@bullstuff2
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Ed I remember that mozzie size from the Borneo/Indonesian adventure. Used to fall asleep under my net, listening to the drone as these monsters flew in through the vents. Eventually we might be lucky enough to hear a quiet slapping sound as one of our “trained” resident Chameleons or Geckos whipped out a tongue longer than its own body and wound one in to be consumed. We loved those friendly, anti-aircraft reptiles, we trapped them with bits of corned beef and stuck them to our hut walls. We painted rank stripes on them after a first week’s performance. I was impressed with one once, to see it catch and carefully eat a hornet, which in SE Asia as you may know, is a heck of a size. The Gecko crushed and broke off the hornet’s sting, then reversed the process with its mouthparts, amazing process, took about 15 minutes. I viewed all fauna in that place as existing on an ‘eat or be eaten’ basis.
Things that Attenborough missed!?
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I'm out.Village Richard? Range of shops? TWO banks, a building society, antiques shops, hairdressers? Blimey, that’s a town on its way to becoming a city, compared to Lincolnshire villages.?? From Louth to Mablethorpe (15 miles) through 3 villages, there are 3 pubs and no Post Offices, no shops except for the volunteer-manned (womanned?) shop in ours.
I suspect that our village is on its way to becoming a commuter village. There is a Community Centre, with modern hall, a large sports ground which has regular fetes and car boots in warmer months. Unfortunately most of the Commitee andvolunteer helpers, are ageing and very few young people are coming forward to join them. Suddenly, in the last two months of 2017, two small developments have been started, to join the two large Executive Homes built at the edge of the village in early 2017. Hopefully there is new blood coming in and we need it, although some of the older villagers are not best pleased. Ironically, most of the anti’s are incomers themselves. One couple were complaining to me about ‘incomers’ when I said “But you weren’t born here.” – “No and neither were you!” – “No, but I had been a resident for 11 years when you moved in!”
End of conversation.??
You can please some of the people, some of the time…
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I'm out.We are lucky in having a recycling centre only about 3½ miles away. Our Council has just asked us to go from £25 to £40 for Green bin collections that have changed from fortnightly to monthly. I shall ask them to perform a biologically impossible act and take the green stuff myself. Now that we have gone to a low maintenance garden, there will not be much green waste anyway.
We have Grey bins for recycling and Black for Domestic waste. I find that I never fill the black bin more than ¼ full, with a black bag in the bin, that I tie up on collection day. This has two benefits: I am in the refuse collector’s good books, as they can just chuck the bag into the truck, and I don’t have to clean out the bin. Or get maggots in the bottom of the bin. I also wash out all the recycling tins, etc., cut up and fold up the cardboard. It’s all about keeping the BinMen happy and they always put my bins back properly where they should go.
Steve, this should put you off burning plastic: http://tinyurl.com/ptao3ap
” Dioxins are the most toxic to the human organisms. They are carcinogenic and a hormone disruptor and persistent,
and they accumulate in our body-fat and thus mothers give it directly to their babies via the placenta. Dioxins also settle on crops and in our waterways where they eventually wind up in our food, accumulate in our bodies and are passed on to our children. “When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.Two of my T shirts demonstrate that price and quality often do not always go together. Must be 6 years ago that I took my senior Gson to Bletchley Park and TNMOC. I picked up a T shirt and the counter person said that it was expensive, why don’t I buy one of the others at a lower price? Two reasons, I answered: 1 – I don’t like the others, they are of obviously inferior design and quality. 2 – I like this one and it tells a story. It’s a conversation-starter for someone who likes talking. Such as myself.
One present from my daughter at Christmas that year, was an “Old Guys Rule” T shirt. You must have seen them, meant to appeal to oldpharts. This one has had a design incorporating a vinyl ’45 record on the chest. I have seen the exorbitant price of these shirts in the only Louth store which sells them – a rather up-market outlet called “Eve and Ranshaw” which boasts a long established business going back to the reign of William IV. The store was on one of those TV shows by some woman who was touring High Streets and telling businesses how to ‘up their game’. Can’t recall the name of the show, I probably power-napped while it was broadcast. They have some beautiful gear, at ugly prices.
The TNMOC shirt is in a light brown colour and has a small and neat logo on the front with “The National Museum Of Computing”. On the rear is a pic of an Enigma machine, with 6 lines of luminous green “Typewriter” font beneath in several digits, letters and characters. Beneath that is a line of upper case text – “ATHENS TO VIENNA, 30TH APRIL 1941, THE TILTMAN BREAK”. below that is a shadow pic of Bletchley House. The ‘Tiltman Break’ was one of the key breaks in decoding the Enigma messages.
The “Old Guys” shirt has horribly faded colours and the material sags like an old potato sack. The TNMOC shirt’s colours are just as bright as new and the shirt is in the shape as it was new, despite much wear. I have walked through several places wearing the TNMOC shirt, including Chester and Ludlow. In both those towns, I had 5 different people stop and ask me about the shirt and Bletchley. I told them how to get there and I sincerely hope they went: everyone with an interest in our history should go, and take children if they can, IMO. It’s a wonderful place. But the merchandise has to be carefully chosen….
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I'm out.The more I have read of replies here, the more I realise that my area is different to most. Louth does have several smaller shops which take cards without charging, but these are the “Exclusive” type of Country Clothing (hunting & shooting Set) or fashionable clothing at daft prices for people who don’t realise how daft they look wearing it. There are also quite a few Antique shops of long-standing and antique buyers come from miles away to buy. There are a lot of entertainments people in the area: Barbara Dickson, Jim Broadbent and Will Young, plus others I forget. There is money in the area, as usual concentrated in the hands of a few. The Town Council has made a decision to make Louth even more of a “Food Town” and Rates discounts are given to those who open eating places. As a result we have more Tea Rooms, cafes and restaurants than can possibly make money. On Wednesday market days, we locals try to stay away from Louth. The narrow Georgian streets and narrow pavements are full of visitors and Rubber Neckers standing up to 6 deep and having conversations. Good for the local economy, bad for locals trying to get around.
The Exclusives, antiques and fashionable shops take cards, but the local people are used to dealing with cash in the small shops. I can’t see that changing very quickly. Ludensians (Louth folk) and East Lindsey people in general, are resistant to change.
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I'm out.During my first year out of Army service (’76 to ’77) I worked at a garage whose foreman was ex-RAF. He came in one day in ’81, bragging about 2 things he had bought cheap, “in a Nottingham pub”. One was a Betamax VCR, the other was an 8-track, in-car tape player. I left that garage for a foreman job at a larger business, didn’t see him for a few years, asked him about his 2 purchases.
His reply contained obscenities, the gist of which was that he had junked them both.
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I'm out.Plusnet are using EE and their prices are actually cheaper for the same deals. Go figure that one!
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I'm out.Richard the Polo shirts and Tees I bought are all marked “Made In Pakistan” but the quality is as good as anything else and much better than most. Of course Oxfam would tell me horror stories about kids stitching them together for peanuts, but they are not always correct. I recall a similar story in the media a couple of years ago in India: turned out that the “kids” were all adult women and their kids were at school. If they have a job that, without a Dickie’s (or similar) order would not exist, what would they do? – Probably picking over garbage heaps.
Dickies currently have T-shirts at £2.70: check it out. https://www.dickiesstore.co.uk/cat/sale
I used to buy Fruit of the Loom stuff for years, but they went wrong, first the price went up, quality stayed the same. Then the quality dipped and I discovered they were being made somewhere in Asia, can’t remember where. I used to buy a heap of M&S clothes because they last longer, always had that thought: if they are wll made and more expensive, they last longer. Therefore I don’t have to buy anymore for a longer period. Now M&S are going the same way. I have two half-zipped polo neck sweatshirts that I bought there about 12 years ago, still good. I bought 3 T-shirts there last year and the necks sagged within weeks. EWM (Edinburgh Woolen Mill) are just as bad, they had good, well made stuff once. Now it’s worse: sweaters that are covered in ‘pilling’ and no longer hold their shape.
Steve, these are the Tees I bought, the XL fits my lumpy bod perfectly and quality is great: http://tinyurl.com/yc472p7u
At £6 each that’s a bargain.
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I'm out.Children and dogs, especially crawlers and toddlers.??
I grew up with the psycho terrier (of no certain breed) that was my brothers’ pup. He could not handle it and grew bored ( a failing of his) so dad took to Chummy. When I was born Chummy was just a few months old and for some reason he decided that I was to be protected from everyone and everything else, which probably kick-started my lifelong love for dogs. We lived at the bottom of a valley and access to our house front door was by 6 steps, an incline and 3 more steps. Dad would apparently wheel me in the pram down to the front gate, in front of the 6 steps, and put Chummy under the pram, with a notice not to approach the pram as the dog was a serious ankle biter. He told me this as we buried Chummy years later, in the back garden, under the trees. I asked if he had been trying to get me kidnapped, in horror at the thought of another son at 40 years old. He denied it and I believed him, after seeing so many reactions over the years by Chummy, to anyone who even raised a voice against me. Chummy and I were inseperable: slept on my bed every night, howled the place down if I went out without him.
Kids and a good dog, muy simpatico.
And we have gone effortlessly from clothes to dogs. I love it.?
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I'm out.Looks like I am in good company!
Richard, “size issues” ‘R’me! Just like my dad, I have a bulky upper body without the height to go with it. My old fellow once read a book about Neanderthals and reckoned we were all genetic throwbacks. Mother countered that with “Apart from the short arms. And long pockets.” Cruel woman.
They have a Sale on atm, some good bargains.
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I'm out.My shopping town is Louth, just 2½ miles down the road from my village, which has a twice-weekly mobile Post Office and a small shop run by volunteers. Louth has a plethora of charity shops and a lot of small shops. The only “chain” type shops are a small Morrisons, a Peacock’s, a small Argos and a Heron. We love our small shops in Louth, but they are having problems with the new law regarding bank cards. It is now illegal to make a charge upon card purchases and the 5p. plastic bag charge is set to be added to all shops soon. For a large shop or a shop which is part of a larger company, these laws will possibly mean a very small rise in product prices, if any. For a small shopkeeper, it could mean the difference between profit and loss, especially when High Street rents and rates are rising. I have therefore decided to make some shopping changes in town.
*I will carry a bit more cash for small shop purchases, but only as necessary: there are several ATM’s in the town, convenient to main shopping areas.
*I will carry at least one folded, collapsible shopping bag and avoid the plastic bag surcharge.
I know that paying cash will affect the cashback on my contactless card, but that is a small price to pay for keeping local small shopkeepers in business. Some of them I have known for many years as friends, and have regular conversations with. There is a Market 3 times a week* and the Traders, all regulars of many years, obviously do not work with anything but cash. If everyone who shopped at small shops, followed the above previous two paragraphs, small shops stand a better chance of survival. When they’re gone, they’re gone and your High Street is full of the clones that every town and city has. This is a very true statement that describes the situation:
(Quoting Steve) ” We all need to remember that we are all different and have different needs, some of us more niche needs, but just because we don’t see the benefits for us, doesn’t mean there isn’t a need for such things. ”
That’s from a guy who grew up in a big city area and now lives in rural Wales. We don’t all live in big cities and towns and we all have different shopping needs, from different outlets.
*Anyone considering a visit to Louth market, should make it a Wednesday. That’s the biggest and best market. Park in Eastgate Long Stay (On the right, left side is Shortstay)
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I'm out.A fellow Air Tech in the AAC, once told me that his older brother had ‘upset’ Ronnie Kray by refusing his ‘advances’. Beaten up, slashed and escaping death, his brother emigrated to Australia.
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I'm out.Richard I share your worries wrt open banking, although SWMBO and I are very careful. We don’t bank or pay by anything other than my desktop, her laptop, by card (with care) or in branch. Both PC’s are protected and online banking is doubly so.
I think that those who will be caught out are those who are always vulnerable, due to their own eagerness to buy, negligence, stupidity, or an inability to recognise the truth of “if it looks too good to be true, it probably is not true.” I have just had to prevent my grandson No.2 from possible disaster, by shopping on a ‘website with really cheap stuff ‘. I asked for the site address before he registered or purchased, checked it out and found the awful reviews, including alleged evidence of possible fraud. I also pointed out to him that the site did not have ‘ https ‘ in the address bar, just ‘ http ‘. This is a lad who earned an IT qualification at 14 from his Academy school, despite his severe dyslexia. That begs two questions: how good was the education and qualification, and how has a lad with an eidetic memory, forgotten what he (may/should have been) taught?
As for investments: we were badly burned by the 2008 finacial crisis. We had invested a windfall in order to boost our finances and prepare for later years. We lost an estimated 55% of our money and I have never invested in anything Market-related since. However, there are several favourable possibilities to come from open banking. The best of which will be the fact that the Big Banks will have to up their game and actually consider better customer services, in order to compete with start ups that could offer very favourable terms and rewards to customers. In other words, they may have to take banking back to the days when the customer was more important than the banker. Saville Row – suited personnel may begin to fall from high rise office blocks….
That may also be a double-edged sword of course. The usual fraudulent activities which latch onto anything new, especially anything financially-based, may see more disasters. I hazard a gues that the “Nigerian Princes” will be watching developments.
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I'm out.I see – Pauline Moran – http://tinyurl.com/y7jdvrkz
Defo UCT, also efficient, sounds OCD to me.
Whatever floats yer boat, Lee. I like Emma Thompson, accent that could cut glass, never says ‘bath’ when ‘baaarth’ is so much better. Daft as a brush though, these are the names of her brats:
Gaia Romilly, Tindyebwa Agaba. Seriously. Married to Greg Wise, he’s a toy boy, 8 years younger than her.
Tasty Older Totty:
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I'm out.I really should not have run all of London down. I was forgetting my 2+ years at sea, sailing out of Hull but picking up cargoes at West India Dock. The “Old” * East End was brilliant for a young lad like me at that time (’61 – ’63) and I had some great times amongst “proper Cockneys” there. On return from my second Meditarranean trip, I attained the grand age of 17 whilst at the W.I. Dock and the crew took me to a pub that my (possibly faulty) memory labels “Charlie Brown’s”, although it had a different name over the door, which escapes me. It was a big old Isle of Dogs pub with a stage and my birthday was given out to the patrons: it was packed with Dockers and their families. I had quite a few bevvies and was coerced to go up on stage to sing, where I gave my rendition of “It’s Now Or Never” and “All Shook up”. The crowd were throwing things at me and my first thought was “You barstewards, I’m just a kid!” Then I realised they were throwing half-crowns wrapped in 10 Shilling notes, which today equates to about 65p and amounted to quite a bit of cash for a kid who was making just over £3 a week. I don’t think I paid for a drink over the 6 days we were docked: everywhere I went, there seemed to be someone who was at my impromptu 17th. birthday bash.
*Blacklion1725 (or one of his elders) will know what I mean by “Old” East End. It no longer exists today, what a great community that was.
John (JayCeeDee): my entry into the world was as traumatic as your own. My mother and dad were both 40 and it was March ’45. Mam had already had 2 boys in ’28 and ’30, having lost her firstborn, a daughter, in 1926. “I had a terrible time having you” was a constant refrain during my childhood and teenage years, and she never let me forget that I was supposed to be born as her hoped-for girl. Apparently I was an awkward birth, being feet-first and earlier than I should have been. I never knew much about it, because she would not go into detail and dad was of the generation that did not talk about stuff viewed as ‘Women’s Problems’. To quote Stewie from “Family Guy”, I must have wrecked the place on leaving. That may sound rough, but mam was an abuser with a mental problem and TBH I hated her as a young boy and after she was treated and became different, the hate just became indifference. I spent more time at my big brother’s house than at home and I lived with an aunt in Staffordshire for almost 3 years.
I did try to find records of my birth some years ago. I was born at Peel Street Hospital for Women, Nottingham. I discovered that the hospital closed soon after the War and burnt down before the records could be retrieved. One strange coincidence came years later, when an old Army mate and Nottingham lad rang me. “You were born on Peel Street, in that old hospital, right?” – “Yes mate.” – “Well I’m working there, they rebuilt the shell and it’s going to be a block of flats.” Couple of years later I parked there whilst collecting a TV from Richer Sounds across the road. “I’ve found the Crime Scene,” I said to my missus “This is the street where I was born!”
“There should be a Plaque!” she replied: “A big black one, with a wreath around it!” Save me from smartass women…???
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I'm out.JayCeeDee:
John I have never forgotten the trials of coming through the Tube from Waterloo to St. Pancras when I served in various military areas of Hants, Wilts, Dorset and a brief period in Berks. “In their own bubble” is right, they don’t give a toss about each other or anyone else, just want to get home or wherever else they were going. I once saw an RN sailor’s suit case fall apart, he was trying to get it all back together and they were treading all over him and his gear. I got between the crowd and him, shoved them out of the way and helped him repack and fasten it back together. He was in uniform, but I always travelled home in civvy dress. “Bet you are HMF?” – “Yes mate, I’m a Pongo.” – “Thought so, this lot don’t care about you and me until there’s a war.”
He caught a different train to me, but we shared a smoke and he bought me a pint in the station bar.
The only part of London I like, is in the Northern suburbs – High Barnet, where our friends live. A really friendly town, good shops and restaurants. Not at all like a part of London, very friendly people.
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I'm out.You want a Skoda Steve, Doriss wants a higher vehicle. How about the new Karoq?: –
VW based of course, maybe a less expensive Touran, or Touareg.
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I'm out.Lol, you want UCT? (Upper Class Totty) – think more along the lines of Emma Thompson:
Would you?
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I'm out.I would love to help Lee and I completely agree with your point, but atm I amtied up with health issues for my Gert and myself. If/ when this calms down one way or another, I may be able to pitch in.
Maybe you need an apprentice? Efficient, blonde, attractive, Forty-something? ???
Just a thought…
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I'm out.Nagging you now John!
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I'm out. -
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