Early Risers.

[polybear]

3 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Not according to this.

 

Two engineers, Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes, invented the bubble wrap accidentally from a failed experiment. They were trying to create textured wallpaper but got the outcome in plastic sheets with air in between. They tried different marketing efforts to make their creation visible to the general public, but they didn’t get any reasonable response.

 

After three years of their creation, a company named Sealed Air decided to use their plastic wallpaper as a protective packaging material and named their plastic wallpaper Bubble Wrap.

 

I'd bet good money that Bubble wrap is very high up the list of polluting materials.

At the Hospice Warehouse we save all packing materials, cardboard boxes etc. that people bring in with their donations as we do regular runs (every day or so) to the Ebay Warehouse so they can use it as packing materials when sending out sales.

[polybear]

Bear here....

 

Bear's first mission of the day will be to do yet another Wooflu test......

After than, well the world is Bear's cupcake.....

 

There's a very high probability of Bear doing' some more muddlin' (the joys of pickups today......); after that it'll be MIUABGAD - which may well include a wander at some point as the weather is predicted to be dry....hopefully.....

 

Right, time to wriggle.....

 

BG

 

edit:  If Mickey's Fixit Team prediction messaged on Monday is correct then Mickey might be out of Hospital today - though my money is on tomorrow being more likely; I'm in no hurry though - I'd much rather the fix is 100% right than winning any speed records.

 

 

 

Edited July 10 by polybear

[Winslow Boy]

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

Ey up!

 

Where is @grandadbob?

 

Off for an eye check up first thing.. pah!

Butvthecrain has stopped.. yippppppeeeeedddddoooo!

 

YoungestvHerbertbisboff to the great Yorkshire Show.. the whole group are off in a couple of 4 by 4s to make sure they can get onto the car park then back off again later.

 

Time for me to drink my tea!

 

Have a good day.

 

Baz

Do you mean Chelsea Tractors or proper 4 x 4's?

[PhilJ W]

3 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Yet another United Airlines aircraft threw a shoe, this time at LAX. "Who throws a shoe? Honestly!"

CNN: United Airlines plane loses wheel on takeoff in Los Angeles, marking latest incident for the airline

This one didn't drop onto a rental car parking area.  As it bounced across the airfield:

"Past bravo seven, bravo eight", immediately made me think of:

I've looked pics of at the damaged cars in the earlier incident, just as well they were unoccupied.

2 hours ago, Barry O said:

Youngest Herbert is off to the great Yorkshire Show.. the whole group are off in a couple of 4 by 4s to make sure they can get onto the car park then back off again later.

I went to an open air event last year where the car park was a very muddy field. They were using a tractor to pull cars including 4 X 4's out of the mud. I was able to drive out by avoiding the ruts and getting into as high a gear as possible and keeping the revs down.

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

Another dull start to the day here in England’s northwest corner, although it’s wet outside, it isn’t raining at the moment. I’m currently waiting for a phone call from ‘The Christie’ to get my latest PSA results. I’ve no set time for this, but it’s usually around 9:30 - 10, so hopefully I won’t have long to wait. After that, I’m hoping to get out into the garden as I need to get some dead heading done. There is a chance of more rain again today, I’m just hoping it doesn’t materialise. 
 

Back later. 
 

Brian

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Another good night last night, about 6 hours sleep in all. Not a lot on the agenda today so I might just put my feet up.

[Tony_S]

8 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

They have a tiered system, the manual labourers from South Asia, Myanmar and other places are treated pretty badly really.

It was made quite clear to my son that he wasn’t going to get a visa or academic support in Singapore if he wanted to research the life of Bangladeshi migrant workers for his M Res dissertation. So he went to Ireland to study Polish migrants. Got support from the Polish community, the University of Cork, and eventually when he wanted to take it further for a PhD, the Irish Research Council. 

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Winslow Boy said:

Do you mean Chelsea Tractors or proper 4 x 4's?

Many years ago (so long ago we had snow in winter) I was in the car park at a large local Tesco. In those days I had a Land Rover  Freelander which many owners of “proper” Land Rovers were rather dismissive of. Anyway, a man comes over and asks me if I knew about 4x4s as he was stuck. He had reversed into a snowdrift in his Toyota pick up truck. I said I didn’t know anything about Toyotas but I would tow him out. But first I sat next to him and suggested he put it in 4WD and try again. It worked.  He had only been sent to the shops to get snacks and was very grateful he hadn’t had to phone his boss on the building site for help. 

[DaveF]

A dull dismal dreary damp day so far, the rain is supposed to start shortly and then continue until this evening.  I'm hoping it will be not as heavy as yesterday.  It is also 13°C again, I think the thermometer has got stuck.

 

Having looked at the forecast I've changed my plans for today, visiting a very local National Trust property to look at the gardens does not seem like a good idea.  I might go to a garden centre as I need some tomato food, I could have a coffee while I am there.  This afternoon I am going to see the podiatrist, I must check I have some money as he only takes cash and cheques.

 

Then there may be some model stuff and the Tour de France.  I might even watch the football this evening.

 

David

[DaveF]

A long tiome ago I had a little 4 wheel drive Sunaru Justy.  It was usually very good in snow and ice.

 

Except for the time when all 4 wheels lost grip while going round a roundabout, fortunately slowly.  The car did a 360 pirouette, it missed the lamppost and kerb.  I am not sure what the bus driver waiting to get onto the roundabout thought.

 

We often used to get quite a lot of snow in Northumberland, in 25 years of teaching I was only late for school once, that was when my car wouldn't start in a temperature of -13°C.  It was fine after I warmed the plugs ubder the grill.  A lot of people were frequently late or missing in bad weather, some lived a lot nearer to the school than me.  Officially if we didn't get there we lost a days pay unless you were turned back by a policeman in uniform or a Road Closed sign.  However I don't think it happened in practice because of the cost of adjusting the payroll software.

 

All my other cars have been 2 wheel drive, so far I've never got stuck - and until recently I went out in any sort of weather.

 

David

[polybear]

And yet another Wooflu test....

 

Guess what?  Yep...you guessed it.....🤬

(Today is Day 9 - possibly 10, incidentally).

Looks like yet another week of no Bear at the Warehouse.  Poo.

 

(Incidentally, I realised yesterday that five wooflu tests from the drug dealer costs the same as FIFTY Strawberry Jam Donuts from Morrisons.  Bitter n' twisted?  Moi?)

[jjb1970]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

It was made quite clear to my son that he wasn’t going to get a visa or academic support in Singapore if he wanted to research the life of Bangladeshi migrant workers for his M Res dissertation. So he went to Ireland to study Polish migrants. Got support from the Polish community, the University of Cork, and eventually when he wanted to take it further for a PhD, the Irish Research Council. 

 

I  love Singapore and find many aspects way ahead of home, but the old barb that it's a benign authoritarian state is a reasonable comment. Even the locals often say it, actually a lot of the locals see it as a compliment. 

 

The other thing which becomes very obvious very quickly if not already understood is that below the veneer of being one big happy family it's a bit of a powder keg. Real estate agents ask you for race and occupation when asking to view homes. All the ones we contacted were very upfront in saying a white man with my job title and a Chinese wife was a dream ticket for landlords and several made no secret of their hierarchy with Chinese being the summit. 

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

The other thing which becomes very obvious very quickly if not already understood is that below the veneer of being one big happy family it's a bit of a powder keg. 

 

From what has been said in recent posts I deduce that the regime is founded on racism and exploitation.

[jjb1970]

21 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

From what has been said in recent posts I deduce that the regime is founded on racism and exploitation.

 

No.

 

They certainly exploit some migrant workers, but no more so than other developed countries.

 

On racism, to say the regime is founded on racism is nonsense, Yew Kuan Lee was famously meritocratic and made a determined effort to stop racism. The reason you have to declare race to property agents is that there are quotas for HDB apartment blocks which make up the vast majority of housing stock. The reason for that is to stop a multi-ethnic population becoming ghettoised and living in isolation from eachother. That may be a bad idea (personally I am not an advocate of identity based quotas) but the intention is exactly the opposite of racism and pretty much a variation of corporate DEI policies to increase diversity. The fact that landlords abuse it is wrong, but that's not down to a government which is ruthless against open behaviours which threaten harmony between the Chinese, Malay and Indian communities.

 

The reason for the tension between the three groups goes back generations and is largely a legacy of colonial regimes. Which again, isn't really the fault of a young country which has only been independent since the 60's and inherited what it inherited. While Chinese attitudes towards Malays here can be bad it should be seen in context of a country kicked out of Malaysia for being too Chinese and which still practices the bumiputera system on one side and Indonesia on the other where there was a genocide against the ethnic Chinese following the year of living dangerously of Soekarno. That doesn't excuse Chinese racism in Singapore  (which is no worse than racism anywhere else I have been, Britain included) but it does give some context to why it's still a problem.

[Tony_S]

39 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

Even the locals often say it, actually a lot of the locals see it as a compliment. 

There is a branch of Aditi’s very extended family that are Singapore based. They were in England and visited MiL. Matthew mentioned to them he was thinking of doing his overseas research project in Singapore, looking at the lives of the migrant workers. One of the relatives, insisted the Bangladeshis were not treated badly and why did Matthew want to stir up trouble. He said he was only going to observe them not incite trouble! It was Matthew’s Singaporean friends who had suggested it. Matthew never visited family in Singapore, just his friends. 

[BoD]

1 hour ago, DaveF said:

A lot of people were frequently late or missing in bad weather, some lived a lot nearer to the school than me.  Officially if we didn't get there we lost a days pay unless you were turned back by a policeman in uniform or a Road Closed sign.  However I don't think it happened in practice because of the cost of adjusting the payroll software.

In Durham if we couldn’t get to our own school we were supposed to report to the nearest council run school.  At one point, I’m guessing when child protection issues were just starting to be raised, we were given an ‘official’ letter to be used identifying us to the ‘other’ school.   I don’t think I ever missed a day, although when I was using public transport  I did arrive late once only to be told that everyone else had long been sent home. Unless the wind comes from the East (remember beast from the east)  we don’t have particularly bad winter weather on the coast.  I guess that ‘up in the dales’ this arrangement would have been used more often.

 

In other news (as people are wont to say) this morning has been spent cleaning the oven, a task I don’t particularly like, to put it somewhat mildly.  The gunk I use on the inside does a good job but it is foul stuff to remove once it has done said job.  Just the door glass to clean, put back together and refit now.

[polybear]

57 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

On racism, to say the regime is founded on racism is nonsense, Yew Kuan Lee was famously meritocratic and made a determined effort to stop racism. The reason you have to declare race to property agents is that there are quotas for HDB apartment blocks which make up the vast majority of housing stock. The reason for that is to stop a multi-ethnic population becoming ghettoised and living in isolation from each other. That may be a bad idea (personally I am not an advocate of identity based quotas) but the intention is exactly the opposite of racism and pretty much a variation of corporate DEI policies to increase diversity. 

 

Personally I think it has merit; there are areas of the UK where other cultures have congregated, arguably at the expense of the traditional UK culture.  One thing I'm very in favour of is both basic written and spoken tests prior to long-term visas etc. being granted - it's for the benefit of all, especially those from overseas who wish to make their life in the UK.  Am I correct in thinking that the US have such a system?

[polybear]

Mickey's coming home tomorrow!!  😀

 

And the repair cost?  "Just under £3K"  😱  Bluddy Hell....that's just nutz.

Of course that'll not include hire car costs (3 days) and the Insurance Company Costs either.  No wonder cars get written off so easily.

 

ION.....

 

Muddlin' "ongoing" - though nottalot achieved so far today (but at least it went right and not wrong)

 

BG

[The Lurker]

12 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

 

Singapore is no different.  Few native Singaporean people want to do hard manual labour (who would in this climate?), they want cheap maids to do all the housework and as a high value economy need to attract people for some roles yet many Singaporeans blame migrant workers for stealing their jobs.

In a way they have; our maid was a Singapore Malay. She once took my sister and I to her kampong so we could see what life was like for her. Mind you this was 1975.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

We went down to the beach for a walk this morning. Not very busy, considering we're almost halfway into July. No problems parking for free.

A bit breezy, with fast moving clouds across the sky.

That's the western end of the Isle of Wight in the background.

[Winslow Boy]

4 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Many years ago (so long ago we had snow in winter) I was in the car park at a large local Tesco. In those days I had a Land Rover  Freelander which many owners of “proper” Land Rovers were rather dismissive of. Anyway, a man comes over and asks me if I knew about 4x4s as he was stuck. He had reversed into a snowdrift in his Toyota pick up truck. I said I didn’t know anything about Toyotas but I would tow him out. But first I sat next to him and suggested he put it in 4WD and try again. It worked.  He had only been sent to the shops to get snacks and was very grateful he hadn’t had to phone his boss on the building site for help. 

As they say always read the manual first. At least the lad had enough gumption to ask for help rather just ringing his boss.

 

Got told recently about a relative who was in the firms van and suffered a blowout. Rang the AA who said they couldn't get to him until four hours. So he rang the hire people who said drive it to nearest depot on the rim. There are some people who shouldn't be let out let alone near a telephone.

Edited July 10 by Winslow Boy

[PhilJ W]

4 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Many years ago (so long ago we had snow in winter) I was in the car park at a large local Tesco. In those days I had a Land Rover  Freelander which many owners of “proper” Land Rovers were rather dismissive of. Anyway, a man comes over and asks me if I knew about 4x4s as he was stuck. He had reversed into a snowdrift in his Toyota pick up truck. I said I didn’t know anything about Toyotas but I would tow him out. But first I sat next to him and suggested he put it in 4WD and try again. It worked.  He had only been sent to the shops to get snacks and was very grateful he hadn’t had to phone his boss on the building site for help. 

I've had a couple of 4X4's though I very rarely had to use the four wheel drive. Once or twice I found the benefit of a high ground clearance. Once just after I'd gone through a water splash where after recent rain was a bit high I heard cheering from a few people standing on the bank. A low slung sports car had followed me and got stuck.😁

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. A bit of a problem with the TV this lunchtime. It flagged up no signal when I switched it on for the lunchtime news. I checked all the connections and then I noticed there was a red light on the box. So I went to the online help line and followed the instructions and I eventually managed to get the TV up and running again.

[TheQ]

Without the landrover there would have been several occasions when I would not have made it to or back from work..

 

I found Saudi Arabia very racist, at the top is the man, to the exclusions of all others including family,

Then family to the exclusions of tribe, 

Then tribe to the exclusions of fellow Saudis, and the darker skinned the tribe the lower status they had.

Then Sunni  over Shia,

Then over Arab Christians,

Then over westerners 

Then over cheap eastern labour.

Then the Jewish...

 

Felt very rough today, so haven't done a lot.

There's some curtains in the washering machine.

 

Spent some time drawing up a plan of unmentionables, happy with that, I've splashed some poster paint on the boards in appropriate places marking out the drawings, still happy..

 

Need to find some 10mm board.. 

Time to go looking.

 

 

 

 

[Coombe Barton]

... Today I’ve been looking for places to put stuff. The stuff in question is a load of multimedia equipment that’s been following me around for the past fifteen years. Eventually found some mug kind person to take it. ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2024/07/10/lurching-putting-numbers-on-politics-culture-changing-by-the-wind-sailor/

Edited July 10 by Coombe Barton