator has been very beneficial. 

 

Jamie

Look at how beneficial the 1992 re-introduction of Hippos to Shropshire has been.

Edited Monday at 17:33 by Happy Hippo
grammar

[SM42]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

Look at how beneficial the 1992 re-introduction of Hippos to Shropshire has been.

 

The Wrekin does look taller nowadays. 

 

Must be the Hippo deposits.

 

Andy

[Happy Hippo]

8 minutes ago, SM42 said:

 

The Wrekin does look taller nowadays. 

 

Must be the Hippo deposits.

 

Andy

More likely the family having a good frolic in the fields below and compressing them down

[Happy Hippo]

The tea party was a disaster.

 

They ate all the Bara Brith!

[New Haven Neil]

10 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

nd whilst COVID affects people differently, if you’ve been vaccinated once the first day or so passes, you can certainly do office work at home. Let’s be blunt here: most office work is routine and certainly not that much more demanding than watching Celebrity WAG Baking Renovation Island on Plonker TV.

 

All I can say is you were *&^%ing lucky. Despite having had 4 inoculations at the time, when I got it in October last year, I thought I was dying.  I have not felt that ill in 40 years, I was floored totally by it.  5 days before I could do much more than barely function to live. 🤮

ION our last night away, home tomorrow after 18 days away in the van, and having experienced every weather except snow.  Hail, yes, snow no.  Even summer briefly.....briefly.

[Hroth]

6 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

All I can say is you were *&^%ing lucky. Despite having had 4 inoculations at the time, when I got it in October last year, I thought I was dying.  I have not felt that ill in 40 years, I was floored totally by it.  5 days before I could do much more than barely function to live. 🤮

ION our last night away, home tomorrow after 18 days away in the van, and having experienced every weather except snow.  Hail, yes, snow no.  Even summer briefly.....briefly.

 

Winds getting up, are you sure the ferries will be running? 🤔

 

[iL Dottore]

2 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

All I can say is you were *&^%ing lucky. Despite having had 4 inoculations at the time, when I got it in October last year, I thought I was dying.  I have not felt that ill in 40 years, I was floored totally by it.  5 days before I could do much more than barely function to live. 🤮

ION our last night away, home tomorrow after 18 days away in the van, and having experienced every weather except snow.  Hail, yes, snow no.  Even summer briefly.....briefly.

As I said it affects people differently from those who test positive for the virus and are asymptomatic, to those who are knocked out for a bit, those who get floored by it and those who die from it - despite vaccination.

 

For me the immediate aftermath of my very first vaccination was worse than actually getting infected by COVID, so perhaps I was lucky (or had the right mutations/absence of mutations in the right genes)

 

It basically comes down to how lucky you are in the genetic lottery. The immune system is incredibly complex and the presence or absence of a mutation in any one of the myriad genes regulating can make - quite literally - the difference between life and death.

 

And perhaps you were lucky too, NHN. Although it may not have seemed like it at the time, but it seems that the vaccinations did do their job of getting your immune system capable of dealing with COVID. I’m pretty certain that without the vaccines you would have become an ex-NHN.

 

Still it’s certainly NO fun when the immune system goes into overdrive (been there, done that, got the sweat soaked t-shirt) and it’s definitely a cases of “it’s only the hope of dying that keeps me alive”

 

Still you survived and that’s the important thing.

[Northmoor]

20 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

All I can say is you were *&^%ing lucky. Despite having had 4 inoculations at the time, when I got it in October last year, I thought I was dying.  I have not felt that ill in 40 years, I was floored totally by it.  5 days before I could do much more than barely function to live. 🤮

ION our last night away, home tomorrow after 18 days away in the van, and having experienced every weather except snow.  Hail, yes, snow no.  Even summer briefly.....briefly.

@iL Dottore is absolutely right so say that Covid affects people differently.  I and a colleague (Chris) probably caught it on the same day in the office.  I felt not-quite-right so did a test the night before going into work again.  The mark appeared on the test like a Sharpie.

I continued working from home, feeling like I had no more than an irritating cold for 2-3 days.  Chris - who is much fitter and probably healthier than me - was almost knocked out for 72 hours.  

 

[Winslow Boy]

4 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Look at how beneficial the 1992 re-introduction of Hippos to Shropshire has been.

I thought you had a hole to deepen.

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[SM42]

Tomorrow ( or rather later today) promises  to be  busy.

 

Tidying ( and throwing stuff out)  without Ruth is required and it seems I'm the one to do it as Mrs SM42's going to work to avoid it.

 

I've also got to sort the house insurance out.  A 68% increase  on last year seems a lot, but still cheaper than anything I've found elsewhere so far. 

 

Andy

[AndyID]

9 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Wolves were extinct in Yellowstone but we're reintroduced. A relatively small number have made a huge difference to the ecology of the park.  It has been a bitter political battle at times but the presence of an apex predator has been very beneficial. 

 

Jamie

 

And Yogi never left. Some of his pals hang-out not far from here too.

[AndyID]

4 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

The tea party was a disaster.

 

They ate all the Bara Brith!

 

Bar stewards!

[AndyID]

I just spent an entertaining seven hours hacking my way through the "easy to use" on-line US patent filing system. Let's just say their software design, verification and test department needs a bit of an overhaul 😄

[Darlington_Shed]

1 hour ago, SM42 said:

A 68% increase  on last year seems a lot

 

Cheap... ours has just doubled, but only if we install an alarm system that notifies the police of a break-in. All told, it will be a 300% increase on the current cost.

 

To quote the Bear - 'sterds!

 

In other news - this weekend I was dragged, kicking and screaming, to Abba Avatar in the far east of the capital. To my amazement, it was hugely enjoyable, if only for the experience of trying to figure out how the technology works. I'm not a huge fan of the music - although it's generally of the toe-tapping variety - but I couldn't deny the enjoyable nature of the experience. Highly recommended if you have the chance (and the budget!)

[BR60103]

We started the day heading for the Guelph Storytellers event in the park. First bad sign was the parking lot at the top of the hill was full, then every space (except handicapped) was taken along the road.  We decided to head for another park in Kitchener or Waterloo and decided on Waterloo as we could walk down to a bookstore. The park has a small animal exhibit (after losing a barn to fire) and we saw 2 donkeys and 2 llamas. Later saw a few ducks, geese and a blue heron.  Also some trams as the line runs alongside the park. Found the bookstore was closed. This is Dominion *Canada Day but the store's website said nothing about it.  Dayle was a bit tired by then (the walk could be over a mile) and asked me to get the car for her.  With brilliant thought, I realized we could take the tram back and one pulled in as I was buying tickets.

 

* The national holiday when Canada ceased to be a colony and became a Dominion. Biblical quote "He shall have dominion from sea even unto sea".  At some point in the 1960s, Dominion became a non-PC term -- seems the French no longer have the word in their language. So anything "Dominion" became something else (one railway locomotive was not affected).

We used to have an icon on the radio every day:  "Dominion Observatory Canada. At the beginning of the long dash following 10 seconds of silence the time will be one o'clock, Eastern Standard Time.  beep, beep, beep, beep, , , , , , , , , , , beeeeeep"  Time signal now gone as radio network's computers cannot cope with 10 seconds of dead air.

Here endeth the first rant. 

 

Edited yesterday at 01:57 by BR60103

[jjb1970]

The time I know I had COVID it felt like a mild cold, borderline asymptomatic. I  suspect I probably had it other times without realising it, I only knew because the kids had to test daily as a condition of attending school and in the event of a positive everyone in the home had to test. I felt dreadful for a couple of days after the COVID booster, yet felt nothing after the first two doses.

 

 

[polybear]

3 hours ago, Darlington_Shed said:

 

Cheap... ours has just doubled, but only if we install an alarm system that notifies the police of a break-in. All told, it will be a 300% increase on the current cost.

 

To quote the Bear - 'sterds!

 

 

What's the point - the 'sterds never bother turning out anyway....there may be a Rant there....

 

Bear's take on professionally installed Alarm Systems:

 

1.  ADT are a bunch of burglars.

2.  If you do get a professionally installed system, INSIST (get them to write it on the order form and give you a copy) that they:

(a)  Will give you the Engineer's Code** as well as Master & Limited User Codes.

(b)  Give you a copy of the installation manual (and don't believe any b0llox about them "not being allowed to" - if you bought the system over the counter in a Security Systems Shop there'd be one in the box anyway).

 

**Without this you're tied to that installer for any maintenance etc.

[iL Dottore]

I reckon that a CoVID vaccine is like a new Gunnery Sergeant  brought in to turn a bunch of slovenly layabouts into well honed and fearsome immune sturmtruppen.

Imagine the scene, the veteran Gunnery Sergeant  (think along the lines of Clint Eastwood in Heartbreak Ridge) is inspecting the assorted antibodies, T-cells, phagocytes, B-cells etc for the first time

 

As he proceeds along the line, he stops in front of a particularly slovenly T-Cell. “Name!” he barks. The T-Cell looks back insolently. “Name!” shouts the Sergeant again. “I don’t have to answer you” smirks the T-Cell. “You ain’t nothing and our buddy ‘killer’ phagocyte gonna teach you some manners” At which a big hulking phagocyte hoves into view. Without breaking into a sweat, or even creasing his uniform, the Gunnery Sergeant floors the big cell in the most painful way possible, wiping the smirks off the faces of all the others. The Sergeant turns to the shocked platoon and says “Well ladies, you need to get your s**t together real fast, so I’m gonna help you. Tonight we gonna have ourselves a live-fire exercise” he smiles grimly “some of you may survive”

And that, fellow TNMs is why some people feel so awful after the CoVID vaccine and some don’t. Those who don’t, have an immune system that is well trained, well disciplined, battle hardened and doesn’t need to prove anything. But if you did feel crappy after the vaccination, then you had a bunch of slovenly, inexperienced, lazy, work-shy antibodies, T-cells, phagocytes, B-cells etc who were made to hold live-fire exercises the day of your vaccination by the their new tough and relentless drill instructor: Gunnery Sergeant Vaccine.

 

Either way, when the hordes of crazed viruses DO come screaming over the hill, your well trained antibodies, T-cells, phagocytes, B-cells etc will be more than ready to take them on…..

[Hroth]

8 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

I thought you had a hole to deepen.

 

Its not a hole, its a "wallow".

 

[Happy Hippo]

25 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Its not a hole, its a "wallow".

 

Please thank Dougie Dog for explaining this to WB.

 

I didn't have the heart to point out his schoolboy error.

[Hroth]

2 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Please thank Dougie Dog for explaining this to WB.

 

I didn't have the heart to point out his schoolboy error.

 

Its to be expected, he's* been distracted by traffic cones recently.

 

* WB, not Dougie Dog

 

 

[Dave Hunt]

Having a lovely time in (not so) sunny Glasgow. Just about to go and get the train to Oban (where it is raining). At least we should have some good scenery to see out of the rain lashed windows.

 

TTFN

 

Dave