Early Risers.

[PeterBB]

21 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

I do that to get more in the bag before taking it to the trash/recycling center.

Our area specifically asks you to crush bottles.

 

[PeterBB]

18 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

I can't think of a place in the US where I have lived that garbage collection is not a private venture. Here all of yard waste, recycling and refuse is contracted by the city to one company. They collect all three every week on the same day (Wednesday) - I suspect it is the same truck that makes three passes.

 

On my morning walk I see other neighbourhood collections on different days - Mondays to the west, Tuesdays east, etc. It is quite localized.

 

In the Chicago suburbs yard waste was pay-per-use. You had to use large paper bags and affix a sticker (both available locally) per bag to pay for collection.

What  load of pure inefficient but money making for somebody way of doing things in Chicago.  Other responses since read that included the same sort if inefficient but money making systems.

 

Reminds me of the time a certain pm said re; needing to find a number that  'people wanted a 'variety' - no they didn't they wanted a cheap reliable service that they already had.  What happens now well,  number of companies offer 'the service' but it costs a lot to find out especially because of the 'delays' while they look it up and then continue the expense by asking if you would like them to get the number for you and of course charge exorbitant amounts if you say yes. The '192' was much more efficient and a whole lot cheaper.

Edited May 6, 2022 by PeterBB
added another aspect of the price problem

[PeterBB]

17 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

I wonder how it compares to the days where everyone burned coal in their home grate every day?

Hence the smog and the very much increased death rate when the weather didn't move ... it led to the 'clean air act' so, probably worse then than now.

[PeterBB]

14 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Not sure about the rest of the world but here at least when you see a cop car pulled up at the side of the road you are obliged to spend the next 5km double-flashing every on-coming car so they can slow down to the speed limit  with preferably a 10km/hr safety margin.

 

I do use it to brighten up long boring drives by double-flashing random oncoming cars for no other reason than the guilty pleasure of knowing that while my drive might be boring theirs will not only be just as boring but also for the next 10 minutes will be done at least 10km/hr slower than it needs to be.

 

Here they will cotton on and people have been 'done' for doing just that.

[Coombe Barton]

1 hour ago, PeterBB said:

Unusually unable to just click on this to read so had to copy to access - worth doing, not only for your content but Mars was great - thanks.

But did you get the Star Wars date reference in my music intro?

[J. S. Bach]

17 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

I often wonder about that when discussing climate change - was the damaged caused then and the delayed action is what we see now?  One for a different place perhaps!

How about all of the major fires and pollution in WW2? A photo of a kamikaze crash on one of our Pacific Fleet carriers brought that to mind.

[J. S. Bach]

10 hours ago, NGT6 1315 said:

Moaning awl.

 

On the train anew. Weekend's approaching, thankfully. I feel like I'll be sleeping like a rock!

 

Going to doze a bit, so, later...

I could never sleep on a train, even when I booked first class (sleeper on most long-distance Amtrak trains).

[The Lurker]

3 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

I could never sleep on a train, even when I booked first class (sleeper on most long-distance Amtrak trains).

i found it was quite easy if I had had a skinful. The tricky part was being awake for the right stop!

[laurenceb]

2 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

One thing, they got tons of kids reading who otherwise wouldn't have.

Always fun to watch the kids on publication day walking around with their noises deep in the book

[TheQ]

Afternoon Awl, give peas a chance..

 

SWMBO sorted the banking, though she blew the customer service woman's mind by saying she didn't have a smartphone to put their app on. so they'd have to send her one of those pin generating machines.

 

Barclays Bank, ten machines of various sorts along the wall, at most one person total using them.

Three staff wandering around trying to persuade people to use the machines .

1 person behind the help desk...

Queue of people for help desk... 8....

 

I got 5 books at my favourite second hand books shop.. total list value when new over £100, cost to me, £15... Oh the £15 included two books for SWMBO as well so seven books.

3 of the books are on the unmentionable subject, I wonder if  it's unmentionable because  Tom Marvolo Riddle played trains...

 

Stopped off on the way back and SWMBO spent £38 in a pound store, even more ridiculous when realise it's closing and everything was half price....

 

Two hours were spent mowing the jungle, there's a lot more left to do..

 

Ben took me for his long walk, for some reason the farmer has built a mini tower of bales of straw in the middle of the field that surrounds us. Strange because there were no bales last week and the field is full of...

 

Peas..

[Ian Abel]

POETS - probably 🙂

 

Yesterday, taxi Mrs to post-op checkup. According to those "that know" she's apparently a super-star!

Many of the folks attending their two week post-op are still using a walker (zimmer frame) or hobbling around with a cane at least, they said.

Not the Mrs, she's abandoned both as she feels completely stable and even walking the neighborhood now. ALL deemed OK and lots of praise to her for her determination with both the pre and post-op exercises. Altogether some great news, she's allowed to drive now and also "do" the stairs down to the family room. 

 

Me - choir rehearsal for our last performances this season, on Sunday. As noted, Earth Day service, moved to this Sunday accommodate musicians and childrens' choir that will join us for an opening number. THoughts now go to the choir "PARTY!!" that we usually have following the end of the season <burp> <hic>

 

Today - even though she's "cleared to drive", I'll be taxi service to take Mrs to PT early afternoon.

Weekend weather is supposed to be very good, so excellent chance we'll get the patio furniture out/assembled and have Mothers Day outside. Jemma is supposed to be doing the brunch here - yaya...

Other than the Mothers Day brunch and Sunday singing nothing definite planned - but I've yet to see the to-do list 🤯

 

Was a lovely sunny 6 first thing with 21 the forecast high today AND tomorrow with no precip in the offing. Sunday MAY be wet though, 90% chance of some rain 😒

 

Enjoy the start of the weekend.

 

 

[J. S. Bach]

17 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Afternoon Awl, give peas a chance.. ...snip...

Stopped off on the way back and SWMBO spent £38 in a pound store, even more ridiculous when realise it's closing and everything was half price.... ...snip...

Is that anything like our dollar stores where every thing is a dollar (or sometimes a little less)? I used to buy my toothpaste ($1.00 ) in the local dollar store until I saw the very same toothpaste in Walmart for $0.88!

[Gwiwer]

7 hours ago, Barry O said:

The roads, tube and buses are a lit quieter in London than they used to be..  fewer airplanes well.. but its still a city of multiple recycledair.

Going by which "used to be" date?  

 

Yes everywhere is quieter than immediately pre-pandemic though in many places roads are at or above 100% of previous traffic volumes and rail / tube use at around 80 - 90%.  Bus use is rising and is said to be at 70 - 75% of pre-pandemic levels.  

 

On the other hand there are still fewer trains with many of those which run also being shorter than before which gives the impression that London's transport is back to at least 100% of previous levels.  A crush-loaded 8-car train only carries 80% of the loading that its 10-car train carried two years ago for example.  Many bus routes are running less often than they did though the difference between every 10 minutes and every 12 minutes is barely noticed most of the time.  Such a headway would be a luxury in many other places.  The busiest routes are fine-tuned to have, on electronic file at least, something like 13 or 14 buses per hour which doesn't translate into a nice even "every x minutes" timetable on paper so what you see at the roadside is a list of early and late departures (when things are less frequent) with something like  "Then every 4 - 6 minutes"  between first and list buses.  Again in most cases the actual interval is barely noticed when things are running well.  

 

All the London airports are offering fewer flights than before though numbers, and aircraft sizes, are rising steadily back towards previous levels.  The procession of super-heavy jets which Heathrow sends up one close behind the other every so often wasn't missed at all but is now back; A380 double-deckers almost skim our roof bound for Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha all within a few minutes of each other before there is a lengthy interval with just the smaller ones leaving.  During the immediate post-Lockdown weeks and months when international travel was severely restricted there were small aircraft in and out of Heathrow of types and with airlines never normally seen; theyu took advantage of the "big boys" vacating their landing slots and gates for the duration.

 

There is plenty of recirculated air and it was very noticeable during the first lockdown how crystal clear the air became within a week of the no-fly stay-home advice being imposed.  Britain's busiest railway stations were deserted (apart from essential staff and a tiny number of passengers) during peak hours when mostly all that could be heard was bird-song.  

 

There are cleaner places across the UK.  And there are dirtier ones.  London operates the ULEZ limiting vehicle emissions and has the T-charge affecting certain older and more-polluting vehicles.  Buses must be at least Euro6 and all new ones hybrid or electric.  Uber applied a surcharge some time ago to assist their drivers in converting to hybrid / electric vehicles and in practice every Uber we have hailed in the past two years (at least) has been a straight electric.  

 

London was very much dirtier in the 1950s when the famous pea-souper fogs occurred driven by coal-burning domestic heating and the normal atmospheric conditions.  Fossil fuel is no longer burned for gas-making nor, legally, by any home.  More recently it has become unlawful to use damp wood in log-burners; only dry aged wood may legally be used which emits fewer toxic gases.  I remember visiting London in the 1960s and 1970s and finding black residue if I sneezed; the legacy of dirty tube tunnels and diesel-fumes in the air.  Buildings were caked in black grime.  Not any more.  A sneeze now produces clear material even if it occurs after a trip on the tube.  Buildings are often very much cleaner than they were revealing new (or newly-rediscovered) colours in the stone or brickwork.  

 

London isn't pollution-free by any means but it is a far better place than it has been well within living memory.  The last very significant polluters are the aircraft and even they are looking hard at how to reduce their carbon footprint and emissions.  

[Compound2632]

48 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

How about all of the major fires and pollution in WW2? A photo of a kamikaze crash on one of our Pacific Fleet carriers brought that to mind.

 

The point is that global energy consumption is very much higher than it was in the 1940s or 50s - or even 70s - with corresponding increase in carbon dioxide output, driving global warming via the greenhouse effect. Air quality is a separate issue.

[Gwiwer]

6 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

27 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Afternoon Awl, give peas a chance.. ...snip...

Stopped off on the way back and SWMBO spent £38 in a pound store, even more ridiculous when realise it's closing and everything was half price.... ...snip...

Is that anything like our dollar stores where every thing is a dollar (or sometimes a little less)? I used to buy my toothpaste ($1.00 ) in the local dollar store until I saw the very same toothpaste in Walmart for $0.88!

Same deal.  

 

"Poundland" continues to advertise "Everything's £1" even though that has not been the case for some years and they have ben on the receiving end of legal challenges to this assertion.  Their staff also take a lot of abuse for it - my youngest nephew worked for them for several years but quit because he no longer wished to deal with that amount of hassle for the wages offered.  Which are the statutory minimum hourly rate.  

 

You can find what appear to be bargains in the "£ stores" (of which Poundland is one) but they often turn out to be cheap "tat".  I once invested in a dozen LED lamps to replace the halogen ones fitted when we moved in.  They were £1 each.  Most lasted a matter of weeks.  Their replacements, from Sainsburys and more like £6 each, are still happily lighting our lives five years later.  You can also find such things as instant coffee which is not £1 and is priced at the nearest whole £ to a normal amount for the quantity.  So £4 for a typical jar or £7 for the "I have a severe addiction / large family" tins.  

 

In an attempt to undercut the £1 stores some have entered the marker-place as 99p stores.  How successful that business model has been only they know.  

 

The same occurs in Australia.  $1 stores are everywhere.  There are also "99c" stores although the rounding used there for cash sales in a land where the smallest-value coin is now 5c means you are still charged $1; it's 99c with a card.  I've also seen 95c stores.  And just like other places not everything is $1 / 99c / 95c because they can't afford lost leaders to that extent if they want to entice you in by filling their window displays with coffee and tins of sweeties.  

 

[TheQ]

16 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

Is that anything like our dollar stores where every thing is a dollar (or sometimes a little less)? I used to buy my toothpaste ($1.00 ) in the local dollar store until I saw the very same toothpaste in Walmart for $0.88!

 

Yep our pound stores used to be anything and everything £1 however in recent years they've had to put some things above £1 as inflation just got too much for them..

In Saudi they had 1riyal stores at the time in the late 90s early 00s a Riyal was worth £0.20

Edited May 6, 2022 by TheQ

[Gwiwer]

5 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

The point is that global energy consumption is very much higher than it was in the 1940s or 50s - or even 70s - with corresponding increase in carbon dioxide output, driving global warming via the greenhouse effect. Air quality is a separate issue.

How does that work out per capita?  Energy use is up by a factor of something astronomical but since the 1940s / 50s or even 70s so is the global population.  Just asking.  Because I don't know the answer but would be interested to know.  

[simontaylor484]

My first exposure to Harry Potter was one boxing day afternoon I was poorly otherwise I would have been in the Wild West (various pubs in Pontefract Town centre)

Stephen fry read the first book on Radio 4 I missed the ending due to finally falling asleep so ended up buying the 1st then ended up reading the rest.

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. I put my bin bag out early this morning and despite everything being triple wrapped in plastic the foxes broke into it. I'd collected together all that was spilt from it when the bin collector came along. I was about to put it in another bin bag but he said don't bother and picked it up without spilling anything. 

[Compound2632]

13 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

How does that work out per capita?  Energy use is up by a factor of something astronomical but since the 1940s / 50s or even 70s so is the global population.  Just asking.  Because I don't know the answer but would be interested to know.  

 

 

{Embedded link, figure 2 here.]

[tigerburnie]

54 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Afternoon Awl, give peas a chance..

 

SWMBO sorted the banking, though she blew the customer service woman's mind by saying she didn't have a smartphone to put their app on. so they'd have to send her one of those pin generating machines.

 

Barclays Bank, ten machines of various sorts along the wall, at most one person total using them.

Three staff wandering around trying to persuade people to use the machines .

1 person behind the help desk...

Queue of people for help desk... 8....

 

I got 5 books at my favourite second hand books shop.. total list value when new over £100, cost to me, £15... Oh the £15 included two books for SWMBO as well so seven books.

3 of the books are on the unmentionable subject, I wonder if  it's unmentionable because  Tom Marvolo Riddle played trains...

 

Stopped off on the way back and SWMBO spent £38 in a pound store, even more ridiculous when realise it's closing and everything was half price....

 

Two hours were spent mowing the jungle, there's a lot more left to do..

 

Ben took me for his long walk, for some reason the farmer has built a mini tower of bales of straw in the middle of the field that surrounds us. Strange because there were no bales last week and the field is full of...

 

Peas..

That'll be for the pigeon shooters to hide in

[The Lurker]

1 hour ago, Gwiwer said:

Same deal.  

 

"Poundland" continues to advertise "Everything's £1" even though that has not been the case for some years and they have ben on the receiving end of legal challenges to this assertion.  Their staff also take a lot of abuse for it - my youngest nephew worked for them for several years but quit because he no longer wished to deal with that amount of hassle for the wages offered.  Which are the statutory minimum hourly rate.  

 

You can find what appear to be bargains in the "£ stores" (of which Poundland is one) but they often turn out to be cheap "tat".  I once invested in a dozen LED lamps to replace the halogen ones fitted when we moved in.  They were £1 each.  Most lasted a matter of weeks.  Their replacements, from Sainsburys and more like £6 each, are still happily lighting our lives five years later.  You can also find such things as instant coffee which is not £1 and is priced at the nearest whole £ to a normal amount for the quantity.  So £4 for a typical jar or £7 for the "I have a severe addiction / large family" tins.  

 

In an attempt to undercut the £1 stores some have entered the marker-place as 99p stores.  How successful that business model has been only they know.  

 

The same occurs in Australia.  $1 stores are everywhere.  There are also "99c" stores although the rounding used there for cash sales in a land where the smallest-value coin is now 5c means you are still charged $1; it's 99c with a card.  I've also seen 95c stores.  And just like other places not everything is $1 / 99c / 95c because they can't afford lost leaders to that extent if they want to entice you in by filling their window displays with coffee and tins of sweeties.  

 

there used to be one of the 99p shops in Sidcup high street. The chain was taken over by Poundland, giving us immediate inflation but cutting out the irritating pile of pennies...

[polybear]

3 hours ago, TheQ said:

Barclays Bank, ten machines of various sorts along the wall, at most one person total using them.

Three staff wandering around trying to persuade people to use the machines .

1 person behind the help desk...

Queue of people for help desk... 8....

 

 

Do you think Banks will EVER  get the message?  No, nor does Bear 

 

2 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

My first exposure to Harry Potter was one boxing day afternoon I was poorly otherwise I would have been in the Wild West (various pubs in Pontefract Town centre)

Stephen fry read the first book on Radio 4 I missed the ending due to finally falling asleep so ended up buying the 1st then ended up reading the rest.

 

Stephen Fry reads the Alexa offerings - he's rather good at it too.

 

Bear here.....

Wallpaper replaced. Tick.  Another (the last) coat of paint below the Dado Rail applied to 3/4's of the Beary Lounge - so those walls are now "painted".  Big Tick.

Email received regarding Owatrol?  Nope.  C*ockwombles.

 

In other news.....

I wonder if he'll resign if he gets fined?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61352174

 

Another bad day for Poo Tin:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/russian-warship-admiral-makarov-reportedly-on-fire-after-being-hit-by-ukrainian-missiles/ar-AAWZGhl?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=48fad28f1f304d8cae720eabc5d40e19

 

edit:  The Admiral Makarov is much smaller than the Russian flagship cruiser Moskva, which sank last month, but it is only five years old and one of the most powerful Russian warships in the Black Sea. It features a Kalibr cruise missile system and is designed to hit other ships or submarines as well as coastal targets within a range of 2,600km (1,610 miles).

Edited May 6, 2022 by polybear

[Grizz]

Evening All

 

Hope y'all had a great day. 

So as it has a long old week, I am fairly tired (later to get tired and political) and it is poets day... you'll be amazed to know that I have invested in Harveys liquid shares again. Albeit only a half share (11 or so pints). And if you look closely folks the tide has already started to go out.....and will definately continue to do so as the evening goes on....specially as it is also C.B.A.T.C.T.....so we are all having pizza. 😁

 

 

Enjoy the rest of the evening.

 

ATB Grizz

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 6, 2022 by Grizz
missedabit...n spelled itworng

[pH]

2 hours ago, The Lurker said:

i found it was quite easy if I had had a skinful. The tricky part was being awake for the right stop!

There’s a solution to that - live at the end of the line!