Early Risers.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Hang on, the sun's just come out again...

[Danemouth]

Going back to supermarket carparks out local Sainsbury and Morrisons both have ANPR cameras and a time limit of 3 hours.

 

When SWMBO's car broke down in Sainsburys carpark their customer services entered the reg into the system so that she could exceed the 3 hours.

 

Dave

[Peter Kazmierczak]

I'll not comment on Starmer getting freebies for himself and his wife. Though I'd like to note that my daughter (who is a nurse at an NHS hospital), had to pay to have her uniforms altered...

[monkeysarefun]

43 minutes ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

I'll not comment on Starmer getting freebies for himself and his wife. Though I'd like to note that my daughter (who is a nurse at an NHS hospital), had to pay to have her uniforms altered...

 

 

 As a UK trained nurse the world is her oyster -  Canada, UAE, USA, Australia, New Zealand....  no need to stay there being poor and overworked  when she can double her pay and halve her workload anywhere else in the world.

 

And the weather is better. Except maybe New Zealand.

 

Youve got to make your own opportunities because the government definitely won't do it for you.

Edited 16 hours ago by monkeysarefun

[monkeysarefun]

Fulltime at the SCG, Sydney Swans - what a wrecking ball!

 

My prediction for tomorrow is a Brisbane win, which means that the two Rugby League loving states - NSW and Queensland -  will be playing in the  AFL Grand final, rubbing it in to   the other states, that are AFL dominant.   

 

I'll have to break that gently to @Gwiwer who is probably still a bit fragile after Collingwood bowed out.

 

 

Edited 16 hours ago by monkeysarefun

[polybear]

Truly, Truly Disgraceful.....there's at least one type there where 62 days is an absolute eternity and (unless you're very, very lucky) will only end in one thing.  'Sterds doesn't even touch the surface.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy948p4j5wo

[Barry O]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

Truly, Truly Disgraceful.....there's at least one type there where 62 days is an absolute eternity and (unless you're very, very lucky) will only end in one thing.  'Sterds doesn't even touch the surface.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy948p4j5wo

My other half was on the big C red card.. seen within 24 hours, tests conducted within 36 hours then..the consultants started falling out with each other! Like @NHNs good lady one set spotted signs for pancreatic cancer, the bowel people said.. she's OK..  the gyne consultants decided she had a non cancerous ovarian cyst and, in between having strike days operated within the 6 week period (just).

 

It was non cancerous .. took longer to get the test results..  as for the pancreatic cancer.. Rogue result..but at least they spotted it.

 

All in all.. as efficient as anyone could be...

 

Compare that to my late Mum.. only diagnosed far too late and it wasn't a pleasant time whil she was ill... so there has been major improvements in this area...

 

 

Baz

[PhilJ W]

3 hours ago, Tony_S said:

I did think about going but won’t be. I used to like the previous venue. The new one only had limited parking, I can’t be bothered driving round Sheffield looking for a place where I can park. I really don’t mind paying for parking but am not interested if the only long stay car park (near the station) might be full. Aditi did offer to drop me at Rayleigh so I could get a train but I won’t be bothering. I might go to Maidstone next week, plenty of easy parking there. 

I can park in the school (disabled parking). but if I had to park further away I wouldn't be able to attend the show.

[Tony_S]

I don’t like driving around looking for parking so usually do a Google maps reconnaissance before setting off. We have to go to Solihull on Monday morning to attend a funeral. I know where the crematorium is but didn’t know where the pub venue for the wake was. It appears to have a big car park with loads of off street parking nearby. My brother asked if we wanted to stay overnight before or after but we need to be  near home due to be being on call in case of problems for Aditi’s Mum on Sunday and Monday. Aditi’s sister will be round the corner from her Mum but will be busy packing for her holiday the next day. I haven’t got any older relatives on my side of the family left now so I won’t hopefully be inconveniently coinciding with others holiday plans again. 
This doesn’t seem to be a “wear something cheerful and bright” funeral so I have had sort out my most appropriate clothing as I don’t have a suit that (fits yet, soon perhaps).

[Gwiwer]

3 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

@Gwiwer who is probably still a bit fragile after Collingwood bowed out.

Not at all. No love for Collingwood here!  
 

We are both a tad fragile after last night with all events planned for today, including me attending Something Very Important in Camborne, cancelled. Having got to bed not far shy of 3am and with Dr SWMBO having attended her 9am work meeting (but taking the rest of the day off) we are out of synch with the day and still sleepy. 
 

 

[Ozexpatriate]

9 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

I am thinking about going for a stand of bamboo (is that the correct term?) and a Japanese Maple. Do you have any comments/thoughts/suggestions/ideas on easy care gardens (Japanese or otherwise)?

My experience with formal Japanese gardens suggests they are the antithesis of easy-care. They are high-intensity care made to look 'natural' "shinzen"? - which I find consistent with the principles of "wabi sabi".

 

By themselves (climate permitting) Japanese maples are indeed easy care. I have two cultivars - one being the smaller dome shaped one locally called the dwarf Japanese maple which has red leaves in the summer - the other the more traditional tree. The 'dwarf' ones are ubiquitous in front yards here.

 

There is an excellent Japanese garden here in Portland. It will be quite magnificent in about a month.

[DaveF]

The weather behaved as expected with a very light drizzle from lunchtime and fog coming off the sea, once again the harbour entrance foghorn has been switched on.  I got most of the church stuff done, I just need to check it tomorrow and print it ready for Sunday.  

 

The lavender has been cut and the flower heads are now at Margaret's next door for her to take to the local National Trust place next week to be put in scahets and sold.  While I was talking to her another neighbour arrived to give her a plant and some seeds so the chat was rather prolonged.

 

This afternoon I've spent time in the greenhouse, taking some of the leaves off the tomato plants so that the tomatoes stand a chance of ripening.  The other plants have decided it is time to close down for winter, the geraniums are taking in hardly any water and are getting rid of leaves which are shaded.  Soon it will be time for the big autumn clear out and tidy.

 

The rest of the day has been doing things with items not supposed to be written about in Early Risers.

 

While I was outside I noticed a nice flower on a clematis which grows through the raspberries.

 

 

David

 

 

[Ozexpatriate]

6 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

the AFL ready for  Sydney to play Port Adelaide at a sold-out SCG  for a spot in the Grand Final*.

... tomorrows Geelong Cats V Brisbane game

Are they not both preliminary / semi-finals?

[Ozexpatriate]

6 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

my son has gone  and chosen the day to get married on!

Congratulations to your son and his intended.

[Ozexpatriate]

What precisely is going on with this watermelon?

 

Enquiring minds ...

 

It is suggestive to me of something I didn't think was legal in Oz. It is legal here, but not with neighbours close by.

[Ozexpatriate]

27 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

Something Very Important in Camborne

If it is anything to do with an email I received this morning, that would have been quite fun. (I am quite excited by that announcement, but I may be conflating two very different things.)

 

Sorry you will miss it, and hope your weekend takes a turn for the better.

 

Edited 13 hours ago by Ozexpatriate

[New Haven Neil]

The day became unexpectedly nice, 19c and sunny, so after brunch in the  Big City seafront we had a trundle up some lesser used roads in the more central part of Fraggle Rock.  Interesting thought, although this a small place, we didn't meet another vehicle whilst on those roads. Nice. 55 miles in all, enough for a pleasant afternoon.

 

Then a rummage up in beamland looking for a loco a friend wants, once I manage to find it....hmm, did eventually, in amongst a load of other stuff I clean forgot I had, from a time when I was thinking of a BR blue 70's era layout.  Oops.  Anyone want a 105 DMU or a limited edition Bachy 37? (37 003, a fund raiser for the preservation society).  I really need to have a word with myself, and thin out some of the things likely never to be used.

[iL Dottore]

3 hours ago, polybear said:

Truly, Truly Disgraceful.....there's at least one type there where 62 days is an absolute eternity and (unless you're very, very lucky) will only end in one thing.  'Sterds doesn't even touch the surface.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy948p4j5wo

Sorry to be brutally blunt here, but this is not new news, the appalling delays in diagnosis and treatment and very poor outcomes in oncology in the NHS has been well known amongst the international oncology community for a long time.

 

My views on the NHS have been expressed before, suffice to say that having worked in the US system, the NHS and in the Bismarck system, it is clear to me – as an insider – what is the best system (even taking into account that no medical system will ever be perfect or ever be funded 110%). 

 

Although most oncology diagnosis are clear cut, there are many situations in which the laboratory data and the imaging are not clear cut: for example, not two weeks ago I had an erudite discussion with one of my American investigators as to what particular type of small cell lung carcinoma  a particular patient had - given the equivocal nature of the patient’s test results. But this lack of clarity in obtaining a specific diagnosis did not prevent us from immediately starting the patient on an anti cancer treatment (one that has been shown to have efficacy in a wide number of different types of carcinoma) with the view of perhaps refining the therapy should further data emerge..

 

Undoubtably the NHS desperately needs serious investment in its infrastructure but that will be the easy part of making the NHS fit for the 21st century. There are far too many other problems to address as well, and simply throwing more money at the system without correcting its faults, will bring you no more than short-term relief, if that.

 

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

My experience with formal Japanese gardens suggests they are the antithesis of easy-care. They are high-intensity care made to look 'natural' "shinzen"? - which I find consistent with the principles of "wabi sabi".

Well, yes and no.

 

Whilst I was in Japan I saw quite a few exquisite gardens that looked like the very essence of simplicity itself and yet such was the perfection of that simplicity that you knew, despite appearances, that everything – down to the last blade of grass – was carefully curated. And there were other gardens, often involving moss, rocks and the strategic placement of one or two trees and a water features, which looked relatively complex but were fundamentally very simple designs.

 

And with the appropriate choice of plants such a garden can be fairly easy care indeed. Of course no garden, unless it is completely paved over , is ever “easy care” but my aim is to go for a Japanese themed garden with a relatively simple maintenance and care requirement. 

[pH]

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

What precisely is going on with this watermelon?

 

Enquiring minds ...

 

It is suggestive to me of something I didn't think was legal in Oz. It is legal here, but not with neighbours close by.

I think that is someone consuming the liquid produced by vodka percolating through a water melon.

 

I once, at their request, took a photo of a group of ageing bikers camped beside us in a campground in Washington state and was paid with a slice of such a melon.

[zarniwhoop]

A first for me: today was eye photography at the eye hospital. Normally I go to the polyclinic, but the consultant said this needed to be on the 'big camera' (a Nikon - put chin and forehead on minimal supports, turn sideways trying to look at the blue target).  Only one drop per eye instead of three (and yes, it did sting - the three don't). But the "first" was that although my eyes were slightly dilated and sun on fresh-white buildings was bright, the normal "Owww, I can't see with all the brake lights and traffic lights and reflections from the sun" did not happen. ++good.

 

Also, on the way there looking out the minicab I saw 3 butterflies together. I think they were small whites -  in about May I had seen what I think was a holly blue, and at some point probably one distant white. Now that I rarely go out it was great to see them.

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Shopping done and dinner consumed and then I settled down to watch 'Scenic railway journeys' on Channel 5. This was about the Ligurian coast, definitely one for the bucket list. The final washing has been done and now is about to go on the drying racks, phew!

[Sidecar Racer]

18 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

A tap is used to thread a hole - in British English, as I understand it.

 

A faucet could be a spigot, spout, valve or stopcock depending on context.

 

 

 

 I just like to see if you will bite , and according to a quick bit of  goggling

faucet is not used in Australia , so you really have abandoned the old land .   😎

[Tony_S]

16 minutes ago, Sidecar Racer said:

 

 I just like to see if you will bite , and according to a quick bit of  goggling

faucet is not used in Australia , so you really have abandoned the old land .   😎

Faucet was a term used in England too. Settlers took it to America where it remained in use. It became obsolete here and was replaced by tap which originally was only used for the outlet from a barrel. 

[Coombe Barton]

I think the term tap is much more useful, especially number 4. This from the OED.

 tap | noun

 

1 a device by which a flow of liquid or gas from a pipe or container can be controlled: she turned the cold tap on | the air-supply tap. • (also tapping) British English an electrical connection made to some point between the end terminals of a transformer coil or other component. 

2 a device connected to a telephone for listening secretly to someone's conversations: those taps produced hundreds of hours of recordings. • an act of listening secretly to someone's telephone conversation. 

3 an instrument for cutting a threaded hole in a material. 

4 British English a taproom.