Early Risers.

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Watched Jonathan Creek this evening but I forgot Death in Paradise was on at the same time. Not to worry though as I can catch up on I-player later.

2 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

We have had the upset this afternoon of a death in the family. Sil's Husband he was taken into hospital boxing day and died this afternoon he was 55 considerably older than Sil but still leaves 3 kids 10 and under without a Dad. It's the same Sil who I committed on before xmas that had ruined xmas for certain people. I couldn't stand him I will be perfectly honest and he knew that cos I told him still I wouldn't wish death on him.

 

To make matters worse he died in York hospital (he was originally from York) til Sil bled him dry and he sold his house then she frittered  that money away and ended up living in a council house in Airedale.

If I wrote everything that went off between them no one would believe it

The most important people now are those three kids. I hope she puts them first but from what you've said she might not. If she does try to pass them on to someone else you might find yourself lumbered.

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

Sorry to hear the various pieces of sad news today.

Only managed to read a few posts after a long day. In fact I can’t remember an occasion when there wasn’t anyone standing waiting be served.

No LFT supplied today but we did supply 100 on Thursday. We are able to order one box of 50 each day but be arn’t guaranteed to receive it and it’s not set as a ‘to follow’.They are only supplied via one of the national wholesalers and our particular branch had ‘issues’ on Wednesday so we didn’t get any delivery at all. We got an automated phone call early in the morning to say we wouldn’t be getting the morning delivery and the afternoon delivery, we’ll it just didn’t turn up., no phone call or anything.
To be supplied with a box we must have a pharmacy collect code which can be obtained from a website or via the NHS 111 phone service. Unfortunately some people are just not able to cope with these procedures and are missing out.
We have people coming in say ‘according to the NHS website you have some in stock’ but the website only says which pharmacies are taking part in the service, there’s no live stock holding  information fed back to it. 
The sixteenth digit codes aren’t specific to a particular pharmacy and don’t have to be used on the day of issue.  
Hope that may help a few ERs but for now, 

goodnight 

PPPP.

[PhilJ W]

2 minutes ago, zarniwhoop said:

I remember reading that in wartime the 'British Loaf' was much closer to wholemeal (maybe 81% or 85% extraction, so omitting bran), and that bakers were not allowed to sell bread until it was a day old.

 

A while ago (maybe repeated in 2019) I watched programs on baking in England through the ages - by Victorian times the pressure for low prices and white bread led to "additives" - ISTR arsenic was mentioned.

 

Diverging from the topic, as a home baker (sometimes), I find it strange that English breads normally used yeast (originally, from ale) whereas in much of Northern Europe sourdough was common.

My paternal grandmother used to make her own bread. I remember having some of it as a child in the 1950's. Brown bread was unusual/expensive though you could get it from the co-op. It was delivered every day by an electric van like a milk float but with sides like a van.

[zarniwhoop]

Since I seem to be unable to find useful help - any hints on adding/restoring my avatar ?  I'd had it since I joined years ago, but it seems to have disappeared a few days ago. That was when I found out how to edit my profile to add a signature. But looking at the profile, I don't see anything for avatars. Tried adding the avatar jpeg into the signature, but as expected that meant the small jpeg appeared at the end of the signature and I still have 'Z' instead of my avatar.

 

I suppose 'Z' is rare enough in usernames, but getting the image back would be nice. TIA

 

ĸen

[Ozexpatriate]

4 minutes ago, zarniwhoop said:

any hints on adding/restoring my avatar ?

Have you tried the 'profile photo' button:

The picture icon appearing on your profile picture.

 

[zarniwhoop]

11 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Have you tried the 'profile photo' button:

The picture icon appearing on your profile picture.

I got a label that said something different, perhaps 'Current Photo'. I hadn't knowingly changed that, but let's see if it did the job.

 

No, will try again later.

Edited January 7, 2022 by zarniwhoop
did not work

[Ozexpatriate]

22 minutes ago, zarniwhoop said:

... by Victorian times the pressure for low prices and white bread led to "additives" - ISTR arsenic was mentioned.

Food safety in the late 19th century was awful. In the US, Formaldehyde was used in milk. Copper sulphate was used in canned beans.

 

In the US, Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley was a crusader for food safety. His work ultimately led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration. There is a fascinating documentary on his work and methods called "The Poison Squad" which involved human trials on people being fed such what he called adulterated foods.

[Dutch_Master]

[BSW01]

Nice to see Dutch Master popping in again, long time no see!

 

Goodnight all 

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[Dutch_Master]

54 minutes ago, BSW01 said:

Nice to see Dutch Master popping in again, long time no see!

 

Goodnight all 

Thx!

 

Yes, it's been a while, but that wasn't my choice. Water under the bridge et all. We'll see if anyone is holding grudges against me, for now I won't contribute beyond the madhouse that is the WT forum.

 

I did notice some familiar names are still around and sadly, some aren't any more. Lost a fair few from my social circle as well (nothing related to the current pandemic though!).

 

Should anyone be interested I'll elaborate on the current state of affairs here, suffice to say the way up has been firmly trotted although the same cannot be said on the finances. Yet.

[Coombe Barton]

2 hours ago, zarniwhoop said:

I suppose 'Z' is rare enough in usernames, but getting the image back would be nice. TIA

 

A few pages ago ChrisF had the same problem. Apparently Andy Y was doing some maintenance and found an odd folder and deleted it Apparently it was where some avatars were stored.

[zarniwhoop]

41 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

A few pages ago ChrisF had the same problem. Apparently Andy Y was doing some maintenance and found an odd folder and deleted it Apparently it was where some avatars were stored.

Yes, but at that time I still had my avatar (it was there on 27th Dec when I posted in another thread, then I noticed it had gone a couple of days ago). Chris had set up his new avatar several days before that.  It looks as if adding a signature started the process. Thanks anyway, will try again later.

[iL Dottore]

7 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

… I find the New York-based national news curious….

Having lived in the US for a while, I found all US News “curious”.
 

For one thing (at least when I lived in the States) it’s incredibly insular, especially when it comes to international sports coverage - such as the Olympics (if the US isn’t competing in a sport or if the US hasn’t got a snowballs chance in hell of medal - it doesn’t get covered), incredibly sensationalistic and “glamorous” inasmuch as if you are a talented and insightful journalist but have a face that could stop a clock - then you have no hope of becoming a news anchor. Only pretty boys and girls please (I was told, by an acquaintance who worked in local television at the time I was living in the US, that in the newsreaders’ contracts there are clauses about gaining or losing weight [a big no-no] and about not changing their appearance in other ways).

 

Admittedly, that was quite some time ago and it would be interesting to hear from Oz if things are still the same in regards to use programming on the television

Edited January 8, 2022 by iL Dottore
Typo

[iL Dottore]

To add to my comment above, the local news teams in the city where I lived in the US were incredibly aggressive in trying to get the latest sensationalistic scoop.

 

I remember once, when I was working with a rescue squad and we were trying to retrieve the body of a youngster who had drowned in the local river, that the police had a hell of a time trying to keep back the local news’ camera teams from filming the recovery. As it was night, we were using very powerful thousand watt searchlights powered from the generator on the rescue truck, unfortunately for the camera teams some of my rescue squad colleagues were incredibly careless about where they pointed the searchlights and “accidentally” burnt out/damaged the sensitive sensor tubes in a few of the (then incredibly) expensive TV cameras.

 

One camera crew even had the temerity to complain to a policeman on scene - a complaint that got short shrift.

 

Given the aggressiveness of the local TV-news camera teams of the time, they were definitely loathed and despised by the local rescue squads, police departments and fire departments!

Edited January 8, 2022 by iL Dottore

[iL Dottore]

5 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

My paternal grandmother used to make her own bread. I remember having some of it as a child in the 1950's. Brown bread was unusual/expensive though you could get it from the co-op. It was delivered every day by an electric van like a milk float but with sides like a van.

I remember that as well - by the early 60s the “white sliced” was ubiquitous and it was the staple sandwich bread used by my mother. Brown bread - especially Hovis - was more of a treat. I wonder if that was because, at the time, brown bread was more expensive to make than white bread made industrially? I certainly recall what was - for me at the time - the novelty of having to slice a brown bread loaf in order to have brown bread and butter to go with our cockles and winkles.

[iL Dottore]

5 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Food safety in the late 19th century was awful. In the US, Formaldehyde was used in milk. Copper sulphate was used in canned beans.

 

In the US, Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley was a crusader for food safety. His work ultimately led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration. There is a fascinating documentary on his work and methods called "The Poison Squad" which involved human trials on people being fed such what he called adulterated foods.

In my rather eclectic and frequently bizarre library I have a book about the history of food adulteration (I can dig up book title and author if anyone’s interested) - a book which is both alarming and fascinating.

 

One interesting bit of info (amongst many) was that an experiment was done to see if any of the adulterants reportedly used to whiten and bulk out flour in Victorian times (ground bone, talc, alum, powdered chalk etc.) could actually have been used. They concluded that only one of supposed adulterants could have been used to make an adulterated loaf and even then only in such small quantities as to make its use pointless. The other adulterants tested produced bread that inedible, tasted foul, didn’t rise and were essentially useless at the job of adulterating bread.

[chrisf]

I see that the death of Sidney Poitier has been announced.  I could not describe myself as a connoisseur of his work but I recall his performance as a teacher in "To Sir With Love".  Compare and contrast with "Grange Hill", currently the subject of much fuss and speculation that it is to be revived on the big screen.  In its day it was good ground-breaking stuff, as was to be expected from its creator Phil Redmond.  Today's viewer might find it rather tame but I liked it even though, and possibly because, it was definitely not aimed at my age group.

 

I am not a connoisseur of bread, contenting myself with white sliced toastie from the supermarket.  There is no need for gentle readers to brand me as a philistine because I know that I am.

 

Chris

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from down erecin the Charente.  I believe it may have rained but haven't  ventured out yet.

 

Sad news from Tigerburnie and Simon. Thoughts are with you both. Also nice to see Dutch Master back with us.  

Various little jobs got done yesterday.  The hens were cleaned out and some lower branches were lopped from a silver birch that has been killed by Ivy. Taking some weight off it will make felling it easier.  I even spent an hour or two doing a jigsaw.

 

Anyway breakfast has been eaten and in an hour we will betalking to Emily and her mums.  Then there is wood to chop.  I might even get to spend some time in the shec.

 

Jamie

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

Welcome back @Dutch_Master!

 

Sad news indeed from @tigerburnie and Simon.

 

In the North East, as a lad, we ate a lot of Stotties. A round, flat, white loaf..especially nice if cut in two, buttered, filled with home boiled bacon and home made pease pudding.. yummy (pickled red cabbage can be added to taste).

 

In Leeds the same bread (a "cake" here) used to be a starter for a "breakfast in a cake" from a shop on Kirkstall Road (sadly long gone.. the Sandwich Stop). This involved bacon, sausages, black pudding, eggs, beans, skinless mice, mushrooms  and fried potatoes.. doubt if I could do it justice now.

 

Today will involve preparation for my on line committee meeting tomorrow as well as yet more wire strangling.

 

Stay safe!

 

Have a good day!

 

Baz

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Thoughts with TB & Simon  and welcome back to Dutch_Master.

It was very frosty when I went to bed at midnight but is now raining steadily and that has washed the frost away.  Its warmer at 7°C and a wet and windy day is forecast.

I mentioned yesterday that next door's boiler went on the blink on Tuesday and they've been without heating and hot water apart from an electric shower. Repair man turned up at 12.30 and was there for a couple of minutes.  Apparently he just pressed a reset button and lo &  behold everything worked.  Ooops.    Bit surprised that my mate Russ didn't know about doing that.  

Usual weekend round of rugby matches to watch.  Started with  Bristol v Sale last night, Quins v Exeter today and Wasps v Leicester tomorrow so my afternoon entertainment is guaranteed.

I've pencilled in a couple of domestic tasks for this morning so that should help appease Management. I say should but it probably won't.  Apparently sport in any form on TV (especially at weekends) should be made illegal and replaced by more cr#ppy soaps with never-ending even more cr#ppy strorylines.  

Time for porridge.

Have a good one,

Bob.

 

Edited January 8, 2022 by grandadbob

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl, inner Temple Hare,

Another good nights sleep was had, 3 hours, plus 4 hours sleep.

Ben the I want out now Collie then appeared, we had a good wander around, Ben found a smell to track and charged all over the place following it.

 

At that time the car was still an ice cube, shortly after we returned to the house, the heavens opened.  It's chuckinitdarn now. When the rain arrived, the temperature in the house dropped, it took a while for the heating to catch up.

 

Brown bread is often just white bread dyed. Wholemeal bread is something different and supposed to be much better for you. Not that it matters to us, we've only bought 1 loaf in the last year, that was for sandwiches to eat on the journey to Scotland..

 

Grange hill is after my school days and therefore other than the odd clip thrown into another program, I've never seen it. One thing I'll never forgive it for though, is inflicting Ant and Dec on the world.

( For those of non UK residence they're a semi comedic, pair of presenters that work together almost permanently, )

 

Plans for today, 

Other than adding a bracket to the wall for the hall way bookshelves, not a lot.

Left knee is still playing up so anything done will not be heavy duty. 

I suspect orders will be issued regarding the conversion of the spare bedroom to an art studio..

 

Time to drink muggacoffee number 1.

Oh ...tis a bit soggy near here.

 

Edited January 8, 2022 by TheQ

[grandadbob]

Q,  I agree with your sentiment about Ant & Dec but I believe it was Byker Grove and not Grange Hill that was responsible for lumbering us with them. 

[polybear]

11 hours ago, Erichill16 said:

Too right mate.

 

P!ssed off of South Yorks.

 

EH needs one of "those" telephone messages.....

"Hello, welcome to Punk Rock Pharmacy ....anyone threatening/abusing etc. etc. will be dealt with by Captain Cynical.  Now if you want a covid kit press option 1, or for anything else it's 2......."

And for those pressing option 1....

"No, we haven't got any - we don't give a f. what the NHS website says - and no, we don't know when, or even if we'll be getting any either.  Now go away......"

 

Bear should've been in Customer Support (er, hang on.....I was in C.S. up until the end, but not thru' choice....).  Another talent wasted.

 

9 hours ago, Dutch_Master said:

 

 

2 hours ago, chrisf said:

I am not a connoisseur of bread, contenting myself with white sliced toastie from the supermarket.  There is no need for gentle readers to brand me as a philistine because I know that I am.

 

Chris

 

You're singin' this Bear's song.  Toast & Marmite, or Toast & Lemon Curd.  Usually one of each.  I've never tried both on the same slice - must give it a go....

 

34 minutes ago, grandadbob said:

Repair man turned up at 12.30 and was there for a couple of minutes.  Apparently he just pressed a reset button and lo &  behold everything worked.  Ooops.    Bit surprised that my mate Russ didn't know about doing that.  

 

 

That was an expensive mistake, unless buddy Ross got one of those very rare Gas Persons who didn't have the heart to charge for a 2 minute call-out.  Ouch

 

In other news....

Another late start for Bear.  First fun of the day will be doing the washing....

 

And finally:

 

Oh dear....

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/prominent-qanon-conspiracy-theorist-dies-from-covid-after-saying-only-idiots-get-vaccinated/ar-AASy76L?ocid=msedgntp

 

Stupid beyond belief:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/news/eu-red-tape-forces-thousands-of-planes-to-fly-across-europe-with-no-passengers/ar-AASxBsW?ocid=msedgntp

Edited January 8, 2022 by polybear