Early Risers.

[polybear]

Something for @iL Dottore......

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-68477735

 

[iL Dottore]

Hmm, where to send The Bear on Holiday? (Captain Cynical has - unhelpfully - suggested The Gulag Archipelago or Devil’s Island, Guyana).

 

A lot depends upon The Bear’s ability to go outside his comfort zones - including culinarily and financially.

 

I’ve often found that a long weekend (5-6 days) with a comfortable hotel as a base is a great way to recharge one’s batteries, eat well and get to see lots of things historical and cultural.

 

So, recommendations:

1. Berlin. Definitely lots of things to see: go off the tourist track and visit Pankow, Wedding and Spandau. Explore the U-Bahn and S-Bahn (if you’re lucky they may be running the “Tunnel Tour” on the U-Bahn again). Lots of great museums and loads of nightlife - from the upmarket  to the louche. Food would appeal to an unsophisticated Bear - lots of pig and potatoes. Curry-Wurst is a famous Berlin takeaway snack, but I prefer Schweinshaxe with kartoffelpuffer. KaDeWe on the Ku Damm is definitely THE place for cake - albeit a tad pricy. Once you’ve had a KaDeWe cake - anything else is substandard.
2. Amsterdam. Lots to do, the Rejksmuseum is superb, great flea markets, easy to get from to other parts of the Netherlands. Food? Solid Dutch stuff (more pig and potatoes), but a Dutch-Indonesian Riistaffel is a definite must. The Dutch are serious cake eaters and chips and mayonnaise is an unlikely combination that works.
3. Paris. OK it’s full of the French 🤣 - but definitely worth a visit (as @jamie92208 can confirm, the rest of France thinks the Parisians are full of themselves). Museums and art galleries alone could take up all of your time. Plenty of places to visit, the Metro system is worth exploring and the food, as you would expect, is superb. There are many little Bistros where you can get one of a small choice of dishes plus starter and dessert for about €10. Patisserie (or CAKE for the unsophisticated) is also big in France with many top patisseuers (or CAKE SHOP for the monolingual) selling out before lunchtime.

Other city breaks that have worked for me have included Copenhagen, Turin, Bologna and Oslo. Joining two 5-day weekends back to back makes for a nice (almost) 2 week holiday.

 

Perhaps the only downsides to having a city break are:

• A high season stay will cost you multiples of what an off-season or low season stay would cost (besides you won’t be able to see much because of the bloody tourists)
• Unless you enjoy spending large amounts of money for mediocre food, avoid restaurants that have menus in multiple languages and eat local. Insisting on pizza and fries instead of - say - having eisbein mit kartoffelsalat s a good way to get ripped off.
• Avoid very low cost hotels and B&Bs (you could end up with unwanted insectile visitors), Accor - the French hotel conglomerate - has a lot of properties spread across several brands Ibis Styles are always fun to stay in (e.g  the Ibis Styles Edinburgh has unlimited sausage, egg, haggis and [yuk] baked beans at the Breakfast Buffet) and Mercure are good if you want a little more self-indulgence.

[Grizz]

Good Evening All

 

Please can anyone help me with some advice. 
 

Number 1 cub and his mate are travelling to Italy to watch Brighton v Roma. Getting there is no issue. 
 

The game is on Thursday night, and they are due to travel home from Torino to Gatwick on Friday 8th……however there is some rumour that there is due to be a general strike with unionise workers walking out on that day. 
 

Biggest issue is they have no idea how wide spread this likely to be and how likely it is to affect flights, trains etc etc. 
 

Getting reliable information from here is difficult to say the least. 
 

Cheers in advance all. 

[Ohmisterporter]

The farmer who usually has sheep or cattle in the field behind our house has turfed them out and was busy muck spreading this morning. I looked out about an hour after he had finished and there were around two hundred gulls in the field, busily feeding. I like to think the manure had brought worms and beetles to the surface. On the plus side I have never had the urge to eat any kind of gull. On the minus side there have been some dodgy chicken curries. 

 

.

Edited March 5 by Ohmisterporter

[Tony_S]

34 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Berlin

Still haven’t been to Berlin. Probably will do one day. Perhaps if there are flights from Southend

34 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Amsterdam

Been there a few times, agree about the museums, good transport, nearly got run over by a beer bike on the pavement. Utrecht is a nice alternative, food, canals and a railway museum. Train from Schipol then walk to nice hotel. 

34 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Paris

Been quite a few times. Apart from a day trip in August one year we have been early spring or late autumn. Did a lot of walking and visiting art galleries or general  sightseeing.. Travelled by train from Ebbsfleet but that isn’t an option now. 
 

For her recent 70th birthday Aditi wanted a few days away “somewhere nice”. She mentioned Vienna, and then Berlin. She decided she didn’t really want to fly as all of our friends and family who had flown around then got  covid. Then her brother’s 60th birthday party was right in the middle of when we could go. So,Aditi thought Yorkshire would be nice and it was, split between York and Malham. 
Tony
 

 

Edited March 5 by Tony_S

[polybear]

Bear here.....

 

"The Book Lady" in the Charity Warehouse overheard Bear mention to someone that I was into Choo Choo's.....

"Do Railway Books interest you?" She asked.....

"And Model Railway Books?"

Does a Duck Float.....

 

She's now said she'll side-line likely contenders for Bear to peruse.....I mentioned buzz words such as "Wild Swan Publications".....

That's a Tick.

How many books do they have?  Thousands, literally - and more arriving every day.

Oh yes, and the Warehouse Manager(ess)'s father was a Fireman on Steam Choo Choo's - and in later years used to sort the Mail on the TPO's (good money, apparently - many didn't like it because it gave them motion sickness, but he was fine because he was used to it after working on the Footplate). She says she'll side-line any nice train piccies for Bear to peruse....

 

The Princess of Darkness did try to tempt Bear over to The Dark Side by offering a (rather thick) shortbread bikky as well.....Bear resisted the temptation (a miracle in itself - Bears being rather partial to shortbread).  How's that for being A Good Bear?

 

ION.....

One of the Guys mentioned he tried a Coconut & Banana diet a while back.  He didn't lose any weight but he's bluddy good at climbing trees now......

 

BG

[polybear]

This may be of interest to those with a Ring Doorbell subscription:

 

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2024/02/ring-doorbell-increases-price/?utm_source=MSE_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=05-Mar-24-d01f14f9cd24ba4a9d0-65e7814df5c7fe5248725a07c1683a3e&source=CRM-MSETIP-d01f14f9cd24ba4a9d0&utm_campaign=nt-oneliners-two&utm_content=10

 

HTH

Bear

[Barry O]

11 hours ago, Erichill16 said:

May be going for a walk on the very line today.

By the way have you ever visited the location?

 

As it happens  not yet

 

Baz

[Hroth]

2 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. A bit late but some eyelid inspection took place after I got home from Tess Coes. Now for dinner, quiche and chips.

 

I might have had chips with my quiche too, but my mouth is still tender after my visit to the dentist last Thursday...

 

So mushy peas* it was!

 

* The alternative was baked beans, but I was mindful of greenhouse gasses...

 

 

[Gwiwer]

5 hours ago, Tony_S said:

I didn’t know there was medical grade superglue

Commonly used now in place of stitching for minor injuries and some surgeries.  Also, I believe, for more major surgeries where suitable.  It leaves minimal scarring which can fade to nothing noticeable.  Which, for those for whom it matters, is probably better than having a visible "zip" scar.  

[Tony_S]

18 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

Commonly used now in place of stitching for minor injuries and some surgeries.

I knew about the surgical use of superglue but in my complete ignorance of such things I just assumed it wasn’t anything special and didn’t know that there was a medical version. Apparently with added plasticiser and some other minor changes. I don’t myself recall using it intentionally on cuts but I have got it in cuts unintentionally. 

Edited March 5 by Tony_S

[Coombe Barton]

... No more shambolic than the Westminster administration. ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2024/03/05/covid-enquiry-in-wales-day-6-and-a-tiring-day/

[TheQ]

Evening Awl,

I've used super glue on cut fingers once or twice myself, not always deliberately...

 

Misty on the way to the MRC, though not heavy.

 

Just back from the MRC where no cut fingers were involved, though because I did things correctly no fried fingers were involved either.  After adding some temporary smoke tubes to the unmentionable, electrons were successfully supplied to an object that then moved. That's the first time anything has done so on this for several years.

There's a bit more Todo, but this section is definitely getting closer to completion..

 

Another prospective new member was visiting.

 

Heavier mist on the way back, the gate light has failed ( seal unit led) I'll be ordering a couple of new ones shortly as another less important has died some time ago.

 

On arrival the headlights illuminated an OWL, which flew off, but it was calling furiously from further down the garden as I shut the gates.

 

 

[Tony_S]

19 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

Which, for those for whom it matters, is probably better than having a visible "zip" scar.  

When Aditi’s brother, Raj,  was still working as a hospital doctor  in A&E he had just finished stitching a facial wound for someone who had been glassed in a pub fight when the patient said she recognised him from the last time she had needed stitches. That was after her baby had been delivered . Raj apologised and said he didn’t remember as he hadn’t been looking at her face on that occasion. 

[jamie92208]

@iL Dottore @polybear Paris is great with good public transport.sadly your info re prices is a bit out of date Flavio.  Even down here a 'menu de jour' is usually about €15 though that sometimes includes a glass of wine. I suspect that in Paris it's about €18 to 20.  I did find a serb cake shop at the bottom of the footbridge that runs across the huge yard at Villeneuve St George.

 

Jamie

[TheQ]

Facebook just worked on the original password even though I'd been messing with it earlier.

[Tony_S]

11 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Facebook just worked on the original password even though I'd been messing with it earlier.

It was down universally. It didn’t take long to return though. 
 

[Tony_S]

21 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

@iL Dottore @polybear Paris is great with good public transport.sadly your info re prices is a bit out of date Flavio.  Even down here a 'menu de jour' is usually about €15 though that sometimes includes a glass of wine. I suspect that in Paris it's about €18 to 20.  I did find a serb cake shop at the bottom of the footbridge that runs across the huge yard at Villeneuve St George.

 

Jamie

We don’t eat out a lot so are probably not good judges but last time we visited  Paris it wasn’t expensive compared to London. There seemed to be a lot more non franchise places to get food and drink though which was nice. The hotel was certainly cheaper than one in a London would be. 
Food prices in restaurants locally seem to have risen. We regularly met friends for lunch at the same pub. The bill was fairly constant over a few years but this time it was 20% more for similar meals and drink. I looked carefully at the menu and the most expensive items had changed much but everything else had. Our domestic food bills are higher too, easy to see as most of it comes from one source delivered weekly. 
Tony

[Andy Hayter]

42 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I knew about the surgical use of superglue but in my complete ignorance of such things I just assumed it wasn’t anything special and didn’t know that there was a medical version. Apparently with added plasticiser and some other minor changes. I don’t myself recall using it intentionally on cuts but I have got it in cuts unintentionally. 

 

 

There is probably minimal difference, except that the medical grade will have had to have had substantial medical testing; statistical analysis of the side effects (there are always side effects) and will have to be covered by huge levels of insurance- especially if sold into North America where any perceived defect is likely to cost millions.  

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

This morning I finished laying the cellar flooring, so that’s another big step to getting my model railway room completed. After dinner I made a start cutting the skirting boards, so far I’ve cut 3 pieces, but none are fitted yet. Mind you, I still have another 10 pieces to cut and I’ve got 10 corners in total, 6 internal and 4 external, so that’ll keep me busy. I expect it’ll take me most of the rest of the week to finish it all. I’ve not taken photos today, as it doesn’t look much different to those I took yesterday, but I’ll take some when it’s all done. 

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Caught up on Farcebook and now just to catch up on RMweb before bed.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

I think I'm turning into Victor Meldrew...

It's bin day tomorrow and this week it's the turn of the black bin to be out. But I noticed that a neighbour had put out her blue bin instead.

I felt I just had to tell her...

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[Erichill16]

2 hours ago, Barry O said:

As it happens  not yet

 

Baz

Well when you do call around for a cuppa!