[Bob Williams]

Which Statins do you take Ed? I ask because I now take Pravastatin, and was first prescribed Atorvastatin. The Ator gave me bad side effects which my GP says he has never experienced in a patient before. (typical for me to have them though) I took them for two weeks and suffered a complete loss of energy. I just did not feel like doing anything, which frightened the family as I am never like that. I stopped for two weeks and started again, to have a comparison. I became listless and unable to focus on anything. GP gave me a blood test, then one month’s grace without any statins at all, another blood test and prescribed Pravastatin. No more problems and my Cholestorol has gone to normal, whatever normal is for me. 😉 🙂

I think that I am actually a little healthier as a result. Certainly I appear to be walking for slightly longer distances each day. Perhaps my distrust of Pharmaceuticals is a little misplaced….

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Jason I have watched Burton Albion rise gradually, which IMO is the best way to do it: promotion – consolidation – promotion. How many clubs have we seen shoot up the Leagues, then implode and slide back down? That includes Forest of course, although atm we are just 2 places above BA, you have a game in hand so I expect that to change. You also have BC’s son as manager. He was sounded out for the Forest job two weeks ago, but stated that he wants to work to help Albion stay in the Championship before committing. I personally believe he would be daft to leave, and dafter still to go to Forest. There was bad blood between the Clough family and the club for some time after his dad resigned, but after BC died fan pressure (and lots of it) changed that. Now, as has been said, there is a statue of his dad at the City Ground and the A52 is Brian Clough Way between Derby and Nottingham, to recognise his achievements at both Forest and that other team down the A52, who like sheep. I have seen so many “Forest Legends” come to manage the club ‘Post-Cloughie’ starting with Frank Clark, moving through Stuart Pearce an others such as Douggie Freedman. None have made an impact, I have no idea why but I think the rot starts at the top and has worked its way down. My mate at the club, is convinced that Al-Hasawi is having the wool pulled over his eyes by certain people, including some ex-players. TBH, I am becoming disillusioned with mainstream football. If I was able to go to a match today, it would be to my local Louth Town and Lincoln City. They play with heart and give 100% to the game that they obviously love.

Lincoln’s story is of course incredible: they should have had no chance of beating Burley, but nobody gave them the script, they didn’t know that they were not supposed to beat a team 81 places higher than themselves. What many people do not know, is that Lincoln almost went bankrupt and out of football in 2012. Local concerns saved it: a Lincolnshire businessman, Lincoln Co Op and a Lincolnshire building company, Lindum, invested the money to pay wages and keep the club financed. In 2015, another expatriate Yellowbelly<span style=”color: #ff0000;”><span style=”font-size: 18pt;”>*</span></span> from South Africa, invested a lot more and became a Director. Because of these local investors, who are also fans, the club exists and is on a sound financial footing.

I am currently looking at Leicester City and wondering if their bubble is about to burst so soon after it was inflated 🙁

<span style=”color: #ff0000;”><span style=”font-size: 18pt;”>*</span></span> Lincolnshire-born natives are called Yellowbellies, there are so many explanations, just choose your favourite:

https://tinyurl.com/j2pgns6      – just don’t tell a Lincs lad (or lass!) that it has another meaning! :negative:

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Two Motability leases ago I had a Focus Titanium 1.6 Auto which developed a rear wash/wipe fault. It took the Mablethorpe Ford dealer 3 days to find the fault: they started at the dash! End of second day, I could not believe my eyes when I visited the garage. They had wiring looms out everywhere. I asked if they had an Auto Electrician, they said no it’s one of the mech’s. Tomorrow you get a proper Auto Leccy on the job, or I report this to Motability and Ford website.

By the end of the 3rd day it was done. I spoke to the Leccy, who said it was a manufacturing fault and he found it within an hour, but would have found it sooner if the mech’s had not pulled all the other wiring out. The loom to the rear electrical components had been incorrectly laid, the wash/wipe wiring ran across a raised weld and wore through the insulation, with predictable results. That Focus was the worst Ford I ever had from new, lots of niggling faults.

Now I am almost at the end of this next lease, the current C-Max has been leased from a much better Ford dealership, closer to my home than the 13 mile trip to Mablethorpe. My next lease is a Hyundai Tucson and the trip is almost to Grimsby, probably more like 18 miles, but there just happens to be a Hyundai Service Manager from there, living around the corner. I get lucky now and again. As long as he doesn’t move jobs to another dealership. The C-Max has developed a strange fault: a “Check tyre Pressures” warning which will not go away. Checked the pressures and they are perfect, tried to setup the dash display to reset the warning light and cannot get into ‘Vehicle Systems’ from Menu, it does not come up. Oh well, I can live with that until the MOT, Service and Motability Condition report next week. I have just valeted the car, as a good condition report gets me £250 from Motability when I get the next one. They should have no problem selling it: less than 30,000 miles and looks immaculate, not a scratch.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

As the old sweat/oldphart who worked with something longer, heavier and much more accurate, I used the L1A1 SLR, a weapon still used by many Forces all over the world, notably in Africa, in its orginal Belgian FN Auto design. As the politicians and MOD did not  want the British Army spraying 7.62 mm rounds all over the place, inflicting serious collateral damage and using far too much ammunition, the L1A1 was made to fire Repetition instead of Full Automatic. The time of my service was an era when the British soldier was taught to fire single, grouped rounds: translated by opponents such as the IRA as “Shoot To Kill” which was a nonsense. We were trained to aim at the centre of body mass and Range Classification was an important, regular occurence. In my case, as sniper-qualified, I had access to another weapon after qualification: the L42A1, basically a Lee-Enfield SMLE, barrelled and chambered for 7.62 NATO ammunition. That was my favourite rifle and I could hit anything up to and often over 1,000 yards with it. I also tested one of a batch of Russian Dragunov weapons, no idea how the Army came by them (and did not ask, thank you!) It was very accurate once I learned how to adjust sights, but did not feel a part of me like the L42. I hated the openworked butt.

Weapon at Carry in Field conditions was complicated for me as a Left Hand shot, as was firing. The L1 was easier to fire left handed at first, but in order not to be blinded by empty cases shooting across my vision, I had to turn up the Gas regulator to max, which meant more cleaning as the whole weapon became fouled with Carbon. Once I got used to firing the L42 by crossing my left hand across to work the bolt, it became second nature and the “muscle memory” that Steve talks about, came into its own, even crossing over the ‘scope. I loved that L42A1, it was just so damned accurate and, once used to the recoil, it was a much more stable platform than the L1A1. I liked weapons not strictly for what they did, but as also a Technician. I liked them as well-engineered machinery which had evolved into either perfectly suited to their tasks, or a horrible POS that the PBI hated. Personally, having also tested an AR15, I think the British Army would have been better off licence-building a version of that tried and tested weapon.

I do not recall ever having been advised which Carry to adopt: I think we were left to what best suited us for the situation. For myself, in Field and Active conditions, it was across my body from L to R. I could easily drop face down onto my elbows, or onto one knee with the weapon coming into line, or pivot standing towards whichever Threat direction and bring the weapon to bear.

      L1A1 – with plastic stock & butt: mine was wood.

 

  L42A1: Beautifull! But too shiny, I darkened mine.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Bundesliga clubs are more appreciative of their fans than the Premier League clubs here. Fan appreciation began under Al-Hasawi, he started Fan Days, sat with fans alongside his mother and took fans into the club on non-match days. Don’t know why, my mate on the City Ground staff thinks someone got to him and he stopped it all. Support for him amongst fans has nosedived, he used to put videos out telling fans everything at the club, now it’s just a few words that mean nothing. The worst thing a club owner can do, is show fans a better way to get involved with the club they love, then take it away and replace it with the Official Line. His mum, btw, still goes with his son, sits among fans including some of my family, and is apparently learning all the wrong English words. :good: :rose: The fans love her, she can hardly speak English, but they think more of her than they do of her son.

Fans are treated better than they were 20 or 30 years ago, but that’s like saying life was better after WWII. It’s all relative: football authorities, especially all the Oldpharts in the Premier League, EFA, EUFA and FIFA, don’t give a damn about fans. They just want to keep their soft, highly-paid jobs and perks, while stopping any real information getting out. Things are changing, have changed in society, but these old gits keep on pretending it is not happening.

EDIT: forgot to say “Well done” to Lincoln City. Amazing result, I wish Forest players would all grow a pair and sort themselves out.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Ed P wrote:

“Has lime mortar or plaster been reworked with modern non breathable cement mortar or plasterwork added?” +1 — Rendered brickwork is a well-known house killer.

Ed that is similar to a product once applied to car chassis in the 70’s. “Cadulac” had been applied to the chassis of a Capri once owned: the last I ever had of 7 Capri’s. I was driving some Staffordshire cousins in the rain once, when a voice from the back said “My feet are wet!” When I got home I took out carpets and checked from underneath. There was a big crack straight across the holes in the floor, sealed by rubber grommets in the factory. In a similar way to cement rendering, the Cadulac was inflexible, not like Waxoyl, and did not flex with the floor. One crack opened up another and held water up to the bare chassis. The floor was rotten, I had to scrap the car. Fortunately, it had been previously owned by an enthusist and I was working as a manager of a garage with a large compound. It had a blueprinted engine and a 5-speed box, with a special velour interior. I was able to sell all parts independently and actually made more than I paid for the car. What was left was just a body shell and that went to a scrapyard.

But the principle was the same; a product applied without forethought and testing, causing more destruction than it was meant to prevent. An engineer’s nightmare.

 

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

I have friends in North London (High Barnet) and the whole family are Arsenal supporters. Mum and dad are long-time mates to us both, so dad tells us all about family doings, as we tell them ours. The Wenger situation has apparently caused a family split: majority want  Wenger gone, as outlived his usefulness. Mate tells me that he was trying to be impartial and keep the peace at one of their family gatherings, when mum (not a footie lover) spoke up. “Are you going to let ****ing football upset this family? I will stop talking to anyone who keeps on arguing about this right now!” Mum has never been known to use language like that, says my mate, their dad. Shocked faces around the table: “Sorry mum,” from all of them. End of argument. “I will not hear another word about this! It ends now!”

That, says my mate, shows who is the real power in the family… :good: 🙂 But he thinks privately (in a PM to me) that Wenger should go. His own choice would be Eddie Howe at Bournemouth. This is a 5th. generation Arsenal family, even their German relatives (via maternal gran) are Arsenal fans, they come over regularly for games. I upset them once by saying I preferred to watch West Ham, or Borussia Dortmund. (The Germans are from Hamburg) :whistle:  :unsure:

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

BC is still a hero to Forest fans who remember him, they pass on all the stories to their kids and grandkids. The story is a football fairy tale: when he took over in 1975, Forest were in the old Second Division and going nowhere. For those of us who had been supporting the club through thick and (mostly) thin, what happened next was almost unbelievable. In ’76 his best mate Peter Taylor followed him to Forest from Brighton. Taylor was actually a Nottingham lad, born & bred, and he was the one who picked out the players Forest needed to succeed. In ’77 they were promoted to the First Division in 3rd place and that was only after a nail-biting finish, courtesy of Wolves beating Bolton and denying Bolton third place.

First match was Everton away (you’ll like this, Steve) and we won 3 – 0. Then we won the Div 1 championship and League Cup. We supporters were on Cloud 9 by now, but next season we won the European Cup (you won’t like this, Steve!)  on the way to Magic in Munich (the final) we beat Liverpool 2 – 0 in Leg 1 of Round 1, then drew 0 – 0 away at Anfield. I was there with a few thousand others and we had to hide our colours on the walk back to the train. We won it again the following season, Magic in Madrid, and the League Cup (here we go again Steve) which we won in a replay at – wait for it – Old Trafford, 1 – 0. Against Liverpool. We won the league Cup in its various forms several times after that. For a small-city club, it was a magic carpet ride and most of us older supporters have never recovered from it. Then the rot set in. Taylor was offered his own managerial job at Derby and took it, BC was miffed, and Taylor then bought a Forest legend, John Robertson, from Forest to Derby. Clough never forgave him. Robbo came back to Forest, but by now Cloughie, always a drinker, was necking far too much. He didn’t have the guy who could spot a player and he began making bad decisions. For the next few years, the club was bleeding money, after a succession of bad buys for too much money. Then Taylor died and I  think that was the beginning of the end for BC. He resigned in 1993 after we were relegated to the Championship and a succession of managers followed. The club slowly went downhill, possibly the least effective manager was David Platt, an England international who had played in Italy, brought in a succession of foreign players who were expensive failures. The club would eventually have folded, had it not been for a millionaire Forest supporter Nigel Doughty who bought them and wrote off £100 million of debts. Unfortunately the club kept on haemorrhaging money and Nigel Doughty was later found dead at his gymn. He had poured most of his own money into the club. His successor, Al-Hasawi, seems to have no clue. One minute he is selling, next he is not. Fans are all opposed to him, but the fact is that he has just written off another £100 million in debts. The future of my old club looks uncertain, but the truth is that supporters are still stuck, looking back at the Clough era and contrasting it with today. Players from that time still stroll into the club whenever they wish, and trophies are displayed all over the place, with posters of “the Glory Days.” I wonder what effect that has on today’s Forest players?

The truth is that Clough brought to the club, the most successful period we ever knew, then blew it apart because nobody wanted to challenge the legend, after the legend was obviously failing very badly. It was unheard of for a small club to challenge the Big clubs. Leicester have been applauded for winning the Premiership once: I do not think they will win one European Cup, never mind two.

Steve, imagine if Bill Shankly had never had a successor who carried on the torch to even more success, and Liverpool had slid down the Leagues. Forest actually slipped into League One at one point and it’s entirely impossible that they may do that again this season. It saddens me to see it happening.

Arsene Wenger is doing the same thing in a different way. He has one way of playing and everyone has figured it out: Arsenal players cannot handle physical pressure, they don’t have the players who can compete with pressing football. Apart from all that, he is the most miserable bugga who ever sat in a football dugout and his views are all one-sided, he makes Alex Ferguson look impartial!

 

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

That is exactly the procedure I carried out, I should have gone into the Kaspersky angle as thoroughly myself. It always crops up after every upgrade, every 12 months. JayCeeDee, I am going to copy and paste that, well done sir, you are a gentleman and a scholar!

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Sorry about the late reply Steve and Mark. Speaking of photos, should know better: taken to Hospital this morning for a snap Epidoscopy as one of my problems flared up. They decided to go Routes 1 and 2. Route 2 is no problem as due to the Colostomy it is not functioning as first purposed, Route 1 more of a problem as it is subject to a shrinking oesophagus, so they gave me the Happy Stuff. I have been out of it most of the rest of today. Those photos are not pretty, they always give me copies but I will refrain from putting them on here, if nobody minds. :whistle:  :negative:

You are both right as regards the Google photo recovery, but the lady involved never set the hudl to auto backup and has no idea what her account details were, after first setup. Last night and a few minutes ago I finished the last efforts on the hudl. It is an ex-parrot. I managed to get SWMBO’s lappy to recognise it, but Windows reported it as having no drivers installed and could not find any. I managed to find suitable Android drivers and installed them to a micro SD card, by now had given up on retrieval, just wanted to try getting to a Start Menu. Or anything, really. 😥   I used the pinhole on the back to Reset to Factory, but it would not load anything from the SD card and would not recognise it. The thing just went into a reset/recovery loop. I would like to lie it under a truck and drive over it a few times, but the lady wants it back to let her brother play with it. As it will not restart and not even be recognised, I view it as dead.

Nice link Steve: when I had my hudl2, I downloaded as much Tesco manual stuff as I thought I would need and that is still in a folder on this pooter. That will come in handy now I have time to have a go at making one hudl out of 3 in various stages of disrepair. IF everybody around here stays away from my door with their tech problems! Wish I still had my old GSD… :negative:  :whistle:  🙂

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

JB, this may not be down to Forumite. Which Internet Security/AV do you have? I had this with Kaspersky and I found how to cure it. If you don’t have that, access Firefox, go to Menu Bar at the top and click Help. In the Search Box, type “Website not configured properly”   (without quotes) and see what it brings up. I am looking into it, but busy elsewhere atm, back tomorrow.

I have Firefox and my problem was same as yours, fixed in Kaspersky Total Security.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Steve, the problem is that this lady is no idiot, in all other respects she is quite intelligent. She is also a very thoughtful, caring person and I would really like to help her. She is one of those people who have never really had anything to do with tech: computers, tablets, etc were a mystery to her. Much of that is down to an abusive ex-husband who would have none of that in the house: she divorced and moved away from him. Her son, who has ostracised his dad, lives down south and she does not see her two granchildren very often, so the photos were precious to her.

I share your opinion of most people who don’t backup, but this lady has limited knowledge of things we take for granted. I have sat down with her and used my tablet, wife’s laptop and this desktop to explain the back up process. I am sure she now understands the necessity of backup. Unfortunately, that was after the fact of the hudl blowing its cool. Is there any way I can retrieve the photos, do you think? I will have to speak with her again and ask about her Google ID. Big problem is that I cannot get the hudl to be recognised by my desktop or the lappy. If I could get that to work, and retrieve the photos, I might be able to put them on another hudl that I am trying to resurrect.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Thanks for reading my Moan Tippon!

I have begun to deal with the same situation by broadcasting the fact that my spinal problems are making my hands and arms less effective at messing with tech. It’s true, it’s a slow deterioration and has been for some time, but I have only begun to speak about it locally for the last month. The lady concerned is a very good friend to everyone here, she has epilepsy but still visits the older, frailer menbers of our community. It’s not so long ago that she walked to and from Louth (3 miles to shops) to do her shopping. Those of us with cars now take turns to take her. When it’s someone like that, it is very hard to refuse.

I have another Hudl (2) project I am trying to get off the ground: cannibalising one from 3 with various problems. As her Hudl1 is now officially dead, if I can fix this Hudl2 I will make her a present of it. Parts are definitely easier to obtain for the2. Wish me luck…. :scratch:  :whistle:  :unsure:

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

I left my old home in the old village where I grew up when I moved into a flat after leaving the Army, but always had a picture of it in my head. With my dad, over the years we planted 3 apple trees in a triangle at the top end, with eldeberry along the top and a fence next to neighbours, along which we trained blackberry vines. The apple trees grew as did the blackberries and the rest of the garden was packed full of vegetables. I was the only one of 3 brothers who would garden with my old man, who was just the best dad and made up for a psychotic mother.

After I married, mam and dad had both passed away and we moved into a house further up the village. I had not been round the back of the old place for many years, kept talking about it to SWMBO and one day I stopped the car outside the house, took her up to see it. Went round the back: no apple trees, no blackberries, no veg. Just lawn, no trees at the back, a new fence all round. Then it hit me – I don’t live here anymore, it’s nothing to do with me and hasn’t been for years! It was like being set free somehow, can’t really explain it. But as I walked down the path, I looked at the house wall; all along the brickwork, were our names, scratched in by me, my brothers, nephews and nieces. So until that old house falls down, it’s still got some Williams in it!

Steve that story about your lad is familiar to me in more than one way. I was always short as a kid, not got much taller now, but having 2 older brothers I was always looking up to, I had to be like them. There is always at least one resident bully and mine lived a few doors down, one day gave me a slap at school and I went for him, using the instruction from Big Bro “punch right in the middle of his face” which I did and he ran off crying. Dad was sent for next day and was not best pleased, but considered the relative sizes of me and the bully, then asked why the school could not stop him. This episode stayed with me and I became cocky, punching well above my weight until I hit thewrong lad and got a real kicking.

Fast forward 2 generations to my No.2 gson at school, being tormented by the bigger lad down the street. I taught him what my Big Bro taught me and he broke the lad’s nose, both suspended until gson’s mates stood up for him and told the Head that the bully was in the wrong. 5 years later, my gson is massive, towers over the one-time bully, who will cross the street to avoid gson just looking down at him and smiling, with no intention of ever hitting him again. “That’s Karma in action, granddad!” he says…

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Knew you’d say that … :whistle:  🙂

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

I signed up for Sky Q, broadband, calls, the whole package, at Currys when I also bought a TV from there, spotted the TV at Currys online and asked for it to be delivered. But, as I have previously said elsewhere, I sat there for nearly 2 hours before I got the deal I wanted. I would not pay any other installation apart from the “Know How” ( :negative: ) Guys, who were btw complete morons. I had 3 “Experts” in Currys at one point and walked away twice. Eventually they went away to go into conference and I got my deal. I had so much trouble before it was all sorted, that I will cancel at the end of the contract.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Oh you can wait to get a dig back Lee, can’t you? –

“I expect it to be full of the same old carp, heroics, cons, greed and over exaggerated and twisted Bull Stuff story line.” HUH? No idea what you mean! :scratch: B-)

I expect the McD movie to be better than it appears, thanks to Michael Keaton taking the lead and Laura Dern playing his wife. These two are very good actors. Keaton was the best Batman, but he also appeared in some quality roles: Birdman,  Jackie Brown, Clean and Sober and a Minions voice over. Also plenty of utter krap, but I think he subcribes to the Michael Caine school of acting, quote from Caine: –

“I started with the firm conviction that when I came to the end, I wanted to be regretting the things that I had done, not the things I hadn’t.”

Says something about me I guess, that Minions is my favourite. Family rolls their eyes when Gdaughter and I watch that for the N’th time  and still laugh. :yahoo:

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Well Gdaughter did not see that one: picked her up earlier today, the group had a conference (that is, the kids did!) and decided “Lego Batman” would be a better option. Verdict: AWESOME! “Why did you all decide that?” asked granddad – “Because it looked like a silly, wimpy – adult movie!”

Out of the mouths of babes ….

I remember Trad Jazz Ed, the birth of that coincided with my discovery of Elvis, rock’n’roll, then The Stones. No contest, although I still have some Kenny Ball, Acker Bilk etc, somewhere amongst my vinyl collection. Today I am on the last lap of turning all my vast Presley collection into 2 digital sources. The rest will follow, hopefully before I fall from my perch… Listening to all the later Elvis stuff reminded me once again what a good voice he had.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

I have Sky Q Box, this desktop, SWMBO’s lappy, two phones and my tablet. Today all of those were in use, off and on. I only have a max of 14Mbps Down, 0.6 up. There does not seem to be a slowdown at all. Earlier I was downloading box sets in Sky, had several queued up at once. It took about 20 minutes to download 3 box sets for watching: I just leave them downloading. I was using a phone, a tablet and this desktop simultaneously at one point, with the desktop downloading music and transferring it to the NAS and our gdaughter on SWMBO’s lappy. The Sky box just kept on downloading.

I have come a long way since I first started with all this tech! Going for a lie down now…. :wacko:  :scratch:  :bye:

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Bob Williams]

Echoing laughter from Redmond…..

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Author]

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