@bullstuff2
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Know exactly what you mean, I get involved with characters in a good book. If it’s a military story, and there are parallels with some of my own experiences, I get totally lost in the story and have empathy for the characters, willing them to be successful and win through. When that doesn’t happen, I feel a downer. As you say, does not happen with fictional stories, because they are plotted by an author, to a timeline. Action is not like that: it’s totally unpredictable and luck does play a big part.
As for being a granddad, well I have no doubt that will happen for you. For me, it was amazing. I was first grandparent to hold my No.1 gson and my son and daughter decided to make that a family tradition. No other grandparent was allowed near them until I had held them and I remember each one, all different as babies as they are now they are older. It’s also true that you have more time with them than you have with your sons and daughters, although you sound like a real family man and have a lot of contact with yours.
Being injured and disabled in my 50’s gave me some time to be with my grandbrats more I guess too. I had to be dad as well as granddad in some ways to the eldest, whose scumbag dad left when he was a baby. We are always close, although he needs my advice less as he gets older. It’s maybe also true that, if you have childhood problems with a parent, it can make you more determined to treat your own kids and grandkids, as you would have wished to be treated. Certainly true for me, after the abuse I suffered from my mam. I tried to show the kids what life should be like and I hope it worked: certainly we are a very close family.
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I'm out.Burying things in the garden – yes indeed, cost my son and me a lot of work when we moved here in 2003.
The 15 bungalows in our Close, were built in the early 60’s and we live in one of a line of 6 interconnected homes. Behind our back gardens, is another line of 8 bungalows which face the main road. An old resident (long gone) told me when we moved in that the border between the main road and our homes, had been a farm track. An old guy had apparently lived in ours since they were built and the fence was probably from the farmland days: completely covered by a very old hawthorn hedge, about 8 feet high. In trying to sort out the jungle that was the garden, son and I found that the fence/hedge collapsed. We called in the Social Housing landlord, who agreed to take away the old fence and all greenery if we could knock it all down, which we did. Digging up and over the old garden was a nightmare: about 2 feet down, we found a whole greenhouse! ???
It was complete, although well smashed up, and appeared to be no more than a couple of years old. The aluminium legs were folded over, still with concrete foundation lumps attached. All the glass was there, smashed and broken. We had to be very careful how we handled that! There were hundreds of ancient potatoes in the soil. The landlord was not best pleased when we informed them of what we found, but were made to remove the greenhouse bits and fit a new fence.
My lad and I still recall the day we found a greenhouse buried in our garden, and wonder at the mentality of someone who could do that. Had I wanted to get rid of such an item, I would have advertised it and had it taken away, probably for a few quid.
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I'm out.I wonder what will happen regarding all the properties across the UK which are found to have similar problems to Grenfell Tower. Will the taxpayer fund this enormous expense? Or will some companies be eventually driven out of business if they have to stump up? How far will the faults and responsibilities travel? After the inquiries and investigations are done, we should be in the middle of trying to repair and recover from whatever Brexit does. Treasury money is liable to be thin on the ground.
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I'm out.Good points, understand that position Lee. Especially when you see how Topics and threads veer off into all directions. I like all the various sub-forums, there is nothing that is not covered if anyone wants to throw it out there.
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I'm out.Yes my No.2 gson matured at Grimsby College and developed faster: started with Mechanical Engineering, changed very quickly into Electrical Installations, as his dad has connections there and he realised there were more opportunities. He is still doing 2 days at an Engineering place, dad takes him Monday and Friday mornings and I pick him up both evenings. I used to see more of his 24 yo IT networking/security cousin, but only see him once a week now. No.2 I see a lot of, he does quite a lot of work here for us. So I have got close to him, but I always ask his dad about work and college matters, don’t believe in interfering and would not try to advise him against dad’s wishes. My son has brought up him and his sister as a single parent from ages 2 and 4: doesn’t need me to interfere without asking. No.2 has loads of mates, always out with them, but does not drink at all. No.1 has very few mates outside family, just two from college days, but he and No. 2 get on well.
I didn’t think either would travel, but now and again No. 2 throws me one out of the box. Yesterday he suddenly said that he wants to work in the UK for a couple of years, then move to Switzerland to work, intending to learn German at night school. I was gobsmacked, discovered that he had researched work, pay and living costs there. This lad has always been deep, but only shows it now and again. very big lad, very quiet, only talks when he has something to say.
It’s been fascinating watching the 4 of them grow and develop. All different, all very close to each other as siblings or cousins. I love the fact that our very bright grammar school 13 yo always gravitates to No.2 gson at family do’s. They always have heads together, have been close since she was a baby.
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I'm out.Nice one, JB. And suits the nature of the site.
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I'm out.I had a CM case like that Ed, racked my brains for the name but can’t recall and CM have dumped their legacy case site, also some CM techs left the company, with the older designs, to form Silverstone I believe.
You are correct, that hot swap worked fine and I also regret losing it. The case was huge though, as I needed several Hdd’s at the time, when running a design & print business. My current CM N300 is a lot smaller, just 1x (1TB) Hdd, 1x SSD Cache disk and a DVDRW I hardly use.
How much our computing needs change over time!
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I'm out.Two educational events resonate with that Steve, with my son and his son, both dyslexic. His last teacher told my missus at a school Open Day “He’ll never amount to anything!” My Gert dare not say anything, she was so mad and wanted to punch the woman. A few years later, the same teacher was in our local Tesco and Gert pointed her out. I confronted her, made a big scene of it and told her that the lad she had insulted like that, had just passed C&G in Electrics with 2 Distinctions and the rest all Merits. “Therefore the fault was not with our son, but with the people supposed to educate him! You did not do your job properly, a Technical College did! You are an obviously incompetent Educator, should have been shelf-stacking in here!”
I went to Open days at my gson’s Academy, his dad being at work late most nights, and was told by his Form Tutor that she saw him as a mechanic, “nothing more!” I told her I had been a mechanic and a Motor Engineer, why did she look down upon mechanics, I probably earned much more as a workshop foreman and manager than she did?” I also told her that he was not getting the “One to One” extra that the school had promised, to deal with his dyslexia. Then I told her that he would be exactly what he wanted to be, because it was his last year at this crappy Academy and was accepted by Grimsby Institute Technical College for an Electrical Installations course of 3 years. Did she know that?
“No, I didn’t.” – “You are Careers Officer for this Academy’s students. That you don’t know that, proves to me that neither you, nor this Academy, are doing your jobs correctly.” Gson is currently on his last exams and expects to be a Qualified Leccy soon.
Educators who are not good enough, or don’t care enough about the kids in their charge, should be sorted out. Fortunately, his engineering and IT tutors believed in him at that Academy, they gave him great support.
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I'm out.I was protected from most of the Regular Army BS by being in the AAC, whose officers and SNCO’s were almost all Technical and were mostly human. There was one old Major in Admin, never forgot the guy, ex-Guards and totally out of place with us. He ran an Austin A40, an old banger which was a vintage heap even in ’69. I was asked by my CO to take round a collection across the A/c Workshop, for a WOII’s wife who had been running the Welfare organisation within the unit and was leaving the unit as her old man was retiring from the Army after 5 years in the A/c Workshop. She was loved by everybody: from the CO down to every squaddie, their wives and gf’s. Collected a huge amount of cash from everyone, with a long list of checkable names and amounts, left him to last.
I received a bloody khaki-brained monologue about how he never expected anyone to provide him a leaving present for doing his duty. I reminded him that this was simply a wife of a WOII who had carried out a great deal of work in her own time, to provide help and care for members of the unit. I also told him it was completely voluntary and he did not have to give a penny. He calmed down and asked how much the CO had put in. I told him DM 200! He matched it! I returned to the CO with the list.
“Did you visit Major Bxxxxx?” – “Yes Sir, last of all.” (smiling at this) “Did he give anything” – “200 Marks, Sir.”
“WHAAAT? How did you manage that?” – “Told him YOU gave 200 Sir.” His response was unprintable.
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I'm out.I know someone who was a bit “New Age” and addicted to hanging Crystals in her windows. I warned her, she gave no heed as she did to most people around her. Hung a very large, faceted “Wicca” crystal in her South-facing window. Sun’s rays magnified by the crystal set the curtains on fire, melted the rolled-up plastic blind. She took them all down and eventually moved away, big relief as she was always doing something daft, or talking crap, trying to ‘convert’ people to her wacky ideas. I hope she found a Covern and joined other witches.
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I'm out.No problems with loading twice here and I am using Firefox. In fact, everything working fine, has been for ages.
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I'm out.We went there twice in two visits to Anglesey, on our last Llandudno holiday, recommended by the boss of the Anglesey Motor Museum. A very Welsh Williams he was, and looked very much like me*. Asked my name, when he learned my ancestry, he told me several places to go including that beautiful bay.
*Ran a motor museum and could talk motors all day, had to be a Williams! we worked out that his Family History could have been involved with mine. That was some bike my G5 grandfather had!
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I'm out.…I still get small reactions now, but not since I have been on Erythromycin (2 tab’s twice a day for the rest of my life) as a result of the pancreatic cancer Op.
I call those the ” Shingles Tingles” it’s like someone stuck a couple of wires on your back and you get a low current shock!! Still takes my breath away sometimes and I’ve still got the pattern of the sores across my back and round my side, 5 months later. All because they tried to get away with the cheap aciclovir cream instead of the expensive tablets!!
YES! Perfect explanation of the same thing I get. Around 1990, when my GP was looking at my pimples as I bent over the MOT headlamp tester, he gave me an appointment which produced a treatment whose name I forget. It was pink rose-coloured, liquid and brushed on by SWMBO with a small brush in the bottle. It took some time to clear up the scars and pockmarks, but it worked. Many years later, when Shingles came back here in Lincolnshire, they gave me the cream you mention. Absolutely useless! Only get it rarely nowadays, but I have found the solution: I have to wash and shower with something called “Hibiscrub” for a separate skin condition in my surface Lymph glands, possibly picked up a bug in Aden according to my Dermatologist at Queen’s Med Nottingham. Gives me huge boils and carbuncles if I use ordinary soap, which does not penetrate the zillions of hair follicles all over my bod. (I am a Neanderthal!) I get a 5 liter plastic container of this on prescription.
It clears up the skin and the Shingles after two lukewarm showers a day, I wet down and then coat myself head to foot in the stuff, which is what surgical staff scrub up with before and after Ops. I wash off and rinse several times. Can’t bathe in a bath, as I have to get it all off, standing up. We have a Wet Room.
Nothing in my life is simple, especially medical stuff! But is about the same pink colour as the stuff my old GP gave me, and no medical professional today knows what that was.
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I'm out.Yes Steve, Victor Bout. Proper Russian Mafia guy, hell of a chase he gave them. Millions of murders carried out with weapons he supplied, several British soldiers killed by weapons he supplied. A danger at both ends of his flights: illegal arms in, Heroin and coke out, ended up in Europe and America, funded criminal syndicates and African rebel armies who employed child soldiers and attacked villages, mutilating, raping and killing. Stated in his defence that his aircraft just flew in stuff, he never knew the cargoes. Proved wrong by wiretaps and phone taps; his own words gave the lie to that. “Never fly empty” was his watchword. Brilliant entrepreneur, in any other legal work he might still have succeeded and become wealthy.
I intend to download more Damian Lewis books as soon as I finish Conn Iggulden’s “The Falcon of Sparta”. I read SciFi, History fact or fiction, and war books, also fiction but mostly fact. I cannot stand vampire, werewolf, wizard and witches books. Impossible, unbelievable crap, IMHO. Show me one that ever lived! The original “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley, first published 1831, was a great book and I still read it again from time to time. Everyone who copied that theme, made a dog’s dinner of it. Conn Iggulden has written some great historical books and so has Bernard Cornwell.
I don’t know if you have read any Andy McNab stuff, but I read Bravo Two Zero and was impressed, until an old mate who was in 22SAS at the same time as that Op, told me there were lies in it. Like, McNab was the one to run away from a firefight and not the guy who he said had run away: he was KIA. Apparently McNab is just tolerated at Hereford, but very unpopular when he takes journos there.
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I'm out.Good thought Dan.
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I'm out.According to my Gert, I am a flea-bitten old git anyway. ??
Suns? Moons? Not stars, everybody does that. Say, 100 Moons = 1 Sun. 1,000 Suns = 1 galaxy (not the choc bar, a real Galaxy, like our Milky way)
Something like this NASA pic, reduced in size, of our Galaxy:
Just a thought. I have one or two, now and again.?? Heck of a lot more than 1,000 Suns in our relatively small galaxy, billions more in the larger ones. Can’t see any of us getting up to billions of Suns, so I got real for once.??
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I'm out.That’s hoverflies Dan, and they eat other insects, especially Aphids. If big enough, they will also eat ants. hoovering them up. They will not eat ladybirds, which are only now appearing for some reason. I pick them up and put them at the bottom stalk of my roses: up they go and search for Aphids and WhiteFly to munch upon, knocking ants away as competition for the Aphids. No ant will tackle a ladybird alone: they are vicious predators despite their small size, can give you a bite if you are not careful.
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I'm out.Steve, that is why I have 4 grandbrats all on different educational and/or career paths. Every young human is an individual and has to be given the right path for them, not directed by those who want to put them in boxes and label them.
24 yo is an IT networking/security/website specialist and he is doing very well. That’s the Asperger’s lad.
His almost 22 yo cousin was a chef for the last 5 years, has changed course and is taking a job as a Commercial Banking trainee. Probably talked herself into it: she exhausts people with her bags of confidence in what she can do. Drives me crackers with her incessant talking, I come in here after 10 minutes of a visit. But I love her to bits and she knows it, comes for ahug and kiss before leaving. House is too quiet for a bit.??
Her 19 yo bro is a quiet, massive lad, probably has never got a word in above sister, lol. Coming to take out all the heavy garden stuff this weekend.He is taking his last exams and is already qualified as an Electrical Installer, despite being severely Dyslexic. The last exams have been brought in by this dumb government, which refuses to recognise practical talent and wants every college leaver to read and write. He can read fine, but writing makes his head hurt as the words float across the page. What are they doing to this lad? He has wired up businesses and houses from top to bottom in Work Experience, with top marks above his non-dyslexic college mates. (some have been sent off sites) he won’t have a problem getting a job, if he can get through the English. He has an eidetic memory and has got through the Maths with answers worked out in his head: his tutor realises that he cannot write down the working-out, so writes that in for him. All his maths answers are invariably correct, when checked.
24 yo’s sister is getting continual A and A* marks at grammar school, may be brightest of all 4 and is being taught IT as well by big bro.
I love them all. All different, all needed different schools and colleges. No government recognises that.
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I'm out.I had chicken pox at 20 in the Army, which put back my AAC tech training a couple of weeks. It went through Southern Command like an express train, they had to open some closed wards in Aldershot as Quarantine one person wards, even had to send some to other Southern hospitals. I recall my mate Ron from Redditch, laughing at me catching a childhood disease, then walking past my ward, covered and swearing at me in his almost Black Country accent ” Yo give me the blummin’ plague, yo ***”””!!!???**! ” I was laughing back, as I knew I would be out first and we were both trying to date the same pretty WRAC.
Years later, MOT testing my GP’s old Mk.1 Land Rover, he informed that the itchy pimples on my back, were the onset of Shingles. “Make an appointment in the morning. Better still, I’ll use your office phone and make one for you.” Cost me two weeks off work, spread all over my body and was extremely painful. I still get small reactions now, but not since I have been on Erythromycin (2 tab’s twice a day for the rest of my life) as a result of the pancreatic cancer Op.
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I'm out.I don’t understand why you want to ” raise the dead ” as Lee puts it so fittingly, Alan and JB. Even the parent company, Dennis Publishing, has been sold, as in another forum thread here today.
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