Early Risers.

[polybear]

18 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

I have seen a young lass who had a  medical assistant dog on tv I can't remember what condition she had but the dog carried medication for her in a "jacket " it wore. The dog was trained to alert her if she needed the medication before she collapsed.

 

They had a "Money Dog" on the telly a while back - does the same job as a drugs dog, only with money.  It goes nuts when walking past a cash machine, apparently.....

 

In other news:

A reasonably productive day for Bear, including kitchen refurb tasks and ebay listing tasks.

I've also noticed that the signal on Bear's mobile does appear somewhat stronger (though not earth shatteringly so) whilst in Bear Towers; I'll see how it goes but I may be able to avoid a change of provider after all.  We'll see....

 

And finally:

Bear saw buddy next door - it seems that he'll be moving on Friday next week. Double Turdycurses.  Cake needed.....

[Gwiwer]

2 hours ago, Erichill16 said:

As to evil smells

Ziff Meats gave Canning Town and surrounding areas a distinct and unpleasant odour. But wasn’t alone in the local “aromatherapy” stakes. 

https://www.royaldocks.london/articles/the-smells-of-silvertown

 

I lived with that Ziff smell for almost two years. Just the memory or the prospect of hopping off the bus / tube / DLR at Canning Town still turns my stomach. 

[simontaylor484]

The article about the Royal docks is an interesting little rabbit hole to disappear into for a while. Thanks @Gwiwer

[zarniwhoop]

8 hours ago, AndrewC said:

I hate trying to cook vegetarians. They are so stringy and devoid of any fat it makes slow smoking impossible. Fast sear also dries them out too quickly. Perhaps steamed or boiled may be the answer. 

Remind me to stay well away from AndrewC - I've been veggie for more than 40 years but these days I have an ample amount of "insulation".

[zarniwhoop]

5 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Morning all from Estuary-Land. A bit late this morning as when I got up there was no internet or TV, Virgin Media was down. I called their number and the only time they could give for reinstatement was 'Before 4PM' however it came back half an hour ago.

 

Happens to me from time to time (virgin cable), usually comes beck in a few hours. These days, DNS on the internet seems to go down more frequently but usually comes back quickly.

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Just had an eye test, a few minor changes but nothing to worry about. MRC open tonight, I have a few things to deliver but the ongoing alterations to the clubroom means that no modelling will be done. 

[Sir TophamHatt]

Evening all!

 

Only one more day left at work this week.

 

Thinking of taking a trip to London to pay in some old money.

 

Yes, "old money" - a fairly descriptive term I would have thought.  But upon visiting various post offices, after being assured they would take it if I was paying it into an account, I have come across all sorts of terms - non-circulated, invalid, not current...  not sure why all three post offices seemed to be confused with the term "old" money" - what else would you think it meant?!

But after four unsuccessful tries at paying it in, including one person who called their supervisor who said they can't take it, and a branch in another town flat out saying they can't take it and only "crown post offices would" - failing to tell me where the nearest one is.

 

While I've been on a Class 180 before, as they're now so close to home, I may take a (free) trip to London on one (hopefully not breaking down on the way!) and paying all this in to the Bank of England direct.  Weirdly seems like the route of less hassle.  The only downside is it'll be a few hours of my life I won't get back :/ But I'll only waste it computer gaming anyway.

 

Now to head back a few pages and catch up.

[Winslow Boy]

11 hours ago, southern42 said:

‘ morning all from red dragon land. 

More sun expected, today, so I must get out in the garden again.

 

While I have been keeping an eye on the hibiscus, I have been taking photos of the first bud to open. There are many more buds this year but half eaten holey leaves are showing that hungry critters are helping themselves to some tasty meals! I hope they steer clear of the flowers. One taken yesterday:

 

 

Hopefully, I will see it in full bloom this year.

 

I love the deep colour and a some years ago, out shopping, I saw a gorgeous plain deep purple shirt hanging up in one of our stores and tried it on. I was so disappointed - the colour just did not suit me.  So, when (in 2019) I saw the deep purple flowers in another store I just had to have it!

 

Fitt  and  Elfie doing their best against the pollen! 
 

Take care all and play safe. 

—————

Best wishes
Polly

 

 

 

Urm aren't plants strange. Our hibiscus has been in flower for the last two weeks. It's a lovely blue/purple colour and no sign, touch wood, of nibbling caterpillars.blockquote widget

[leopardml2341]

Evenin' 

 

Nowt much to report,  not that I ever share owt interesting anyway, just another day at the office.

 

Time for some food and small beer then more of mi list to be crossed off.

 

Back before bedtime.

[JohnDMJ]

Good Evening Awl, for, even after the day it has been, still has potential.

 

PCR test taken at 17:30 last evening; result at 18:20 (after a day of angst!) unreadable! In process of rearranging a re-test!.

 

Elsewhere:

 

11 hours ago, TheQ said:

Except for 6 years in Saudi, I'm the same.. (and only part of that)

 

The galling fact is that I started at the same time as someone much younger than I at the same time and the same salary. When I was researching for my tribunal, I learned that said whipper-snapper was on in excess of £40,000!

 

6 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

I know that that anecdotal evidence is not “proof“, but the few vegans I have met have all been sanctimonious and smugly “in your face“ virtuous and yet, although professing to want to save the planet, they eat a lot of commercially prepared vegan food (big business now for Tesco et al) that is highly processed, highly chemical and much of which is - in itself - a threat to the environment (do you know how much water is required to make 1 litre of almond milk? Or how much vegan food has palm oil in it - the demand for which is so great that they are cutting down swathes of the rainforest to plant palm tree plantations).

Eschewing meat and all other animal products is of course feasible, the Jains have been doing it for centuries, but the Jain diet, as far as I am aware, does not include vegan “sausages”, vegan “milk” or vegan “cheese” but consists of grains, pulses, vegetables, herbs and plant oils.

 

Somehow, I don’t see many Western vegans adopting the very simple animal-product free Jain diet (and lifestyle).

[rant/OFF]

iD

p.s. My (retired) GP friend has told me about the considerable number of vegan and vegetarian patients he had treated who had severe nutritional deficiencies. He explained that many of them were young women and many were following diets that they had found out about on the Internet. Unfortunately, according to my GP friend, some nutritional deficiencies have severe consequences and are not reversible even when the missing trace element or nutrient is put back in the patient’s diet

 

A colleague delights in wearing a leather jacket with full arm tassels. One of his female acquaintances (now, I understand, no longer with us) was a practising vegan. He happily accompanied her on her stand at a (IIRC) Green Party conference and, when asked about his jacket, simply replied that it was re-cycled grass!

 

6 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

They are starting to be used more routinely in the clinic, but uptake has been slow even though there is very solid data to support the fact that dogs are as good as, and sometimes even better than, the most sophisticated technology for detecting certain illnesses.

 

Sadly, both Lucy and Schotty failed canine medical school: they never got beyond being able to detect the sausage in the pile of cabbages!

 

"Every dog has its day!"

[New Haven Neil]

Evening, lovely day had here, still 20c now.  Too much work done in the garden and garage, I'm now officially broken.

 

IIRC diabetes mellitus actually means sweet urine.  I know that on the rare occasions my blood sugar is out of control it does smell sweet (and is foamy in the bowl, another clue to look out for) but I am NOT tasting it! 

 

 

[simontaylor484]

What I did forget to mention in my earlier missive about the pay difference between my job in transport and the Council is the extra time I had at home which you can't put a value on i was even able to pick up the youngest from school

[Erichill16]

1 hour ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

Evening all!

 

Only one more day left at work this week.

 

Thinking of taking a trip to London to pay in some old money.

 

Yes, "old money" - a fairly descriptive term I would have thought.  But upon visiting various post offices, after being assured they would take it if I was paying it into an account, I have come across all sorts of terms - non-circulated, invalid, not current...  not sure why all three post offices seemed to be confused with the term "old" money" - what else would you think it meant?!

But after four unsuccessful tries at paying it in, including one person who called their supervisor who said they can't take it, and a branch in another town flat out saying they can't take it and only "crown post offices would" - failing to tell me where the nearest one is.

 

While I've been on a Class 180 before, as they're now so close to home, I may take a (free) trip to London on one (hopefully not breaking down on the way!) and paying all this in to the Bank of England direct.  Weirdly seems like the route of less hassle.  The only downside is it'll be a few hours of my life I won't get back :/ But I'll only waste it computer gaming anyway.

 

Now to head back a few pages and catch up.

Been to my local post office today and he was happy enough to pay into my NatWest six old £20 notes.

Its a really small affair in a very small corner shop, a through back to the 60/70s.

Robert

 

[Ozexpatriate]

14 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

... stupid censoring software is still lurking around in the background ready to pounce on innocent words used in innocent contexts. Censoring “h0nky” in “h0nky-tonk”? Really?

Standard pejorative word filter. It is a simple string match for the whole word and has no AI for context.

 

It is at least better than one internet forum I once saw where the naughty word filter would match fragments in words and replace the whole word.

 

So words like constitution, soph0more and Japan would be flagged by the filter. People would get so frustrated typing words like sparse or desp1cable and not 'seeing' the hidden naughty word that users would publish intentionally mispelled lists of the 'bad' words as an aid, instead of having to play find the naughty word in "saltwater" or "document".

 

(Actually the filter here redacted the letters of the hidden words where I substituted numerals.)

 

sophomore

despicable

 

Do work here - unless there is a format change around the "naughty" bits as I had done originally. (Which of course separates the letters in HTML code and they become visible to the naughty word string match function call.)

 

Edited August 25, 2021 by Ozexpatriate

[polybear]

1 hour ago, JohnDMJ said:

The galling fact is that I started at the same time as someone much younger than I at the same time and the same salary. When I was researching for my tribunal, I learned that said whipper-snapper was on in excess of £40,000!

 

Bear once had the dubious privilege to be invited to a "Director's Lunch", along with half a dozen others not known to Bear - and hosted (unsurprisingly) by a Director, complete with flunky sidekick in tow.  Did I want to be there?  Not really - but a free nosh (albeit Buffet) is a free nosh.

As it happens it wasn't too bad - and Bear got the opportunity to tell Mr. D that (unless you're Barnes Wallace Mk.2 or play Golf with the Boss - he didn't like that bit much) then once you're fifty-odd then the chances of a fair pay rise is diddly squat; all the money is thrown at the smart young things to retain them (which often doesn't work cos' being young they bounce around a few companies every couple of years or so to bump their money up.  Once upon a time the Final Salary Pension Scheme would be a big enough carrot to retain them - but that went south years ago.

As for the fifty-somethings, the great empire know there's little danger of them leaving cos' chances are they are still members of the Final Salary Pension Scheme maintained for older employees - and they have the option to retire from 55 onwards....

And yet the great empire would like the older staff to impart their wisdom on the young 'uns.....yeah, right.....

At which point various other invited attendees in the appropriate age bracket (or close to) all agreed with Bear.

Mr. D was a bit quiet at that point,  so Bear loaded his plate for 3rds.....

 

I rather enjoyed it after all - but never got invited to another for some reason....

Edited August 25, 2021 by polybear

[tigerburnie]

I've had a couple of well paid jobs in the past, but boy did they get their monies worth, even when I retired they wanted me to keep my work mobile so they could call me if needed, when I told them the standard fee was £1000 per day or part thereof I have noticed in just over 5 years the phone hasn't rang once.

[Ozexpatriate]

56 minutes ago, polybear said:

... you're fifty-odd then the chances of a fair pay rise is diddly squat

Is this not "normal" everywhere?

 

Once you are in your fifties, it is my experience that you are likely to be in a high pay-grade and bumping against the maximum of the pay range anyway. Unless there are pay-grade increases, raises will inevitably decrease.

 

It is my personal experience that people in their fifties are much more likely to be laid-off - done *carefully* to avoid the appearance of illegal ageism (or at least manufacture plausible deniability), but is, in reality, a rose by any other name.

 

Edited August 25, 2021 by Ozexpatriate

[Coombe Barton]

... and a significant date ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2021/08/25/question-of-scale/

[pH]

27 minutes ago, polybear said:

And yet the great empire would like the older staff to impart their wisdom on the young 'uns.....yeah, right.....

At one time, I worked with an equipment build/maintain guy who was an electronics wizard, but with a very difficult personality. In a previous job, he had been given a young ‘helper’ to work with him. He quickly sussed that this was to be his replacement when he was fired. So he started keeping his notes in his native Lithuanian, then quickly found another job and left.

[brianusa]

13 hours ago, The Lurker said:

Seems there are no new jokes.

PC killed off the source.  Can't tell religious jokes any more nor anything remotely discriminating.  No naughty jokes about the clergy nuns or choir persons.  Nothing that could be considered personal.  Even Benny Hill would have a problem in this day and age; the Venerable Beeb was happy to run his show, girls and all though and everybody laughed.  So how does one turn off humour and what do you laugh at these days?

    Brian.

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

A fairly successful day here. After a shaky start with a flat battery on the old motor home I managed to get it MOTd and even fixed the non working toilet. Being a gynaecologist would  have been useful but at least I’ve got long arms. It took some fiddling, but last time I had the same issue it cost me £500 to fix at a dealers.

Finished the VAT return and got it submitted but after all these chores mojo had already called it a day so an early night is in prospect. 

Boys and Sydney coming tomorrow so for now I’ll bid you a goodnight.

Robert

[zarniwhoop]

10 minutes ago, brianusa said:

PC killed off the source.  Can't tell religious jokes any more nor anything remotely discriminating.  No naughty jokes about the clergy nuns or choir persons.  Nothing that could be considered personal.  Even Benny Hill would have a problem in this day and age; the Venerable Beeb was happy to run his show, girls and all though and everybody laughed.  So how does one turn off humour and what do you laugh at these days?

    Brian.

Oh dear. I was going to make a post about what I'd seen when reading what google had (correctly) identified as spam (I was looking in case an email I was half-expecting had been miscategorised).

 

Among the usual 'Dear Friend', 'From Barrister (some name)', 'From Miss (some name)' was ... 'Dear Fiend'.

 

I was sorely tempted to reply -

 

Please allow me to introduce myself,

I'm a man of wealth and taste.'

 

and end it 'pp Lucifer'.

 

But I fear that writing that here may now offend certain people. And it hasn't got rid of the earworm I woke up with (Part of the Union - the version by The Strawbs, dunno where that came from). Oh, What The Fiend, I've written it now.

 

[Ozexpatriate]

8 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

... a lot of commercially prepared vegan food ... that is highly processed, highly chemical and much of which is - in itself - a threat to the environment (do you know how much water is required to make 1 litre of almond milk? Or how much vegan food has palm oil in it - the demand for which is so great that they are cutting down swathes of the rainforest to plant palm tree plantations).

Nut milk and palm oils are indeed the dark side of vegetable-based products. Palm oil is in everything - not just food.

 

As the western US experiences ongoing serious drought, nut farming in the San Joaquin Valley of California truly represents an environmental catastrophe. Due to pumping the groundwater aquifers (which were charged when the whole valley was an inland sea are not replenished), there are parts of the valley that have subsided by 8.5m and some areas identified in 2015 as sinking by 0.6m annually.

 

The politics of water and agriculture in California are highly contentious and I won't comment on them here.

 

I had shared this before:

 

Palm oil cultivation has terrible side effects, beyond loss of jungle that includes decreased CO2 consumption and in Borneo, serious loss of Orangutan habitat, amongst other species.

 

[polybear]

29 minutes ago, brianusa said:

PC killed off the source.  Can't tell religious jokes any more nor anything remotely discriminating.  No naughty jokes about the clergy nuns or choir persons.  Nothing that could be considered personal.  Even Benny Hill would have a problem in this day and age; the Venerable Beeb was happy to run his show, girls and all though and everybody laughed.  So how does one turn off humour and what do you laugh at these days?

    Brian.

 

Amongst the source for "Bear's Sunday Funnies" there are some absolutely cracking ones; sadly I just know that they'll get Bear into trouble with the Mods/upset someone, somewhere so I filter accordingly.

However, even now I do note that the odd successful posting subsequently disappears with no warning or reason....

 

Bear's Tip of the Day:

Bear can recommend the following product - I've been using it on the kitchen refurb, even successfully masking off areas of painted wallpaper with absolutely no damage whatsoever when removed:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/FrogTape-Painters-Masking-Delicate-surface/dp/B006Y7F2P6/ref=asc_df_B006Y7F2P6/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=214440742293&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=18238296270668996652&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006997&hvtargid=pla-420935633419&psc=1&th=1&psc=1

 

Bear can report that no bribe of LDC is received from Mr. Frog as a result of posting this, nor are any frogs harmed during manufacture.  Any suggestion that it *may* have uses in certain hobbies is purely coincidental.  Widely available - including Toolstation, Screwfix, Wickes....

 

 

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. I went to the MRC this evening and there were plenty of spare hands for the work in hand so I came home. Time for tea and then to do battle with Farcebook.