[Richard]

PlaneMan wrote:

The steroids are definitely working, the swelling on my hands has almost gone, the pain is still there but because some of my fingers are no longer the size of thick sausages I’m not catching them on things anywhere near as much. Not started the other meds yet, that starts tomorrow. Sadly the cherry goop has done nothing, I’ll finish the bottle and leave it at that. It was worth £14 just to know if it worked for me or not.

Keeping in step with those programmes can be a real challenge. I am glad that something is working for you, it is not the first time that I have heard of people gaining from the correct use of targetted. i.e. relevant steroids.

[Richard]

The Duke wrote:

Probably “do not bring down the party wall” ?

That is a good starting point, but from what I have heard from others who have been suspected of falling foul, it can get a bit more complicated than that. Such follow ons are best avoided where humanly possible, it tends to be cheaper that way.

[Richard]

One thing I forgot to mention is that if the property is a terrace or a semi detached building then you need to be aware of the requirements of the party wall act. I do not know the act in details but get it wrong and you can expect pain and suffering.

[Richard]

blacklion1725 wrote:

Sony Z3 Compact – lovely smaller phone, still very capable and modestly priced for a good’un 2nd hand. Had one for a while, sold it on for what I paid, really is a nice phone if you want something compact. I think the only concession from the full Z3 is screen res (720 vs 1080 I think)

You give me hope, I will look again when I can get free. Granddaughter is apparently auditioning with us tomorrow as a pillar box with excess spots, it should be fun, NOT. I am not sure about second hand and I really do not want to spend a fortune, my daughter and son in law have gone through such phones ‘rapidly’ as each was reduced to it almost elemental form.

[Richard]

Without taking sides in this dispute RSB you confirmed what I found when I went out a few moments ago. The phones are all huge whatever they are. For some, perhaps many people they might be fine, but you either need the shirt off a large gorilla or a brief case to put them into and for me, that is a major drawback. To be fair I only looked in Tesco and did not speak to anyone since I am not a Tesco mobile user.  That was a large price to be asked for an old device but if someone will pay that much, someone will sell it to them.

I hope you do better than I have done every time I have been hunting, I either get confused or depressed by what I find and my needs are very modest. I will try the network’s own shop over the next few days.

[Richard]

PM, a good point about bands they appear not to be too open about what bands they cover. Wow they are big, not exactly shirt pocket size. Perhaps a shop visit is indicated after all.

[Richard]

I have watched this exchange with interest, my own angle is slightly different. While the USA are closing or trying to close 2G, here 2G is seen as  have a rather more charmed life due to the number of devices, not always phones using 2G. Rather it is 3G which is seen as being first for the early chop. I realise than many do not hold their phones for very long but some of us do use them for longer as they often offer things that are needed. If the threat to 3G is real enough and 2020 has been mooted as an one possible loss of service date, should people be urged to either stick with 2g voice only or whole hog devices and only buy 4G devices?

I have little or no personal interest in the so called security angle since I am highly unlikely to put any personal data on a phone. I have other aspects to consider but my elderly tool is showing increasing signs of age and I need to think about how to replace the device. I am more interested in long life and its ability to match my peculiar use profile than anything else, but I guess that usage creep might happen, hence my lurking over this thread.

Some CUBOT device are 3G and some 4G with only a small price difference, is it a price worth paying?

[Richard]

I have several blockwork bedroom walls that are stood on a wooden beams, with no obvious load taker below. In fact it is the chimney breast that carries one end of the beam. You do have to be careful assessing what is load bearing, as far as I know you also need your plans assessed by building control if there is any load bearing wall involved – no good builder would ‘just knock it down and hope’. I am not at all sure that plans should be developed without guidance from a qualified structure engineer – surveyor. They carry, or should carry enough liability insurance to allow restoration should your plans not work out when the structure is revised, i.e. should something fall down. A number of chimneys were removed in the past without considering the consequences which can be significant. Also on some properties the bedroom bay windows and floors were supported by the wood framed windows. once they were replaced by plastic windows the bays started to detach from the house with ‘undesirable results’.

What has been said is OK as far as making an assessment of likely risks is concerned but before developing detailed plans professional advice would be wise. Over all costs will be lower if all actions are correctly planned first and performed as a secondary step. I know some modern houses have quite unusual structural arrangements, some small scale products appear to use only the outside walls for support while they are being constructed but it would be rash to assume that the completed product was built that way. (I have a couple of small house built near to me in mind when I made that comment.)

You might also need to involve the mortgage company if there is a material change to the fabric of the building as it could affect the building’s value.

[Richard]

My daughter’s two are the Husky I said about and the second one which was said at one time to be a cross, true, containing both Husky and Staffie, though it is likely that there is something else in the mix.

After her history the husky was a bit inclined to nip, but rather than do any nothing much if she came to tell me to go away with her teeth I clamped my hand on her mouth, had a quite word with her followed by a fur rub and a cuddle. It might not be what the books suggest , but it did have some effect on her actions and she no longer considers biting to be a great idea. She is not so into licking as her house mate, but she is very much her own dog. I have ended up liking her, but an off lead dog she is not! Neither of them could be trusted that far.

[Richard]

‘Doing’ a dog can be the best for him unless you want to turn him into a breeding machine and that is almot certainly not the best for any dog or bitch. Dogs can have a range of problems in later life if they are not ‘done’ and we had to get our lab done when he was older as he had health issues.

Do they miss things? Probably not, he still enjoyed playing with my daughter’s dogs both are bitches, though the slightly older Husky has a very haughty air and tended to sit and watch the other two play, only sometimes joining in the mock hunting games. The little dog would always want to run  so our Labrador would go all strategic, look to see which way she ran, work out where she would appear and stand there blocking her path so she had to jump full pelt over him.

It took them 3 months to get over his death when the melanoma finally got him. They knew where he went in his final hours and searched the house and garden for him and especially the smaller one who knew him from being a tiny pup, they still look at his photographs when they come to the house.

Our Labrador did not really appear to know that bitches were not the same as dogs, even when he met them while they were in heat, he just thought of them as playmate dogs. He loved puppies, recognising their unique smell and wanted to teach them to play, moderating his play levels to their maturity and size whenever he got to see any youngsters.

Dogs are all different with their own quirks, the Husky did not have a great start in life and came to my daughter as a sort of rescue dog. She had lived for periods with her original pack family, but did not trust anyone or any dog, except our Lab for a long time. She was nearly impossible to get to eat, though now she eats when the mood takes her and has filled out nicely. She used to shed rather than moult, come the time for a new coat she appeared to loose the old fur in about 4 days and the Husky has a lot of fur. She never went bald, there was always a good covering left, but for the last year or two since she has overcome her food phobia things appear much more regular. On a good day she can be quite affectionate, whereas the little one (I say little one she is heavier then the full Husky though much shorter) whose mother did not get on with her, is needy all the time.

[Richard]

Well done so far, now the serious thinking takes its turn, we all wish you the very best whatever you decide.

[Richard]

I did a bit more digging, the annex had been a war time army camp with concrete blockwork buildings but appears to have been abandoned shortly after the war when a technical school took root there, only for a third change later on when it became the annex to the school into which I transferred. Since then the main school building was rebuilt the annex was closed and the whole lot changed out of all recognition. The only really abiding memory I had was that one teacher was busted in Russia for handing out political tracts and the chemistry master had only one eye and a state of fear about chemicals, opening bottles at arm’s length. He did not do much of that but for some reason we had cyanide in the lab so a degree of caution might well have been wise – not that it rubbed off on me when I later used a pipette to suck up cyanide solutions.

I believe that the machine tool maker might have been Cincinnati as they were once big on milling machines.

The site is now a housing estate, the rebuilt school was combined with the girls school some while back though I moved from the area a long time ago. My parents still lived in the town until they passed so I hear tiny snippets about the place, like your recollections Bob the stories I heard were not of comprehensive progress. Your old school site sounds to have been rather more interesting.

[Richard]

One for some to ponder on:

There is a South African proverb, dating from the apartheid era, that goes like this: “How do you catch an elephant? You catch a mouse and keep beating it up until it admits it’s really an elephant.”

I wonder how many elephants will get caught now?

[Richard]

Or will it be act in haste and repent at leisure or when he hits

[Richard]

My last school appeared to have been part based in a wartime set of buildings used by the forces or support works. The machine tools there were quite a few USA products from the war years or possibly pre-war years, They were all then in good nick but that installation has long gone and I wonder what happened to all the of the kit when the site was cleared.

[Richard]

Bob Williams wrote:

I would agree with most of what you say Richard, and Ed. However, in stating the past mistakes of both America and the UK, we have to go back farther to examine the one initial step that cost control of the Gulf and with it, control and policing of the whole area. When the US played the ‘No More Colonising’ card and forced us out of Aden, the West lost a valuable asset which could have prevented the present mess, or at least given time for thought to a more long term solution. The UK government at the time were happy to give up Aden of course, but even Defence and Foreign Office warnings about future Soviet involvement fell on deaf ears. Sure enough, the Russians moved in, but all they wanted was a refueling station for their fleet, with no Hearts and Minds involved. I left with (I believe) 45 Commando on HMS Bulwark. We watched as the demolition explosives left behind, burned up millions of pounds in munitions, POL, foodstuffs, clothing, machinery and vehicles. The cloud of thick smoke rose into the air for thousands of feet, it could be seen for miles. In that cloud were the remains of many local inhabitants, would-be looters who are probably still looking for the 27 virgins they were promised. I also agree with Steve: if we had never gone blindly into the cockpit that is Iraq and Afghanistan, there would not be the mess there is today and we would not have the number of terrorists from so many different sources of discontent, that we have today. The UK and US have shot themselves in both feet.

My wife was one of the last civilians to be evacuated when we pulled out of Aden, by then it was a messy place but I suspect that the life for everyone was better than it became afterwards with shipping bypassing the port and all the casual trade not to mention the embedded trade lost. I doubt that much if anything of her time there is left now. I will not be looking for a ‘street view’ comparison anytime soon.

[Richard]

While my dislike for conspiracy theories is clear, they are not not needed. As Ed said boundaries in that area are irrelevant, tribal loyalty is never understood by outsiders and neither is the web of external observers. The societies are unstable but built like the proverbial onion in layers. They tend to be kept in check by internal forces pulling in different but in the end mutually supporting directions. We went in years back and found out that the area cannot be ruled by anywhere except by internally mutually balancing forces. Several others have tried and each has come away failing. The previous failures were the Russians who poured huge effort into loosing yet still ‘our’ bozos thought they knew better. Yes the Pakistanis dues to their layered onion pay lip service to a range of external faces but they are driven by layer upon layer of local issues and custom – or in blunt language bribes of many sorts tribal family district and a range of other issues and history motivate them and they have memories that go back hundreds if not thousands of years counting and discounting their record books. Not for nothing was the Saudi wart found living in Pakistan and not for nothing was Pakistan unhappy when he was dispatched, he very likely funded parts of the local set up anyway.

I saw the accidental effects of these loyalties played out. The government out there ordered some new equipment, one look at the figures and almost anyone who knew anything about the product would know the figures were wrong and I said so to the supplier. So it turned out to be, while one unit of product went to the government books 15 or 20 went to other activities the equipment buckled under the strain.

The ‘conspiracy’ is pain old stupidity as yes Mr Waterboarding President will soon find out. No doubt there will be more misadventuring by the crew cut brigade. I met some in the moderately distant past and, sad to say I enjoyed winding them up from a semi official role at the time. There ill thought out start steps only plan failed again and again. The first Gulf war was stopped too soon with no proper end game in sight and no process to back it up. The second managed to repeat the previous errors but place the errors on growth hormone and steroids.

It is an enormous shame that the skills once understood and deployed in more historical times have been totally lost, ED is right you need to think tribal and this is starting to apply to parts of this country now that their tribal issues are being imported from different  states where things we no longer relate to are still part of the daily round. So study the stupid Post Code Gangs or the ethnic minorities that run different districts to the disadvantage of everyone else. Blood is far thicker than water which is why ballot stuffing is not so much tolerated as expected as a duty in many such communities.

Sadly conspiracy theory builders have invested more time, thought and effort into their theories than those creating and (mis)managing the mayhem ever did. That is the real issue.

[Richard]

I feel you are reporting some of the outward symptoms while the cause(s) are more deeply burred. It might be a physical or neurological cause but either way I feel it does need some external help to draw it out and sort things out.

RSB, I can see you have recently had a lot on your plate and clearly there are issues that have not been correctly or fully resolved to your satisfaction. As you appear to be a carer make sure you are recorded as such on any medical records as you should, (note the word should) get some enhanced medial support. It is very easy to slip into self destructive ways and these will do no one any good. To spell it out, it harms you, stops support for your mother and increases problems for support agencies. I know they can be crap at recognising a hand in front of their face, but they really do not want to risk any further assault on their budgets, e.g. if they might need to enhance services for your mother. Do be aware that long term stress can have serious impacts on your physical health which is another  reason for getting thoroughly checked out before something blows. Do watch out for danger signals, one can all too easily slip into self destructive ways, while superficially eating well and looking after one’s health risky (from a health point  of view) behaviours can slide in on the rationalised basis that things are bad enough so they cannot get worse. Sadly they can get worse if not sorted out in time.

The good news is that it is not too late, (I still feel that there is an unhealthy dollop of consequent depression in play.)

[Richard]

It has not done that much but possibly enough to loosen something that was marginal to start with, another thought, has it had a close encounter with a flood or a ford? as thermal shock could affect the thing. I am surprised no one else has not leapt in to comment. I hope it is not the cat as they are costly…

[Richard]

No dispute on that point; depression is all manner of an issue that presents in many different ways. While often considered a purely brain or attitude issue (pull yourself together) it is usually a complex issue frequently with a physical, or organic form and I would certainly not rule out a genetic component. It can be affected by the sorts of foods people eat, not always the ones that best match their genetic needs, or those needs which have evolved over time as their gut flora changes. Winston Churchill was a famous depressive though with strong hints of manic depression or bipolar.

Note, I am NOT selling some daft new age traveller diet solution but foods can play an important part in mood self management.

[Author]

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