Early Risers.

[Tim Dubya]

13 minutes ago, DaveF said:

I feel guilty because I was brought up always to be doing things during the day, evenings were when you sat and sometimes relaxed.

 

Don't be (easily said, I know).  Your body needs to recover so you CAN be doing things.

 

Off with their heads! - that's not doing nothing 👍

[monkeysarefun]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

Just discovered that the Sweet Potato Chips recipe in the BBC Food link posted yesterday states 180 degrees C in the instructions - presumably they forgot it initially cos' several people asked for it and they responded in the Comments with "200 degrees C").......

Perhaps this explains Bear's difficulties?

 

 

The best sweet potato chips I've ever had was in a pub up in Townsville. They were slivered and curly, kind of like these.

 

https://www.hauteandhealthyliving.com/curly-sweet-potato-fries/

 

Serving suggestion - accompanied with a beer, sitting on the pub deck looking over the palm trees to Magnetic Island.

 

 

[The Lurker]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

If City Hall can make any money out of it, they will!

 

It's unsurprising (and a bit mind-boggling) how many new things introduced by City Hall, The Council and the like, ostensibly for the benefit of those City Hall/The Council etc. purport to serve, turn out to be - quite coincidentally - nice little income generators....

 

p.s. I'm surprised they haven't brought back the Window Tax. Although windows (contrary to popular belief) aren't the biggest cause of heat loss in a house, they do loose a noticeable amount of heat. So a Window Tax could be passed off as a Green Tax: the more windows you have, the more heat you lose and the more energy you use, thus contributing to environmental change. Such a tax would be a nice little earner for the authorities and provide lots of employment opportunities to brickies as people line up to get their "extra windows" bricked up!

and a great revenue raiser from all the tower blocks. Imagine how much tax they could raise from the Shard!

[Tony_S]

27 minutes ago, The Lurker said:

and a great revenue raiser from all the tower blocks. Imagine how much tax they could raise from the Shard!

I suspect the owners would just increase the rents. 

[Hroth]

52 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

The best sweet potato chips I've ever had was in a pub up in Townsville. They were slivered and curly, kind of like these.

 

https://www.hauteandhealthyliving.com/curly-sweet-potato-fries/

 

Serving suggestion - accompanied with a beer, sitting on the pub deck looking over the palm trees to Magnetic Island.

 

 

 

Magnetic Island attracts the gaze?

 

[polybear]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

If City Hall can make any money out of it, they will!

 

It's unsurprising (and a bit mind-boggling) how many new things introduced by City Hall, The Council and the like, ostensibly for the benefit of those City Hall/The Council etc. purport to serve, turn out to be - quite coincidentally - nice little income generators....

 

A Buddy mentioned how many Police Officers and Minders accompany the Mayor of London when he goes Walkabout....it's almost as though everyone hates him......

[jamie92208]

3 hours ago, pgcroc said:

Posted without comment.

They certainly didn't learn about Latin plurals. 

 

Jamie

[Tony_S]

2 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

They certainly didn't learn about Latin plurals. 

 

Jamie

Hippopotamus would obey Greek rules. 

[Tony_S]

Back on a train heading east. I think everyone is heading to the seaside. 

[Tony_S]

31 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

A Buddy mentioned how many Police Officers and Minders accompany the Mayor of London when he goes Walkabout....it's almost as though everyone hates him......

He manages to run a city significantly more populated than some countries in Europe. Got re-elected, 

[The Lurker]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

I suspect the owners would just increase the rents. 

that tends to be the effect of direct taxation - it's a cost that gets passed on when it can

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

A Buddy mentioned how many Police Officers and Minders accompany the Mayor of London when he goes Walkabout....it's almost as though everyone hates him......

My favourite school library book when I was around 8 was about Dick Whittington and his cat. 

 

 

That's all I know  about the mayor of London.

 

Until the Flying Fox incident.

 

 

Anyway, I've seen you -  getting around the place.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 17, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[zarniwhoop]

Got my car back after service, fixed warning light (turned out to be re exhaust gas re-circulation), new rear tyres, MOT.

 

Also they've corrected my email, which was why I didn't get their messages when it was in last year.

 

Actually, it was ready last thing last night - they emailed me 10 minutes before they closed but of course I couldn't get in in time and anyway I was too tired - went to bed after that, slept to midnight, mostly slept to 4a.m., got up for a little while at 6-something, then slept some more. In theory that means I'm now bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but not sure if that will last.

 

Now I need to think about replacing my phone, it seems to lack enough power to do anything significant, such as logging in to my bank (not that I want to use the app for the bank, but somethings such as stopping standing orders seem to need that).

[Tony_S]

43 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

Dick Whittington

I think he was a Lord Mayor of London. There is still one of those in addition to the Mayor of London. 

[Hroth]

9 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I think he was a Lord Mayor of London. There is still one of those in addition to the Mayor of London. 

 

I think the Lord Mayor is of the City of London, more or less the Square Mile, elected by the guilds and corporation of the City. A Ceremonial position.

 

The Mayor of London is "in charge" of the Greater London region, elected by whoever can be arsed to vote for him (or her, one day we might get one), elected by tribal voting patterns.

 

 

[Tony_S]

1 minute ago, monkeysarefun said:

What? Why do you need two?

 

I'm starting to get a feel for what's going wrong over there - too many chiefs, not enough Indians!

 50% of the people in this house are Indian! Fortunately she does have a rather plain piece of paper saying she had British nationality. When we were at a Covid jab centre they were collecting ethnicity details. The woman on the desk asked Aditi about ethnicity and before she could reply said I assume you are British Asian. Aditi said the nearest one on the list was Asian - Indian. Aditi said although her nationality was British, she wasn’t born here so her ethnicity was what she felt was the correct answer. 

Tony

[Tony_S]

Changing the subject from mayors but still about London. I noticed that the signage at Whitechapel Station is available in English and Bengali. I was showing Aditi the signage on a photo , not that she can read Bengali script but just out of interest. I the noticed that Google had popped up an option for ‘inside image’ so I clicked on that and translate appeared.  The Bengali script from the image was translated to English. So I found some Tokyo street scene images and the Japanese characters were translated too. I suspect everyone knew this and I am the last to know but I thought it was clever. 

Edited August 17, 2023 by Tony_S

[Darlington_Shed]

3 hours ago, polybear said:

it's almost as though everyone hates him

 

Not everybody but a vicious minority. I don't agree with all of his policies (or politics) but I've met him and he's a decent bloke doing a difficult job.

 

As for the need for protection:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-65656310.amp

[jamie92208]

49 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

 50% of the people in this house are Indian! Fortunately she does have a rather plain piece of paper saying she had British nationality. When we were at a Covid jab centre they were collecting ethnicity details. The woman on the desk asked Aditi about ethnicity and before she could reply said I assume you are British Asian. Aditi said the nearest one on the list was Asian - Indian. Aditi said although her nationality was British, she wasn’t born here so her ethnicity was what she felt was the correct answer. 

Tony

You have to be careful answeing  ethnicity questions.  I once boosted Enoch Powell statistics when the census asked for 'Place of birth of Mother'. I answered, Nina Taal, India, quite correctly. 

 

Jamie

Edited August 17, 2023 by jamie92208

[Tony_S]

29 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

answered, Nina Taal, India, quite correctly. 

 

Aditi’s parents were born in what was then India. On partition it became part of Pakistan. So on Aditi’s naturalisation certificate it states “Current name of father’s place of  birth - Pakistan “. She was born in Delhi. When we applied for the ESTA visa waiver for the US last time my approval came back almost immediately. Aditi’s took longer as she had the “have you ever been a citizen of another country” question to answer. She had no idea what the number of her previous Indian passport was as it was surrendered when she became British, she was 16.  The ESTA website wasn’t very helpful but Tripadvisor was, just fill the field with zeroes. 

Edited August 17, 2023 by Tony_S

[jamie92208]

3 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Aditi’s parents were born in what was then India. On partition it became part of Pakistan. So on Aditi’s naturalisation certificate it states “Current name of father’s place of  birth - Pakistan “. She was born in Delhi. When we applied for the ESTA visa waiver for the US last time my approval came back almost immediately. Aditi’s took longer as she had the “have you ever been a citizen of another country” question to answer. She had no idea what the number of her previous Indian passport was as it was surrendered when she became British. The ESTA website wasn’t very helpful but Tripadvisor was, just fill the field with zeroes. 

My brother had trouble getting his first US Visa back in 1967.  With our mother havi been born I India and home havi g been born in Port Harcourt, which at that time was Biafra.  It was only the fact that he was a trainee pilot for BOAC and the fact that our father was born in Wallasey, Cheshire, that got him a visa.  He was still in Basic training g and BOAC wanted all of his cohort to spend their holidays flying routes. That hurried things up at the Embassy. 

 

Jamie

[Tony_S]

4 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

My brother had trouble getting his first US Visa back in 1967. 

My brother’s first posting after finishing his technician apprenticeship with GEC was to Lagos , Nigeria. Just before he went, the Nigerian authorities (military government then)  had asked for all sorts of information for a random security check to make sure he wasn’t some sort of mercenary or agitator. The foreign travel bit was easy as he had only been on a 10 day coach holiday to Austria when he was 7 before that. 

[Ian Abel]

8 hours ago, polybear said:

In other news.....

Is it really getting this bad - can any of our U.S. Correspondents advise?

 

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/tipping-culture-in-the-us-is-out-of-control-we-re-even-asked-to-tip-self-checkouts/ar-AA1fl82Q?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=b666127ac18e4df3a91e3cce4087628d&ei=19

Having perused the article, and especially noting the video was from FAUX News, it should be considered rather more overblown that suggested. Simply, in my experience it's NOT "that bad".

 

Many locations that have the "swivel screen that options for a tip" are not just take-out but also dine in etc., so the single pay point doesn't mean everyone is expected to tip.

The last sentence, referencing "...finding a solution...", can also simply be addressed by paying wait-staff/servers a living wage - WHO'D HAVE GUESSED!!!

I happily tip where applicable, on the PRE-TAX amount, as I'm well aware of the pittance many establishments pay folks. It's somewhat self-serving though, since the pay is often low as a result of the expected TIPS making up a serious portion of the individuals wage.

 

[TheQ]

My generation and their descendants ,mum and dad's and grand parents places of birth.

Wiltshire x 3,

Somerset 

Dorset,

Quetta (British India now Pakistan)

Cyprus

Northern Ireland, x3

Staffordshire,

Isle of Wight,

Glasgow 

Egypt 

Aldershot 

Central Scotland x 7

South west Scotland 

Yorkshire

I'm sure I've missed some..

 

Afternoon Awl,

Shopping shopped,

Paint bought, note to muddlers, " The Works" are changing versions of acrylic paints, much discounts to be had..

Some discounts on old paints, some on new versions being pushed.

 

Many other stores visited for items not of interest, right ankle not happy. 

 

Eyelid inspection overdue.

 

 

[Ian Abel]

BIN day, got them out late last evening, all serviced already.

 

Yesterday was enjoyable, fun and informative at the Charles Schulz exhibit. The various explanations as to when and how many of the characters came into being was quite surprising. Several being names of friends, many of whom were quite happy with the relative notoriety it seems.

 

Great dinner afterwards at a local and long serving watering hole. Had steak (it's a steak house) for the first time in ages, and it didn't disappoint. Fine evening.

 

17c partly sunny and very windy first thing. 24c the high.

Currently expected to have unhealthy air quality from the Canadian wild fires for 48 hours starting around noon - yay 😝

 

Carry on.