[Dave Rice]

It’s only really P&O that are up their own ar$e$ for sea cruising. We were looking at river cruising but having found railbookers we’re looking at “train cruising”, hence the Venice trip.

As you’re in London, you can start at St Pancras (or fly) and they do cover Russia and the 12 day Scandinavia and Russia trip is on our list. The thing is you can customise them all and take advantage of their good hotel rates to stay somewhere a * up from what you can afford on a DIY.

EasyJet have some great deals at the moment. Looking at a total of <£600 for us both for 5 days in Berlin in a central 4* in July or August. For you Amsterdam is a piece of pi$$ now Eurostar goes there. It still makes sense for us to fly there due to the expense, time and hassle getting to St Pancras.

[Dave Rice]

It’s when you start playing around with older kit you realise how things have moved on and in which direction it’s gone. Streaming is king and people demand quality graphics.

[Dave Rice]

Hmm. All the parties that pledged to take the country out of the EU have gone backwards. The party dedicated to cancelling Brexit made spectacular gains, their best result for 15 years apparently. Surely in the Brexit bubble this can only be interpreted that the people have sent a message to Westminster? ?

I look forward to seeing the spin that this is in fact really good news for Brexiteers.

[Dave Rice]

PM me your address, I don’t think its worth anything. Just had a look at some benchmarks and an Athlon 200GE is pretty much as quick. Still that shows it’s still capable of running modest modern workloads.

My DP to HDMI just worked. plugged it into the DP port on the PC and the monitors HDMI lead in the other. It was this one.

[Dave Rice]

I’ve got a small pile of older Intel CPUs, I expect they’re all at the crappy end but you never know. I did have a couple of i5’s in but IIRC refurbed them all. Let me know what socket it is.

EDIT – Bingo, there’s an i5-2400

[Dave Rice]

A mate of mine in the same position who is financially secure after his 40 years in insurance and his Mrs similar for a big bank, volunteers a few days a week for a heart charity (his mum died of a heart attack). There are probably loads of small businesses out there who would benefit from your knowledge, and pay for it albeit modestly compared to your old salary. I get great satisfaction from doing this.

My 60th so we’re pushing the boat out on the holidays. The usual 5 day city break somewhere (EasyJet have some great deals), maybe Berlin this time or Amsterdam or Vienna again. Might be too hot for Lisbon or Rome . But the big one is fly to Geneva, a day there then a 1st class train journey through the alps (Italian and Swiss) to Venice for 3 days then fly home. Nice hotels, the sort we wouldn’t normally look at. It’s a customised version of this at Railbookers. 1st class was only £50 more!

You can’t take it with you.

[Dave Rice]

Of course not, like Brexit won’t bother with Brighton or Bristol West.

Would the drubbing they would receive mean the end of the Brexit Party before they get going?

You really are having increasingly tunnel vision, time to get out more ? get out of that bubble you’re in.

[Dave Rice]

M81 is Sandy Bridge, sure it’ll be up to it?

I remember a post on the old forum from Keith (the poker mad dairy farmer) who’s friend who was having issues streaming HD and playing cards at the same time. After much mucking about we found it was the then new H264 codec maxing out the CPU in VLC. The “what are the chances I have a better hand” real time poker software that we thought would be the culprit hardly registered.

These days modern CPUs are optimised for these things and I know the cheap android Kodi boxes I was buying could do 4K streaming but other wise couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding.

[Dave Rice]

Sounds like a plan. I’ve used those DP to HDMI adaptors on a load of refurb HPs for a project.

[Dave Rice]

It’s Remainers you want moving their allegiance. Re distributing the Leave votes amongst Leave factions achieves nothing Brexit wise. Imploding the Tory party achieves nothing Brexit wise. Changing the Tory leader to a hard line Brexiteer achieves nothing but to put up the backs of Remain and moderate Leavers who have already stymied hard line Brexit manoeuvres in Parliament.

Achieving a national consensus is what’s always been required. Fevered headlines in the Leave media move that further away. Lord Snooty and his nutters and the DUP are the icing on the cake. Who wants them pulling the strings in Westminster?

“Leave” have to realise that to achieve what they want, leaving the EU, they are going to have to soften their approach not harden it. After 3 years of trying the opposite you would think that had sunk in.

[Dave Rice]

As Ed says, 4K is much abused. What is the TV model number? We may find more from the official specs.

[Dave Rice]

Unbelievable. How do these things get through any sort of quality check?

[Dave Rice]

VFM, you really have some strange ideas. Do you think I research each constituency I go into and decide if it’s a Leave area I slink around the streets in fear, or if it’s Remain I drape an EU flag around my shoulders?

It was a Brexit free couple of days because we were too busy getting the CCTV and WiFi in quickly (dodging the weather) and the flat I was staying in (above the pub ? ) has no TV. The topic of conversation in the pub is the runners and riders at Sandown and that’s what’s on the TV to be replaced by football or music. I never heard anyone mention the B word at all, apart from last night and that was all about Blue Moon on the jukebox.

I think you spend too long in the Brexit bubble convincing yourself that whatever the “currently in the media” Leave faction is up to is wonderful and will do the trick and rubbishing anything else. Just don’t get too disappointed when the Farage thing produces the same results all the rest have; Leave infighting, no Brexit, more alienation of Remain and the country even more pissed off.

[Dave Rice]

I’ve been in Rhyl doing Steve’s cctv the last 2 days and it’s been a brexit free zone. Lovely.

[Dave Rice]

Mrs May’s deal is Brexit. I understand hardline Brexiteers may not think it is, but it is.

VFM, I said once, in jest, that Brexiteers (the word didn’t exist then) were deluded i.e. believing something that is not true. I’m coming around to the reluctant conclusion that you truly are, reinforced by your tightening spiral of interpreting things you would like to see as reality. Just look at where Brexit is, it isn’t. Look at all your predictions, they didn’t happen.

I said once that you under estimate the silent reasonable people and you did. I said they would find their voice, you scorned that, they did find that voice and No Deal is no more, Brexit Day passed with us still in and likely to be for another 6 months+ and then probably another extension.

People are obsessed with the Euro elections. Farage will have his day on 23rd May, of that I have no doubt. It will achieve nothing but media excitement for an election that means absolutely nothing whatever the outcome of Brexit. If we stay Leavers will have their disruptors in there and Remain will have real MEPs to represent them, if we leave it didn’t matter.

Come the GE that I hope will ensue, the first past the post system will ensure that the two party system will prevail. It will probably be another hung Parliament but neither the Brexit Party nor Change will have enough seats (probably none) to effect a coalition or supply and confidence arrangement. That will probably come from the same place as the last one, outside of England. But turkeys rarely vote for Christmas so a GE seems unlikely.

Brexiteers carry on dreaming your dreams, there’s nothing wrong with that. Remainers will remember we are still in despite being told repeatedly we would be out (some said at any cost) and any exit is moving towards something we could live with.

So just WTF does “Brexit means Brexit” mean to anyone?

[Dave Rice]

Keynsham is a strange place, half way between Bristol and Bath and famous hereabouts as the home of the Fry’s chocolate factory, later Cadburys, and shut by the lying Kraft Foods after they took over. For those of a certain age it was also known for Horace Batchelor’s “Famous Infra-Draw Method” adverts on Radio Luxembourg that he claimed increased the chances of winning large sums on the football pools.

In the 70’s they revived an early 19th Century Mummers Play on Boxing Day with a very St Georges theme, but mixed with Father Christmas, a doctor and a shepherdess.

Told you it was a weird place. Might explain their choice of MP.

[Dave Rice]

OMG VFM, you’re using phrases like drain the swamp now!

All this you’re getting excited about is infighting amongst half the country that has no effect on the other half. It’s probably only half of the Leave half. Do you really think Farage appeals to Remain voters? That’s what needs to happen, he can take all the Brexiteers he likes away from wherever, the maths remain the same. And this is the who-gives-a-damn Euros not a GE.

I think you need to calm down a bit and start looking outside your ever extremist Brexit bubble. I’m sure in your circles and the Brexit media this is all very exciting, but that’s the only place it is. For the rest of us it’s a side show and a delight to see the Conservative Party ripping itself in two. It’s a shame they’re trying to take the country with them and making it virtually ungovernable.

The Brexit Party will never be in a position to govern the country but they may well usher in the party they claim to despise the most. Truly Cameron like tactical nous.

[Dave Rice]

<p style=”text-align: center;”>I had to be reminded who she was</p>
Rachel Johnson is standing for change,  she’s at least known by the public.

In certain places I’m sure farage could put the ex tory donkey up. I’m sure they will do well, but it’ll make no difference, all that it’s doing is splitting the leave vote not increasing it. The side effect may be a change in the way we do politics but don’t hold your breath.

[Dave Rice]

Exactly Ed. This is the problem when tending towards extremes. Optimism towards a preferred outcome is fine, but we are still not out, there was no No Deal, TM is still there and the hard liners have been out manoeuvred. All were apparently certainties at some stage. It’s the moderate middle ground that has prevailed even though all it’s got us all is stalemate.

Farage always talks a good talk and knows what buttons to press but there’s a huge dollop of BS when it comes to the detail. Let’s see who these high profile people actually turn out to be, Annunziata Rees-Mogg isn’t really going to connect with the Labour voters up north. She didn’t even do well in Liberal Somerset.

I can’t see media celebrities lining up in any numbers, it would be the kiss of death to their careers. May be some from the twilight of their fame who don’t fancy the jungle route to another 5 minutes in front of the camera? Anyone from business or the establishment is going to be a “who”? from Joe Public. Nah, it’ll be the usual bunch of angry P, M & S brigade.

Part of me hopes I’m wrong though, it could be entertaining ?

[Dave Rice]

I agree Ed, I think I’ve mentioned before the then new Bradley Stoke Town Council was fiercely Independent local people as we had a lot of problems to sort out. But over the years the party machines have taken over.

Here in Stoke Gifford the local running clubs have started reminding people which parish councillors voted against the Park Run, backed by the MP.

[Author]

Posts