alastairq

Small talk, in other words? But then, I've long since ceased to play any sort of 'social' game!

There's a huge difference [ in my world, maybe not that of others?] between 'superficiality', and 'trivia.' Trivia..is, or can be, somewhat subjective, really. What may be trivia to me, probably isn't to others {The rest of the world, perhaps?} Superficiality, to me, implies an 'attitude'.

Same when discussing, [nowadays, having a conversation'.....whatever that's all about? What's wrong with calling it an argument??] politics?

Which brings up the topic of railway modelling, and how admitting to having such an interest is perceived by the hoi-polloi [general public, etc]? Still not got the same kind of cache as fishing, or Saturday afternoon football? I get the modern equivalent from my neighbour..when commenting to me 'how come you know so much about these things?' Especially when I fix his old car? I think there's far too much superficiality surrounding 'knowledge'' these days?

Probably on the vehicle's identity?

For the UK, there are a number of options for opening a 'bank' account without proof of UK address. The USA must have somthing similar. As an example https://www.smallworldfs.com/en/blog/list-of-banks-in-the-uk-where-you-can-open-a-bank-account-without-proof-of-address#:~:text=Types of UK Bank Accounts without Proof of Address&text=The first option is to,the entry criteria quite flexible. Virtual banking is with us as well.

LBSC, anyone?

What is the system for voting in the USA? There are businesses who provide a US postal address. As someone who has purchased large items from the US, sometimes it is cheaper to get the item sent to one of these US postal addresses, to be forwarded to the UK when a container is packed, etc? Bank accounts still needing a fixed abode address? Surely these days this must be a thing of the past? [As per current TV adverts?] Personally, I have bank accounts from which I have not received anything 'postal' for over a decade.

I have often found things to be the other way around. Meaning, I frequently found myself handicapped by the rest of any 'team' I happened to be involved with. Something that has been with me all my life. Experience has taught me that anything involving a 'team' was frequently aligned with the concept of 'lowest common denominator'... Not a good 'team' person, me.... Maybe I have never really been forceful enough to put my views across? Reverting to the concept of ''letting the rest get on with it?'' Or , maybe, I could never really be bothered? Lacy fare?

My cross-country episodes centred on running around Sutton Park..... I found the tracks of a miniature railway one day... Got into trouble when I innocently asked about them.......to be harangued for being ''off-route''.. In less than ten years, there came the Royal Marines.....Brought a whole new aspect to 'cross-country''....

The purpose of motorways is to allow the slowest and most cumbersome of vehicles the quickest route between A & B. It's about time everybody realised that, and stopped using them as racetracks?

One man's ''common sense'' is another man's ''idiocy?''

What's a 'motorway?'

My first brain-picture was of the Isle of Wight?

My issue with fish n chips lies mainly with the stuff they cook it all in? Still , cannot be any worse than the average kebab of a night-time? The only so-called 'fast' food I really enjoyed, I cannot find any more....Even in Morrisons [a supermarket I am most reluctant to patronise] That was, the freshly roasted belly pork that a Bridlington butcher used to sell. Crisp crackling, really tasty...far superior to a corned beef sarnie come lunchtime [10 o'clock in the morning sometimes, for me as a bus driver!] About a three or four inch square, best purchased whilst still fresh & hot. As far as I was concerned, rabbit food could remain as such!

No more nasty chemicals than in any of the pre-packed, pre-ordained, meals or foods we see being hungrily snapped up off every supermarkets' cabinets every day?

HAs anybody priced up the various veggy-based products currently being advertised on TV? Pulses do take a deal of preparation. Big bags of spices, etc are also costly enough, when one factors in the expense of travelling to these outlets, parking, etc? For one person they also don't make sense from a storage viewpoint. I now avoid tomatoes due to their acidity. Not that I don't 'like' them.... But, at the end of the day, there is an expense involved when 'stocking' one's kitchen cupboard. What's all this veggy lookalike thing all about, then? Why make a vegetable look like a piece of chicken?

These days, eating more food of a plantish nature, at a basic level, is down to cost....or, rather, income, IMHO. The trouble with vegetarianism and veganism these days is the sheer cost of the food, in an easily assembled [IE making some sort of palatable meal?] lies in the realms of the comfortably off, financially. Like, saving the planet...fine if you can afford it, a real pain if living on a minimal income! I have no real idea why there is such an almost antagonistic feeling towards so-called 'fast' food? After all, it has been around for many hundreds of years, all over the world! [If not, thousands of years?} Another description I have heard it called is 'street food'... By extension, we can posh it all up by extending fast food into restaurant food.....in respect of the fact we know, sat at the table, very little about what has gone into that gucci plate of stuff thrust in front of us? In return for an astonishing amount of money[The cost, to me, of an average restaurant lunch or supper, especially down south, would in fact feed me comfortably for more than a week!] As for 'processed' food? Pot noodles are but the tip if the iceberg.....We also need to include sausages [which may, or may not, contain any animal products?]....bacon, etc. Mushy peas? Pickles purchased [or otherwise?] from supermarkets? FAst food is the world's answer to feeding those populations that, due to their [chosen or otherwise] lifestyle, cannot go out and feed themselves [foraging in Hyde Park?} Good old fish n chips? Fast food if ever there was! Then there's the whelk stalls, jellied eels, cornflakes, gucci health foods packaged to appeal to those with more money than they know what to do with... Crikey, there's even a Nandos advert appearing at the bottom of my screen as I type...[I am not too sure what Nandos sells, or why it is so popular?] Unless one has the means to have a fire burning locally sourced burny stuff...maybe outside in one's garden, then buying or scrounging raw food materials and creating a meal is actually a more expensive way of feeding than one might imagine...and, apparently, it will get worse. Electricity? Gas? Factor in the sheer cost of buying a stove to cook on? The anti fast food brigade were also noted for shunning microwave cookery before.....Yet that has possibly got to be the cheapest way of cooking food these days[aside from the fire outside?]? On the meat side of things, I had an aunt [once] who developed severe arthritis in her hands/fingers...a bit of a bind for her as she was an artist of sorts. She discovered that by excluding red meats from her diet, the effects of arthritis became less pronounced.... Personally, I find these days I eat more in the way of vegetables than I used to......a symptom of older age perhaps? Also a means of 'surviving' on a very restricted income. But, i still eat meat......as & when I can afford it.....locally sourced, ie from field to fridge...rather than anonymous supermarket trays... I pay almost double the price for a chicken by buying locally from a farm butchers'....so I know where & when the raw material came from. None of this stuff being imported from foreign climes, then being repackaged and sold as ''British'.... Due to the cost of my preferences, I try to eke the chicken out through my dietary week a bit more than I'd bother if I'd bought from Tescos [as an example....chose mass retailer of choice] It takes time & effort though....and a lot of onions. But then, luckily, I don't have to be anywhere else, doing stuff for others in return for a meagre pittance...

They don't need to be anything else, now they have the unfettered access to tech?

I cannot see BJ refusing a knighthood[of the Garter variety]? Oh, wait a moment, BJ isn't a member of the one-time Labour government, is he? Personally, I don't know what all the fuss is about? Especially when I get informed of all the ''work-related'' junkets that the private sector jobs-world gets up to? When all I would ever get from 'work' would be a stale marmite sandwich? I mean, how comefolk get to swan around in brand new electric cars......obtained on the 'business?' When the money could be better spent helping to offset our tax burden?? Also, exactly what are plant-based meatballs made of?????

Plus, leather embossed with a snake eating a baby?

Especially if an Alfa Romeo?

I don't have a cat! Not-my-cat! I also have another not-my cat, a black one....who was elsewhere at the time the above photo was taken [Friday]... Now it seems I also have a not-my-goat! Who nominally lives in next door's back garden [and returns of a night to the purpose-built sheep shelter...there is a sheep as well...another story] Said goat ['Reggie'...who has a smaller pal, Ronnie...what else??]...has, thus far, defied all attempts to fence him in to their rear garden. Both goats are billies that have been 'seen-to' at birth, or near enough. Normally, in the real world, billies end up in curries quite quickly, as they are a nuisance, and serve no purpose whatsoever...but these two have been given a home, when one of the two back-garden sheep next door died. [One cannot simply put the carcass in the brown bin! Apparently a lot of paperwork needs to be done when sheep dies!] other sheep patently was grieving helplessly [how does one offer grief counselling to a sheep?}, so toot sweet the two, otherwise useless, goats rocked up. Now it seems I have also acquired a not-my-goat....thus far it has turned half my back garden into a bed of stalks....and has made a mockery of my hedge trimming. Having got fed up with my back garden, it has now found my front garden! A hasty blurry piccy taken on my kwappeiphone, via a steamy kitchen window! I am not sure how the rest of the village will view a wandering goat, should he wander further, especially when I'm out/not aware of his presence? He's now quite a bit bigger than the average Labrador as well.... Thus far I haven't been able to get him to stand still long enough to get a rope on him [was tempted the other night to rope him, and tie him to next door's front door handle...as usual, they were out till late.] Anyway, this morning, lady next door{? lady?] spotted him by my front garden pond [years ago it had some carp in it....then some Polish guys moved in up the road...and the carp disappeared. Not suggesting any coincidence, of course].....and came hot-foot round to persuade Reggie to return via the way he came. I have a big front gate which is normally open, but I don't suppose it's goat-resistant, if I should close it....Besides , it would be awfully inconvenient for me every time I wanted to come or go... She has now gone to raid Screwfix for more wire fencing....Trouble is, he will sneakily burrow, or slip, around what is already there.....but on returning, he squashes the existing wire netting down to get back in... Luckily I am not one of those 'shoot-it-if-it-moves' types.....and at my age, have learnt the art of tolerance... But neither am I nimble enough to go playing silly-buggahs chasing goats round the garden. Oddly,. the two not-my-cats find Reggie's incursions to be a proper nuisance, and definitely not to be condoned..so often they have assisted in my efforts to persuade Reggie to 'go home'... Plus, the back-garden sheep also sets up a reet loud bleating, which also alerts me to Reggie's unwanted presence in my garden..... Luckily, where I live, I don't get drinlen revellers or crack-heads puking over my front hedge!

Drones? If Amazon can do it, why not Network Rail? The problem I would fear with wheelchair user ramps would be.......coming down the other side? Bring a whole new interpretation to ''Zoom?'' Do modern electric boogies have dynamic brakes?