Early Risers.

[Tony_S]

2 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Anyway by the time I need that sort of establishment it will probably have a long waiting list.

The waiting lists can move quite quickly.  My Mum rang me and told me there was “one of those black private ambulances” in her  sheltered accommodation carpark. Her next comment was “they are dropping like flies round here “. That was my Mum’s last phone call to me.  The image of her looking out of her window remained on Google for quite a few years.  

[polybear]

Bear here....

 

Another day at the Warehouse & out n' about - all good fun; 9.5K steps/3.5 miles today, according to Izzy the Iphone.  Which is a good job cos' there was some naughtiness involving Jam Donuts** + other assorted goodies.....  😁

 

**Not entirely surprising cos' Bear visited Morrisons before arriving at the Warehouse.......

 

The following was seen today - on the back of a Bakery Van:  

🤣

 

 

ION.....

 

I see Venice are to start charging 5 Euros to day visitors on selected days - and some on the ITV TV News are whingin' about it.  5 Euros for a day in Venice - and they're whingin' ??  Jeez, that's gotta be the bargain of the year in this Bear's Book.  If you've never been - do go (but not in July & Aug) - and stay in the City if you can as it's a much better experience.

 

Bear gone.

[woodenhead]

A nice couple of days financially has seen me able to purchase the remaining three John Hodge Welsh Valley Lines series of books I needed.

 

£40 for talking to a tech company, £20 from Avanti and then £5 from Amazon for simply adding another credit card - so the bill was £4.99.

 

Hold on, I buy lots of books about the Welsh Valleys and then I model the North West of England, something wrong there isn't there.

[The White Rabbit]

54 minutes ago, polybear said:

... The following was seen today - on the back of a Bakery Van:  

🤣

 

...

 

Tesco have got in on this act too: https://www.flickr.com/photos/loopzilla/35444754081 

 

Or, for SWAG attendees? : https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1194661429/no-pasties-left-in-this-vehicle?dd_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fuk.search.yahoo.com%2F 

[iL Dottore]

Today was a busy and thus profitable day at work, but I still managed to get in some airline flight searches so that I could organise my own travel for my late autumn trip to Japan. Now, @jjb1970 had mentioned how insanely expensive Singapore airlines is on their routings to Europe, however, I found that flying out of Zürich, depending on the date and time of travel, they were not insanely expensive (but certainly at the higher end).

 

Both Air China (PRC) and China Airlines (Taiwan) were incredibly competitive, even though it means a two stop journey (basically popping over to Munich, before heading towards either Taipei or Shanghai, and then onwards to Tokyo). Even British Airways had a fairly reasonably priced offering in business class and their new business class product on the airbus A350 they use on their flights to. Japan looks incredibly good. Unfortunately, both the British Airways food & drink and the British Airways customer service still remains in the toilet (when it has been for quite a few years, unfortunately. BA used to be very, very good). In addition to the questionable food and drink offerings (no roast beef! No sausage and mash! No jam roly-poly, or spotted dick! And they are supposed to be a British airline), you also have to negotiate that living hell which is London Heathrow.

 

Like a good Swiss, I also looked at what SWISS was offering. (they have a direct Zürich to Narita flight), and (@polybear better sit down for this) they wanted SFr 9000 (about £7880) for a return ticket!  Of the European airlines I looked at the ones with the highest prices out of Zürich to Japan were SWISS, Lufthansa, Austrian Airways, Air France and Iberia. Of these, only Air France makes it into the World’s Airline Top 10 (although SWISS, Iberia and BA made it into the top 20).

 

No matter which airline you are travelling with, Business and First Class are much more expensive than they should be because First Class and Business Class passengers are subsidising the very cheap economy class fares (the wife of friend was an airline hostess and she informed me that they [cabin and cockpit crews] were told that once business class had been filled [and the airline’s costs met, then every bum-on-seat in economy was pure profit).

 

[Tony_S]

22 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

And they are supposed to be a British airline

I thought they were Spanish…

[Coombe Barton]

... Today was my last timetabled teaching session ... I have now switched off all the alarms for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2024/04/25/flu-down-covid-up-a-tree-for-the-whole-millennium-ai-and-photography-last-timetabled-teaching/

[Gwiwer]

4 hours ago, The White Rabbit said:

In our experience, both Waitrose and Ocado ring if they are going to be early or late - in fact this week's Ocado delivery was 15 minutes early and he rang to check it was OK to be early

Ocado always rang us as described.  "Is it OK to deliver early?" or "Really sorry but I am running about XX minutes late; will that still be OK?"  They know how far they are behind schedule so they can be pretty accurate in offering an ETA.  

 

We only had two really late deliveries.  One was due to a van breakdown which delayed our delivery by around two hours but again they kept us fully informed and assured us that all chilled and frozen foods were protected and it was the van, not its chiller, which had broken down.  The other was following a fire at their Erith depot which disrupted everyone's deliveries for a couple of days.  This time it was Customer Services (based in Hatfield, I believe) who called offering their profound apologies and advising that our order was not yet on the road.  A couple of hours later and they called back saying it was on the road but might not reach us until after midnight.  That was OK with me.  It was very OK with me that they then waived the entire cost of that order as compensation for the inconvenience.  They were about five hours late that night.  

[Coombe Barton]

Sainsbury's says almost everyone now shops in store

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68895280

[tigerburnie]

10 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

Sainsbury's says almost everyone now shops in store

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68895280

We don't. our shop is 20 odd miles away and at £2 for delivery it's cheaper than driving there, if they finish it, we will go to Tesco or Morrisons who are less than 10 miles away.

[Hroth]

Must admit I've never used this remote-control shopping malarky.

 

There's a Sainsbugs, a MegaTesco, an Asda, an M&S foodhall,, Local Tescos, Aldis and Lidls within a couple of miles and a Morrisons, another large Tescos, another M&S foodhall and another Asda within 5 miles radius.

 

We're rather overserved by local supermarkets!

 

I forgot, there's two more Aldi stores in the 5 mile zone, but one of the 2 mile zone Aldis has gone offline for refurbishment/enlargement...

 

 

Edited 1 minute ago by Hroth
Brain refreshed by a good nights sleep!

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

The weather has been very mixed here today, changing from rain to sunshine several times, so I spent the day in the workshop, continuing work on the small industrial locomotive. Today I completed the cylinders, the coupling rods, the connecting rods and connected both connecting rods to the respective piston rod. The cylinders have also been fixed to the chassis. However, from here on, things became a bit more difficult. The crank pins on the 4 supplied wheels are the same length, and aren’t long enough for both the coupling rod and connecting rod. This isn’t a problem with the front pair, but I’ve had to modify the rear pins. I started by cutting off the pin close to the wheel spokes, then I filed the remains of the stub flat, marked the centre and then drilled a 1.1mm hole down the centre, before removing the stub and soldering a slightly longer 1mm brass pin in the hole to replace the original. These were then reinserted back into the wheel from the rear and fixed with superglue. At this point, I decided to call it a day, so I’ll have to check all is well next time I go to the workshop. 

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[monkeysarefun]

I had a quiet ANZAC day, and the weather today is as good as it was yesterday so like most of the place  I'm taking today off too. Not a cloud in the sky and 22 forecast, although last nights 8 degrees was chilly.

 

In footage to bring a tear of appreciation to the eye of @Gwiwer, Collingwoods Jamie Elliot took the Mark Of The Year So Far in yesterdays ANZAC Day match.  When you catch the ball from a kick its a Mark, when its a spectacular mark it becomes a "Skeccy".

 

This is one of the best Speccies for a long time!

 

 

Edited 6 hours ago by monkeysarefun

[Ozexpatriate]

6 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

No matter which airline you are travelling with, Business and First Class are much more expensive than they should be because First Class and Business Class passengers are subsidising the very cheap economy class fares (the wife of friend was an airline hostess and she informed me that they [cabin and cockpit crews] were told that once business class had been filled [and the airline’s costs met, then every bum-on-seat in economy was pure profit).

Assuming they are paying passengers and not upgraded frequent flyers who purchased an economy ticket.

[jjb1970]

8 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Today was a busy and thus profitable day at work, but I still managed to get in some airline flight searches so that I could organise my own travel for my late autumn trip to Japan. Now, @jjb1970 had mentioned how insanely expensive Singapore airlines is on their routings to Europe, however, I found that flying out of Zürich, depending on the date and time of travel, they were not insanely expensive (but certainly at the higher end).

 

Both Air China (PRC) and China Airlines (Taiwan) were incredibly competitive, even though it means a two stop journey (basically popping over to Munich, before heading towards either Taipei or Shanghai, and then onwards to Tokyo). Even British Airways had a fairly reasonably priced offering in business class and their new business class product on the airbus A350 they use on their flights to. Japan looks incredibly good. Unfortunately, both the British Airways food & drink and the British Airways customer service still remains in the toilet (when it has been for quite a few years, unfortunately. BA used to be very, very good). In addition to the questionable food and drink offerings (no roast beef! No sausage and mash! No jam roly-poly, or spotted dick! And they are supposed to be a British airline), you also have to negotiate that living hell which is London Heathrow.

 

 

Singapore AL are much more competitive for overseas users, it seems to be quite common that airlines work a lot harder to entice overseas. My son once managed to go on their UK site using a VPN and found fares half what they were offering on their local website but they have very good VPN detection and he was kicked off and redirected to the Singapore site within about a minute. The European airlines often offer cheaper fares to users in other European countries than local customers. Ditto to destinations other than local ones. For example, it's often much cheaper to fly Luftahsa Singapore - UK than Singapore - Germany, ditto with KLM, AF, BA et al for destinations other than their local points of arival.

 

The RoC  airlines (China AL, Eva Air and Starlux) are superb, among the best. You won't go wrong with business class on any of them. China AL have one of my favourite liveries.

[jjb1970]

A belated happy birthday to Dave Hunt!

 

I'm back off to Singapore today, it's been nice to visit Brussels and enjoy Belgian food (I love filet americain, the local version of steak tatare) and some cool fresh weather but equally I'll be happy to head back East.

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from the cool Charente.  Hospital was visited yesterday and Beth has come through the op. But was in a lot of pain.  I had to get a tad assertive to sort that out but some extra pain relief did arrive.  The usual hospital problem arose.  Due to her overall condition she is already on a cocktail of painkillers and staff don't believe that she needs extra on top of that.  Hopefully things will improve.  

 

Today I'm off shopping. We have three medium sized Intermarche's alabout 1miles away then two much larger Leclercs0land a big Intermarche 2miles away.  Online shopping does exist but is not hugely used.  We do patronise the local market and have a fruit and veg van that calls round every fortnight.  

 

Much to do so Ttfn. 

 

Jamie

[iL Dottore]

Good Morning All,

 

A belated HB to our tame Air Commodore @Dave Hunt. I hope the usual fighter-jock “wild and crazy” birthday bash shenanigans were a bit tamer this year - allowing our boy in blue to continue to recover from his surgery (he has a sick note and all).

 

Thanks to @jjb1970 for mentioning Eva Air - I remember them, are they still going? Anyway, before I book my flights I have to get a new passport as my current passport will expire right in the middle of my trip and airlines get MOST unhappy about changes in documentation (even when completely legit).

 

Off to view the penthouse flat this morning - with a long list of things to note/measure/photograph. We also need to make a list of the changes we will make before we move in (the place is currently empty). New curtains are a must, as well as upgrading kitchen equipment and shower installations. I also reckon I need to get an embroidered dressing gown and silk pyjamas (and a buxom mistress) for that whole Bob Guccione/Penthouse Pet/retro 70s man-about-town penthouse dweller vibe 🤣😁

 

Then back to work. The “bright young thing” (who is moving on to “other things”) has not been either meticulous or thorough. To be fair, this youngster doesn’t have the decades of experience that I have, but even when I was a “bright young thing” (back at the dawn of time) I was never less than meticulous. Although - professionally - it irks me that this BYT was so lax, financially the tidying up and moving forward will be a fiscal boon (and we all need a good boon now and then).

 

Off to do Lucy’s breakfast (stir fried chicken and rice - lucky girl)

 

Ciao for Now

 

iD

[iL Dottore]

4 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

 Due to her overall condition she is already on a cocktail of painkillers and staff don't believe that she needs extra on top of that.  Hopefully things will improve.  

 

You have to be careful about analgesic cocktails as liver, kidneys and gut are all affected by such drugs and any existing known (or hitherto unknown) vulnerabilities in these organs could be amplified or affected.

 

Perhaps a better approach to pain management could be changing the doses of each of the individual drugs in the existing cocktail of analgesics rather than adding yet another on top of the existing mixture.

As an example of some the side effects of analgesics: now, opiates are very useful drugs indeed - but amongst the side effects of opiate use can be severe constipation. I when I say severe, I mean severe to the point that faeces have to be disimpacted (manually removed) before something like an enema or a stool softener can do its job.

 

Changing the administration timings of the individual drugs may also provide better pain relief.