Early Risers.

[skipepsi]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

 

 

 

 

And finally finally.....

A friend tells me that EDF predict her combined G & E bill is something in the region of £4.5K/year 😮

Sh111111111111111111t........................

 

Bear gone.

 

 

 

At £ 440 per month that is mine reducing to £433 sometime soon...

Edited April 23, 2023 by skipepsi
fat finger syndrome

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[monkeysarefun]

7 hours ago, Tony_S said:

I read an article that Australia is making it easier for New Zealand citizens to get Australian citizenship. Do you think Russell Crowe will become Australian?

 

As long as they don't try it in little boats....

 

 

https://www.smh.com.au/world/oceania/book-the-tickets-why-kiwis-are-looking-to-australia-20230423-p5d2kw.html

 

(And they need to realise that they've apparently got to fight it out with 32 million  clammering Brits if  the Daily Mail is an accurate paper)

 

Re Russell Crowe.

 

FRom GQ MAgazine, 2015: 

 

 

Russell Crowe claimed in an interview with Radio Times earlier this week that he's been twice rejected for Australian citizenship. The Australian Immigration Department responded a few days later by saying they had no official record of Crowe actually applying. Either way, as it stands, Rusty is existing in this world without the passport he truly deserves. 

The New Zealand born actor moved to Australia in 1968, and since that day has been proving he's more Australian than anybody. Here are six times Rusty was actually an Australian citizen in all but name. 

 

1. Rusty is a fierce Rabbitohs supporter

Australians like sport. Australians like Rugby League. So what did Rusty do? He bought the South Sydney Rabbitohs. But the club is not simply an asset for Crowe, who's a genuine fan of the game and his team, who won the grand final in 2014. 

 

2. He gives things a go

Can Russell sing? Not really. Did he see that as a barrier to playing a leading role in one of the biggest budget movie musicals of all time, Les Misérables? Not at all. And what's more Australian than just having a go?

 

3. He married an Australian

Crowe was married to Australian singer Danielle Spencer for nine years. You know who else marries Australians? That's right: other Australians. 

 

4. He made a film about the most Australian story of all time

Crowe's directorial debut saw him take one of Australia's most Aussie tales - Gallipoli. And sure, while the ANZAC legend includes New Zealanders, we know Russell is only really concerned with the 'A' in that acronym. 

 

5. His face was on Aussie stamps

The only other non-Australian to share this achievement is the Queen, 

 

6. Everyone just assumes he's Australian

Nichole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Margot Robbie, Russell Crowe. What do this group have in common? Why, they're all Australian actors of course. 

 

Russell –,  you just need to do a shoey at the Oscars and get a Ned Kelly tatt and you're in.

 

 

Edited April 24, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

But not his leather jockstrap from Cinderella Man.

Any trip to the Australia Zoo is not complete without a visit to the John Oliver Koala Chlamydia Ward that Russell donated the proceeds of the jockstrap sale to.

 

 

[Ozexpatriate]

1 minute ago, monkeysarefun said:

John Oliver Koala Chlamydia Ward that Russell donated the proceeds of the jockstrap sale to

Oliver mined that for all it was worth. Very funny. Good cause too.

 

He's also very proud of the sewage treatment works named for him.

[Andy Hayter]

2 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

The (apparently very flawed) testing of some system to cause mobile phones to wail in a demented manner and transmit a text message (in English only).  

 

I received no such thing.  I had set my phone to "I am responsible for my safety not some bureaucrat or other unknown" mode.  I was on a bus filled with perhaps 50 people at the time the alert went off.  I thing three people received it and not at the same time - it was different by several minutes.  

[snip]

 On the other hand if there ever were to be a national emergency so sudden and potentially catastrophic that it required activation of such a system then I might not be in a position to do anything more than the proverbial head-between-knees-and-kiss-my-ar$e-goodbye.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am very much with the sentiments posted here; but I doubt that receiving the message a minute or two later than someone else will be such an issue.  If it is really that critical then I suspect your goose would be well and truly cooked as you suggest.  In reality how will people react? 

Some will leave the area immediately.

Some will rush to get the kids and or pets before leaving.

Some will rush home to get important documents.

Many will just panic until told face to face to go down that street and keep going until someone else tells them to stop.

 

Much more worrying is the lack of warning message to millions of phone owners.  Frankly relying on 4G and 5G is a major oversight but is probably driven by the equally intellectually retarded decision to phase out 2G and 3G.   You simply will not get a signal in places like Kielder forest as you wander through, oblivious to the major fire just over the hill.

[monkeysarefun]

Here the official advice in times of emergency,( fire and flood) is to have access to a battery powered AM radio tuned to the local ABC. It doesn't suffer from signal loss due to towers being damaged by said fire and flood and coverage is much more reliable. Also information is much more comprehensive than an SMS can contain.

They do send out a location targetted SMS at times of evacuation or shelter in place but this assumes everyone has a charged mobile phone on them or handy, and the time to stop and read an SMS, often not the case when you've lost power or  when you  are up on the roof hosing embers or sandbagging the front door. Having a radio on in the background is much more practical.

 

I struggle to think of an emergency that would need an instantaneous national out-of -the- blue red alert except a nuclear strike and if that was the case I reckon  I'd prefer not to know!

 

Ok, maybe a tsunami, but if that was what the warning was for you could bet the alert would just send half the population towards it so they could get selfies.

Edited April 24, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, Andy Hayter said:

You simply will not get a signal in places like Kielder forest as you wander through, oblivious to the major fire just over the hill.

I discovered here in 2019  that it is actually pretty easy to not be oblivious to the major fire just over the hill!

 

[Ozexpatriate]

54 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

I discovered here in 2019  that it is actually pretty easy to not be oblivious to the major fire just over the hill!

I'm surprised there's not more yellow/brown colours. This was 2020 here:

 

Edited April 24, 2023 by Ozexpatriate

[monkeysarefun]

27 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

I'm surprised there's not more yellow/brown colours. This was 2020 here:

 

Perhaps  due to it being just on sunrise and the sun was right behind me? I wonder if eucalyptus causes a different colour smoke to pine?

 

 

Other photos with the sun up are maybe  more  as you'd expect..... That's the sun in both of them.

 

 

Edited April 24, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from the Charente.  It looks like our bottled gas regulator is Fubar so I'm off out tget a new one.

 

I got my tax return done yesterday.  It told me that I don't owe any tax to the French tax man.  That's a good result. 

 

Jamie

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl 

4 hours plus one hour plus 3 hours sleep a good sum.

 

Electricity , the mobile home is now over £900 in credit, the last quarterly bill was..... £1.85....

The house bill has increased somewhat, I can't remember what the figures are at the moment.

We've just received a request to change the mobile home meter. They want to fit a smart meter, i think that will work as well as mobile phones do round here.

I'll fill in the on line form for a time for them to come some time today.

 

As for fires, I worry most about the corn fields catching fire. This year it's corn all round, the majority of the field is to the south west, the most common direction of the wind..

 

Interuption  by brown eyes..

Not that there's any worry today, the wheelbarrow which was dry yesterday morning has 4 inches of rain accumulated since then. Ben the I really need out Collie ran out of the door this morning, and we have had a long patrol. Dark grey, wet looking clouds, ground squelchy, a lot more bluebells out, saying this might be a mistake folks.. There is an increasing Cold Northerly.

 

Plans for today,

Replacing the meiced facia board. Luckily there's a house between that and the northerly. First thing will be removing the guttering. I'm expecting many plastic clips to break unfortunately, it's a full length piece of gutter 16 ft long....

 

Time for muggacoffee number 1.

 

 

 

[polybear]

8 hours ago, polybear said:

 

So it's The Great Unwashed plus the Elderly that are dispensable.  Bear feels a Government conspiracy theory coming on.....

 

 

From a post on TNM it seems AVM @Dave Hunt has joined the club as well.  Don't worry, it's a Copper Chimney-Free Zone.  Just bring cake.

 

7 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was responsible for my son essentially giving up on reading - which to this day I still don't understand. He was a very good reader when young but found himself overwhelmed by the length of that book and has rarely read much in the 20 years or so since. He claims he wants to, but in the end, doesn't.

 

Bear doesn't either - but has found Audiobooks much more friendly.  I can listen to them whilst doing boring stuff like papering and painting, but not when doing stuff that requires thought and concentration (like wiring) as I keep having to rewind as I've missed a bit.

 

7 hours ago, skipepsi said:

At £ 440 per month that is mine reducing to £433 sometime soon...

 

Very, very Big Ouch.

 

Bear here.....

Some easy washing to do; I just had to look at my post yesterday to see what I was gonna do today 😖...oh yes, a phone call plus MIUABGAD - just so long as it's that bluddy H/S/L.  Turdycurses - I'm getting somewhat p1ssed off with it now.

BG

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Grey skies here and rain and showers, some heavy and possibly thundery, forecast.  7°C rising to 12°C.

Much aching in The Hip and Leg at the moment but I will be hobbling to the surgery to see the doc at 09.30.  Let's hope that something can be done/given to help.  After that I'm meeting The Boss to look at dishwashers.  Looking at some prices online I feel a Big Ouch coming on here too.

Have a good one,

Bob.

Edited April 24, 2023 by grandadbob

[jjb1970]

I received the message yesterday, despite my phone having a Singaporean number, my response was 'WTF is going on' as I looked up to the sky expecting to see vapour trails or a mushroom cloud or something. My second response was to wonder whether Climate Extinction were going rogue as I was walking through Parliament Square when I got the message where there was a demonstration. The main takeaway from walking through the protest area was that the best way to combat climate change is to donate money to green NGOs you've never heard off (I shouldn't be cynical given I've flown around the world to talk about emitting less).

 

They have civil defence days in Singapore when they test the air raid sirens and emergency message systems. The first one we experienced was our first day out of quarantine, we went to the short term rent we had initially and suddenly air raid sirens started and the TV was interrupted by warning messages. During the first week of school term one of the housekeeping tasks is all the children go to the bomb shelter so they know the drill. I'm not sure how useful most bomb shelters would be as everyone seems to use them as store rooms.

[DaveF]

I woke early this morning, made a cup of tea, put the washing on and have dealt with emails and am now catching up here.

 

It's very cold with a strong northerly wind driving showers in off the sea.  The washing is on and will be drying in the tumble dryer today.

 

Now for a shower and breakfast.

 

David

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

After two days of umpiring my hip is really not happy.. tough my appointment with the "joint clinic" is next month.

 

The alert went off in the middle of the match.. a similar one was received in Auckland after landing there this year. The one yesterday was a test.... the one in Auckland wasn't. It gave details of the flooded areas and where to go to be a bit safer. Air raid sirens don't really convey the message that well.  They have one in Fylingthorpe to call out the local volunteer fire service.. just as they do at locations in New Zealand.  I would rather hear about specific problems than just a general warning. At least they can now improve the system following the test yesterday.. but isn't that what a test is for?

 

As a lad we had dark red buses (Northern), a lighter red bus with cream waistband (united), dark blue buses with a lighter blue waisteband (Sunderland and district) and very dark red buses with a creamish waistband (HartlepoolCorporation ). In addition long distance United coaches (bristols) were a light green with dark green with a light green band (these went to London Victoria coach station as well as the X5 service to/from Newcastle every hour) and finally we had brighter red coaches with a cream waisteband used for the journey from the North East to the Midlands (Barton Coaches).

 

Now, today we have a visit from our financial adviser, followed by a discussion about operating a well known layout ar shows in the future...

 

Time for my mugatea!

 

Stay safe!

 

Baz

Edited April 24, 2023 by Barry O

[roundhouse]

We both have Three sim cards and neither went off yesterday afternoon. So the test did its job to work out what needs improving.

 

Hooray its not raining this morning. Time to move the layouts around ready for loading  Dobris on Thursday for an early start for Bristol show in Thornbury. Yet ot decide where we go for Friday evening food as the show doesnt close till 7pm and the plan is to join up with the Furness crew - we need to decide which pub to book.

 

I must remember the Lynton & Barnstaple modelling Zoom meeting this evening. I forgot last time.

 

Baz - your clubs Heraculeum Dock got a mention at the weekend after a friend had drawn the track diagram of hat part of the country. He was impressed after I sent him the clubs website page on it. He was an engineer on the new tunnelling in Scousepool back in the 70's.

[BoD]

10 hours ago, polybear said:

Bear feels a Government conspiracy theory coming on.....

Out of interest I once went to the local library to borrow a book on conspiracy theories.
They didn’t have any.

Strange.

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

I have been instructed to tidy the lounge and hall as we are expecting a visitor after lunch. The lounge looks fine to me anyway but I will comply. The visitor is our bank manager. We don’t have a branch based account. These meetings have been via Zoom for the last couple of years, and during that time there have been 3 managers. 
One of Aditi’s French conversation group friends may drop in later this afternoon to leave some minutes for a meeting. Aditi’s friend doesn’t use email.

Tony

 

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Not much fuss from the arthritis/sciatica this morning but the hay fever was full strength this morning but has now lessened. Its probably pollen from a handful of trees that let off a cloud of pollen at different times.

[PhilJ W]

Want to buy an island? https://www.galbraithgroup.com/property/cad170147-barlocco-island-borgue-kirkcudbright-dumfries-and-galloway-dg6-4ud/ No trees or buildings and you need a boat to get to it at high tide or a tractor/quad-bike at low tide. Looking at the map it might just be visible from Fraggle Rock, perhaps Neil can confirm.

[PhilH]

Morning, and a sunny one at the bottom atm. I’m off to Arundel in a bit for a rare trip out with just my son and daughter, sans partners and grandkids. We get on well so should be a bit of a fun day, of course pop will be covering lunch etc., from that aspect they never stop being your kids, or so they say!
 

SiL has discovered yet more bits of various armies to model so a busy 3d printing week is in prospect. Also have a blood test, last dental appointment when the pearlies will be revealed in all their glory, along with the subsequent dent in bank balance. A couple of grandkidsit duties complete the week’s plans so far….gonna need a lie down I think.

 

Enjoy the day!

Edited April 24, 2023 by PhilH

[New Haven Neil]

40 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Want to buy an island? https://www.galbraithgroup.com/property/cad170147-barlocco-island-borgue-kirkcudbright-dumfries-and-galloway-dg6-4ud/ No trees or buildings and you need a boat to get to it at high tide or a tractor/quad-bike at low tide. Looking at the map it might just be visible from Fraggle Rock, perhaps Neil can confirm.

 

Morning, 11c and sunny!  Wow.

 

Not quite, Phil, is the answer.  Were the earth flat then we would be able too (what do you mean....) as we can see the hills there, and the lighthouses, but not quite for something that low-lying!  If it had a bump in it we could see it.

 

Bit late reporting in as I finally had a sleep-in, having had several incredibly bad nights in a row. 

 

Hips have been really sore, and to make me even more p!ssed off about it I learned from a fellow sufferer yesterday the top surgeon blokie whose care I have been under for the last 13 years has left the island for pastures new.  Hardly a pasture though - Doncaster!  Must have made him quite an offer.  Anyone in the area that has orthopaedic issues look out for Ross Barker - top man, polite and informative, and not Consultant-y at all with his patients.