Early Risers.

[Neil]

Good morning everybody. A couple of weeks ago I went for a hearing test at Bronglais (Aberystwyth) Hospital, the upshot being that I'd benefit from a hearing aid. On Monday I went for a fitting and to collect the device. It's a digital device which was tuned to match the specific defect, high frequency hearing loss, that I have. It's not a cheap piece of kit, the cost to the NHS is close on £700 but they also pick up the tab for yearly servicing, posting new batteries out to me and any repairs which might be needed over the years. I will be retested over the years as my hearing loss will inevitably become more acute over time and the hearing aid adjusted to cope with these changes. I mention this because it's just one example of the fantastic health care offered by the NHS and also because it contrasts so much with what's happened with dentists and opticians. Being well into my middle ages I remember when the majority of dentists worked under the umbrella of the NHS and having a (limited) choice of free specs paid for by the NHS when I went to the optician.

 

We took the opportunity to do some shopping whist visiting the seething metropolis of Aberystwyth. Part way through we paused at Morrisons for a cup of tea and a bun. The cafe till died when we trundled up to pay, the manager came out to try a reset and seeing just Mrs R and myself in the queue waved us straight through to the seats saying that it might take some time and that Morrisons could stand us a cup of tea. Again fantastic service with a human touch.

 

Just to round off on a positive note I found this delightful feature about of a mixed race couple who met during wartime. There's much in the news that's negative these days but his story is full of charm and contains many positive messages about not judging on appearances.

[AndrewC]

Morning all from the borough most boring.

 

Andy, definitely report the suspicious behaviour.

 

Neil, hope your bionic foot continues to improve.

 

So many others going through difficulties at the moment. Lets hope things settle down to a boring but stress free "normality" soon.

 

 

Again, not much happening around here. I'm now splitting my time between 2 projects at work. The sh*t-gibbons on the current project aren't happy but they're fast running out of budget. Serves them right for making us redo stuff over and over, then change it back again, then change their minds once more. The idiots are p*ssing money up the wall left, right, and centre. The new project won't be any better I fear. The PM is one from a previous fustercluck. Sweet young lady, but has a bad case of Chicken Little Syndrome, and prone to panic. The real down side is I'm not the lead on this one. I'm just picking up some basic work to keep them on schedule. The lead consultant is, how shall I say it, beyond useless and vanishes on stress leave halfway through most projects she works on as she can't handle the work. They can't sack her due to her mental state, but when she is working, everyone else has to redo most of her designs. Oh well, its only for 12 part time days before I vanish to the courts for jury duty. Still tempted to drool a lot and pretend to have major Tourettes. Hoping that my alphabet soup of government department work will render me unacceptable. (especially the legal and court based departments)

 

Back on the bins, we're the same as Lurker. We've got 5 out of the 6 available bins. We've also got 2 kitchen caddies for waste that either goes into the worm composter or the hot composter.

 

Enjoy your day.

[Donw]

Early Risers and Football Focus have been listed as IGNORED in Wheeltappers for quite a while Jamie. It means you don't get updates in My content anymore, possibly because there is so much traffic on here.

 

Warning: Unknown: 1 result set(s) not freed. Use mysql_free_result to free result sets which were requested using mysql_query() in Unknown on line 0

 

It appeared in my list using My content this morning. That odd message is there again

 

Don

[BoD]

Warning: Unknown: 1 result set(s) not freed. Use mysql_free_result to free result sets which were requested using mysql_query() in Unknown on line 0

 

It appeared in my list using My content this morning. That odd message is there again

 

Don

Warning: Unknown: 1 result set(s) not freed. Use mysql_free_result to free result sets which were requested using mysql_query() in Unknown on line 0

 

It is popping up all over the place. That appeared when I quoted your post.

Are we about to have on of our (now infrequent) outages?

Edited March 1, 2017 by BoD

[Tony_S]

Morning.

Quite cool this morning but not bad for March I suppose.

Birdie activity and garden flowers are very springlike.

This morning I have put out pink and green recycling bags and a tiny contribution to the food recycling service.

Aditi is off soon to Rochford to a lecture about Japanese art. She really liked the ballet she saw at the cinema last night. Matthew went to a Gender Studies reading group last night. I just watched television.

I probably will be doing some shopping this afternoon, we have a package to collect from Waitrose. However I would go anyway, we are dangerously low on teabags. We gave most of ours to MiL on Sunday as her other daughter had disposed of her supply as being "out of date".

Tony

[Donw]

Morning all from the borough most boring.

 

Andy, definitely report the suspicious behaviour.

 

Neil, hope your bionic foot continues to improve.

 

So many others going through difficulties at the moment. Lets hope things settle down to a boring but stress free "normality" soon.

 

 

Again, not much happening around here. I'm now splitting my time between 2 projects at work. The sh*t-gibbons on the current project aren't happy but they're fast running out of budget. Serves them right for making us redo stuff over and over, then change it back again, then change their minds once more. The idiots are p*ssing money up the wall left, right, and centre. The new project won't be any better I fear. The PM is one from a previous fustercluck. Sweet young lady, but has a bad case of Chicken Little Syndrome, and prone to panic. The real down side is I'm not the lead on this one. I'm just picking up some basic work to keep them on schedule. The lead consultant is, how shall I say it, beyond useless and vanishes on stress leave halfway through most projects she works on as she can't handle the work. They can't sack her due to her mental state, but when she is working, everyone else has to redo most of her designs. Oh well, its only for 12 part time days before I vanish to the courts for jury duty. Still tempted to drool a lot and pretend to have major Tourettes. Hoping that my alphabet soup of government department work will render me unacceptable. (especially the legal and court based departments)

 

Back on the bins, we're the same as Lurker. We've got 5 out of the 6 available bins. We've also got 2 kitchen caddies for waste that either goes into the worm composter or the hot composter.

 

Enjoy your day.

 

Warning: Unknown: 1 result set(s) not freed. Use mysql_free_result to free result sets which were requested using mysql_query() in Unknown on line 0

 

I see you are still running into troublesome creatures Sh*t-gibbons is a new one to me. The local gibbons are whooping away this morning.

Don

[lightengine]

Cannot agree with Dutch Masters post as RM Web tells me it is a "Bad Request". Is RM now policing this?

 

Wet outside the door when I let the dog out

 

AndyRam any news on the union/job search front?

 

Warning banner read mow

Edited March 1, 2017 by lightengine

[Barry O]

Andy Y has posted a banner explaining what the problem is and that they (He?) are working to fix it... just go with the flow and stay calm everyone...

Edited March 1, 2017 by Barry O

[Simon G]

Morning all, nice day here so far, which is just as well as the back door is in the process of being removed to be replaced by a nice shiny new one.

 

Mrs G was not a happy bunny yesterday after a trip to get my car serviced and MOTd. I drove it to Workington, about 10 miles away, and she followed in her car, so we then took her car into Workington town centre to do some shopping. Late morning I get the car all saying that my car needs a new front tyre to pass the MOT, so I instruct them to fit one. We then drove her car back to the garage, she dropped me off and drove home. Shortly after, I realise that I have the house keys in my pocket, so try to call her mobile, which is switched off as usual. The tyre fitting takes ages, as it is lunchtime, so I end up sat at the garage for 90 minutes. Eventually it is sorted and I drive home to find Mrs G sat in her car in the drive and not happy! When we get inside, she looks for her house keys and can't find them, only to realise that they were in her coat pocket all along, so she had sat in the drive for 90 minutes, with the keys in her pocket. I found this rather funny, but tried not to show it!

[AndyB]

Strangely enough you can use mobile phone on the BAe Systems shuttle flights apart from take off and landing so the idea of no mobiles may well be a good ruse to avoid the long distance shouty calls?

 

 

Baz

 

Aye. If you could make yourself heard over the twin props. 

HELLO I'M ON A PLANE!!!! 

 

 

 

[DDolfelin]

Matthew went to a Gender Studies reading group last night. 

Tony

Sounds like something in which I could develop an interest.

 

Tony: Have now sorted the referal system for Travel Insurance etc.,.

I send your email.

They give you £10 (cashable or against Insurance products) and I get £10 if you take it up.

I plan to either to add any such windfalls to our charity donations or even use it against purchases.

 

Investigations reveal a customer who had to cancel their holiday and were paid out in 8 days.

Let me know if I need to do anything.

[Happy Hippo]

I refer the house to this article gleaned this very morning from the Daily Wail.

 

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4270532/Inconsiderate-parker-returns-car-rude-note.html

 

 

From the terminology used, it would appear that one of the learned and honourable gentlemen in our midst has broken free and is hounding the inconsiderate of Yeovil!

 

 

You can honestly say you read it here first

[trisonic]

 

I enjoyed making and consuming pancakes.  The very last of the caster sugar went into the batter so each pancake was garnished with a teaspoon of runny honey and a splash of Jif lemon juice.  Today is the first of Lent and I wonder what else there is to give up.  Being very secular indeed I don't go much of a bundle on the guidance of religion as to what I should eat when and being something of a rebel - like you never knew that! - I am happy to eat fish on any day but Friday.

 

 

Chris

Chris, that must be why I seem always ready to eat pancakes on any day except Shrove Tuesday.....although I always enjoyed the rather large pancakes my Mother used to make when I was a child.

US pancakes are different and are almost but not quite what we used to call “Flapjacks”.

 

As I was nursing my cold in bed last night (but unable to sleep) I thought I had gone delirious whilst listening to the  speech (covered by the World Service live) I almost agreed with everything he said.

Plus he actually spoke “normally” - which was a change.

 

Best, Pete.

Edited March 1, 2017 by trisonic

[Tony_S]

Sounds like something in which I could develop an interest.

 

Tony: Have now sorted the referal system for Travel Insurance etc.,.

I send your email.

They give you £10 (cashable or against Insurance products) and I get £10 if you take it up.

I plan to either to add any such windfalls to our charity donations or even use it against purchases.

 

Investigations reveal a customer who had to cancel their holiday and were paid out in 8 days.

Let me know if I need to do anything.

I certainly will if MiL agrees to leave the country with us in the near future.

[DDolfelin]

I certainly will if MiL agrees to leave the country with us in the near future.

That would be a great trick if you can pull it off.

I'm sure lots of us would like to know your secret! 

[New Haven Neil]

Morning.  It would appear the next edition of the concise dictionary will need some updating.  The Canadian influence is spreading!

 

Mrs H off to work earlier so my first day entrusted not to hurt myself alone.

 

Tramadolmann.

[Oldddudders]

New Malden was indeed survived. Lunch in the hosts' fave Italian place proved v successful, even though I was the only one drinking alcohol. Then a very acceptable 40' transit from New Malden to Paddington by changing onto the District at Wimbledon. The 16.05 to Penzance was on time throughout.

 

So I now have several of Deb's skool reports, some newspaper cuttings, and a framed photo of her with sister Helen (d. 2004) in about 1959, I should think. It transpires that I am not a beneficiary of her mother's will. This seems to have been changed at least once a year, and Ivan would be pleased to have found that the most recent version includes much the simplest instructions. The contents of her flat go to her priest nephew, who officiated at her funeral, and the small sum of money is divided between two nieces, one in Oz, one in the USA. She had specified the obit notice in the Telegraph, which was so wordy it cost £750! There was also a large collection of love-letters, some of which were utterly explicit, apparently in response to similarly steamyletters from her! These were all from naval types, mainly the captain of HMS X, culminating in a long handwritten letter, in red ink, explaining that his children were more precious to him than she was, so that was that. For some reason I was offered that one to read.

 

Isn't life fun?

[DDolfelin]

Supportive vote, Ian.

[New Haven Neil]

Stotting down with hailstones here now - think I'll stay in.

[Happy Hippo]

Having read Neil's comments about the NHS, I thought I'd chip in with my experience yesterday morning:

 

I've had a very bad cough for the past few days:  Very dry and I was suffering a lot from pain in the diaphram from the exertions.

 

So I was grateful to finally cough up a load of mucus.

 

However, the relief was somewhat tempered by the fact that this stuff was a rather muddy brown and contained quite a bit of fresh blood.

 

I decided to get over to the GP surgery and ask for an appointment.

 

Explained what had happened, got booked in as an emergency, and was sent to the upstairs waiting room.

 

I hadn't even taken a seat when I was being summoned to be seen.

 

I then had a very long and detailed examination, whilst having an in depth discussion about my health over the last few weeks.

 

The conclusion was as I suspected a local hemorrhage, akin to a nosebleed, brought on by the continued coughing.

 

Antibiotics were prescribed, more as a precaution against an infection setting in with strict instructions to return pdq if I start producing blood clots.

 

Did I overreact, when I was pretty sure of what it was?

 

I don't think so when you look at the family history (father's side) of lung disease.

 

But the point of this tale is there was no messing around; there was no long wait, no having to book an appointment and go back later, or even getting told to go to A&E (which would have been a huge wait).

 

I was seen immediately.

 

This morning I have the mundane task of clipping Elsa's toe nails:  She's going to love that!

 

This afternoon, a field of vision test at the local opthalmology clinic:  I bet that will be a bit slower than yesterday's treatment

[Shedman5]

Morning, its not raining so I am going to walk to the post office before the heavens open again.

 

That might help get rid of the four pancakes I ate last night !

 

Enjoy your day folks

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. I too got that warning message, I simply deleted it and had no trouble. One thing though, it switched on the 'Bold' and this might be causing a problem as the only posts I cannot rate are those that use bold, italics or a different font size. Great to hear that the little 'n is back home Smiffy and I hope you will soon be back on your feet Neil (or should I say foot).

[Happy Hippo]

Re. radiation etc, I was once responsible for a project (staffing, budget etc.) that had something to do with preventing radiation for security reasons. The odd thing is I wasn't allowed to know anything about the technology my guys were using because I had not yet pledged allegiance to a certain flag.

 

We made TDMs (time division multiplexers) that used a proprietary method of cramming a bunch of phone calls and data down a T1 communications line. Customers would buy TDM boxes in pairs and attach one at each end of the T1 line, except for one customer from Virginia who only bought a single TDM box.

That's because he know the other end would be connected to a pair of strings and a tin can in Tennessee.

[PhilJ W]

Oops, I think I've turned something off as I can no longer rate anything.

EDIT. I can rate things after all so ignore the above.

Edited March 1, 2017 by PhilJ W

[TheQ]

That's because he know the other end would be connected to a pair of strings and a tin can in Tennessee.

 

More like Trumps enemies in the CIA would be listening in....