AndyID

9 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Good moaning from the Grey and overcast Charente. I didn't get chance to visit yesterday so have skipped a page.  However we had fun trying to fit new feet to the four  big pieces of timber that support the verandah at the front. These are 6 to 7 inches square and were rotting at the base. The roof is an extension of the house roof and is heavy.   Acrow props were used to prop each one up at a time. Then the base sawn off and a steel foot inserted. Sounds simple.  

 

First discovery, there was a steel spigot sticking up the centre of each so the cut off piece had to be chiseled apart then the spigot cutoff with a cutting disk. 

 

Problem 2 was that there was rot in three of them and in one this extends over 2 feet up.  All good fun.  3 of the pied de poteaux regulaible, (adjustable pillar feet)  are now in place and the fourth is sitting on a temporary pillar of breeze blocks and timber.  I am going to have to source a suitable piece of timber to replace and splice in the lower metre of that one.  

 

Anyway after that Beth and I went out for a nice meal at some friends.  

 

Jamie

I have to replace some timbers on our deck and I will be using treated timber. I've been experimenting with splices held together with adhesive. Polyurethane seems to work extremely well. Clamped for 24 hours, no screws necessary.

Had my other at eye cataract surgery today. Hopefully no more glasses for me other than reading glasses. I just got the basic lenses and the whole thing is covered by Medicare. They don't cover the more sophisticated corrective lenses which can get rather spendy.

Based on what I had heard I was a bit concerned about healthcare in the US before we came here but our experience has been very positive although health insurance is expensive until you reach retirement age.

4 minutes ago, pH said:

I was actually looking for a GNoSR engine which I seem to remember had been painted in a tartan to pull the royal train, but didn’t find it. IIRC, it was painted in Dress Stewart 😳!

The great thing about tartan is there are so many to choose from and you can double that number if you include both the dress and hunting versions. 😁

21 minutes ago, pH said:

How do you feel about tartan?

 

Sort of depends on which one.

On 10/04/2024 at 23:31, iL Dottore said:

I am glad to read that Mrs br2975 was seen with speed and efficiency.
 

However, I would like to comment that given a choice between a doctor with a curt and abrupt bedside manner with outstanding clinical skills and expertise and a doctor with a smooth and reassuring bedside manner and so-so clinical skills and expertise, I’d take Dr Grumpy any day.

 

Many decades ago, when I was working in the hospital, I noted that some of the very best clinicians were those with the poorest bedside manners. One neurosurgeon in particular had a hair trigger temper in the operating theatre (things had to be “just so” and he did NOT tolerate any sloppiness in technique) and was brutally blunt with the patients (along the lines of “I’ll remove the tumour but you’ll be permanently impaired”j and yet he was the neurosurgeon of choice for incredibly complex procedures.

 

Thinking about the above, I wonder how much was an act?

The surgeon who did my recently cataract op was excellent. MrsID joined me on the follow-up visit with him. She concluded he had had his personality surgically removed.

7 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Isn’t it (wasn’t it?) against the dentists code of ethics to remove perfectly healthy teeth? I don’t see that as being acceptable dental practice in many other countries.

But what price health? There seems an incredible reluctance to pay for medical & dental care amongst the British, even when they can afford to do so. It seems that many would rather wait in pain, slowly deteriorating rather than fork out for treatment.
 

My maternal grandfather, a grand old chap (definitely traditional working class who, in the 1930s, went down the mines aged 12 to help feed the family), made a very very apposite comment about the NHS and government services in general. He said “appreciate what they give you, but never ever forget that if they give with the one hand they can (and will) take away with the other”. Wise words indeed.

 

There are a lot of myths about the foundation of the NHS one of which was only the Tories voted against it. Nothing further from the truth, many groups and parties such as the LCC, various health charities and working class benevolent societies (such as the one my Grandfather was involved in) were against the NHS as they feared, quite rightly, that the NHS would come in, take over the clinics and cottage hospitals created by the charities and benevolent societies for their members, run everything from Whitehall whilst arrogantly ignoring and marginalising those who knew the local needs and local concerns.

They had a point.

 

But at least it’s free…..

 

 

Here's a sad example of "reluctance to pay". My childhood friend, best man and ski pal lived in Edinburgh. He made a lot of money and had all the toys. Lovely house, expensive cars and a beautiful yacht. He had not been feeling well for about a year and was being treated by a NHS doctor.

He was 56 when died of a heart attack. No heart condition was diagnosed prior to his death.

Had he shelled out for a better private doctor I'm pretty sure his heart condition would have been diagnosed. Of course, even if it had, he might still have succumbed.

8 hours ago, SM42 said:

Conspiracy theories often fail the which is more likely test. 

 

For me UFOs the jury is out.

 

Yes there are flying objects that can't be explained till they can.

 

Maybe it's a secret project, maybe it isn't.

 

Is there a cover up of real aliens. Unlikely.

 

Other life out there.? Possibly 

 

Is it likely that it has developed interstellar travel and can change the laws of physics

 

Unlikely.

 

Why do they always look a bit like us? 

 

 

Another example.

 

Did man land on the moon? 

 

Which is more likely? 

 

They did

 

Or

 

Thousands of people involved kept it secret all these years and more importantly the Russians are in on it and have kept the secret too. 

 

Any conspiracy can be put to the same test. 

 

 The test is really courtesy of Scott Adams under the title " Great Lies of Management" but it has many other uses in life.

 

Andy

One person can keep a secret. Two people might be able to keep a secret. Ten or more people? Not a snowball's chance. 🤣

1 hour ago, GMKAT7 said:

Good afternoon folks,

 

In a similar vein to Happy Hippo, I once had a UFO experience after a rather long August Bank Holiday marinating my liver with Bass. It was quite dark when we were finally ejected from the Black Horse pub.

 

Walking along the main road home (I was on the pavement) I noticed a bright, white light in front of me. As it came closer I was convinced that it was aliens coming for me.

 

Only when it was right on top of me was it revealed to be the police helicopter.

The walk home after that encounter was a lot more sober 😂

 

Cheers, Nigel.

 

Many, many years ago my friend Alastair and I were returning from the pub in Aviemore to the campsite at Loch Morlich in his sister's 1955 VW. The conversation went something like this:

"OMG Alastair! There's a policeman standing on the back bumper and he's shining his torch in the rear window. What are we going to do?"

It turned out that a torch in the storage space behind the back seat had been switched on and it was pointing vertically up at the rear window.

4 hours ago, BR60103 said:

I classify songs by the mode of transportation

 

Cars means it's rocky roll.

Trucks are country.

Horses are western.

Trains are folk.

 

 

I quite like Yacht Rock on SiriusXM 😁

3 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

I took a music appreciation course in high school thinking that it would be an easy slide. Oh, no! The teacher was a young black guy almost just out of teaching school and was a slave-driver! All I can say is that he must have done his job properly as I still have a love of classical music. Not the vocal part of opera, though.

Oh, I dunno. A lot of the lyrics by Gilbert and Sullivan are pretty funny 🤣

And, before anyone suggests that is not "real" opera, they better have a good argument. 😄

11 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Yootoob here seems to work...

 

 

(see what happens on submit)

 

Thanks. Sounds like a recoding from a live performance. Unfortunately nothing like as good as the studio version on the Jailbreak album.

30 minutes ago, Canal Digger said:

Andy, you will have to tell us what it is, video is 'not available'. 

Tony beat me to it!

Ah, UK copyright block.

It's "Cowboy Song" by Thin Lizzy

4 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Country and Western are two different forms of music.

 

Country was seen as the Hillbilly or roots music from rural areas usually a form of Folk music and often involves dancing.

 

 

Whilst Western was mostly from the Mid West cowboy balladeers. More singing laments around a campfire and story telling than dancing.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_music_

 

They were often lumped together by those that don't know different. A bit like those that think everyone who likes Heavy Metal likes the pop stuff they play on Radio Two. I don't think I've ever listened to a Def Leppard album yet everyone seems to think that is what I'm into!

 

 

 

Jason

Living as I do in the Wild West I know a thing or two about this stuff. This is my fav cowboy song

13 hours ago, SM42 said:

 

Can't you just switch it off and on again?

 

Andy

You might if you knew it was happening 😀

This issue only comes up when digital logic samples input from some asynchronous source (for example, an operator pushing a button). There are various ways to minimize the probability that the input will be misinterpreted which make it extremely unlikely that will ever happen but it's not possible to eliminate the chance completely.

So y'all think it all went digital? It did, just not quite.

It's all based of "flip-flops". These are simple electronic devices that can either represent a one or a zero. That's great except there is also the "Grand Old Juke of York" flip-flop which is neither up nor down.

Precisely how long his state remains indeterminate is impossible to calculate. It's only a question of probabilities.

Just back from seeing a vein doc regarding my very close veins. The right leg is obviously extremely dodgy but after a bit of ultrasound examination his professional opinion is that the peripheral veins on the inside of both legs are completely banjaxed. (although he might have put it slightly differently).

He can fix them with a minor op in his surgery now scheduled for early July. He could do the ops next week but I have to be under his supervision for three months if Medicare is going to pay for it.

3 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

There is a song "AFTERNOON DELIGHT" by the Starland Vocal Band (1976) that, I am sure, would peg today's censorship meters!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh3tmBwtS5Q&ab_channel=StarlandandMore

 

No, no, no! It's obviously about enjoying Turkish Delight in the afternoon with a few of the neighbors while watching an Apollo launch. How else could you explain "sky rockets in flight"?

34 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

The Duke of York was driven up the garden inside a 17 year old Escort (It's a Ford joke)

I'm glad you explained that. Otherwise it might have been misconstrued.

6 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

I went to Utah once but it was closed.

 

Dave

Things might have changed since you were last there. You can actually get a drink in a bar without joining a club now 😂

7 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

 

🤣

7 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Apparently it is my job to plant out the potatoes this morning.

 

Duke of York for the first earlies, and Kestrel for the second.  The Kestrel variety are an old favourite, and always do well.  The DoY we've not planted before, so it will be interesting to see how they fair.

 

Presumably you marched them up to the top of the garden?

4 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

The article is fascinating (thank you for the link) and provides a much more coherent comment on the Peto Paradox than I could manage. But basically some of the reason for low cancer rates include 1) slower metabolisms, 2) "pimped up" immune systems, 3) differences in cell structure between species and 4) the "right" genes (and sometime multiple copies of the "right" genes).

 

I think that one of the reasons (and paradoxes) of human evolutionary success is that we aren't spectacularly good at much, but adequately good at most everything. We don't have the most acute eyesight, the keenest hearing, the most sensitive sense of smell, nor are we the strongest, fastest or most resilient - but it doesn't matter as the whole of us is greater than the sum of our individual "just about OK" parts.

 

For example, our immune systems and our bodily fitness are "just about OK". With, for example, wound healing: in man it averages between 4 -6 weeks to completely heal (although the wound healing process continues for much longer at a cellular level); in dogs it averages about 2 - 3 weeks (although, like with humans, healing continues at the cellular level for much longer). Opposable thumbs are probably the only thing that is more advantageous than the animal counterpart. As for intelligence, as Larry Niven quipped, it hasn't yet been proven to provide an evolutionary advantage.

 

Another interesting article. These fish also seem to be good at repairing their DNA.

https://www.futurity.org/living-fossils-gars-ancient-fish-evolution-3188902/

2 hours ago, SM42 said:

Saturday's predicted temperature is rising. 

 

Now 22c

 

Sunday 21c

 

Monday 20c

 

Those winter tyres seem a bit redundant now. 

 

Andy

Who's thinking of taking the pinking shears to his trousers. 

Not here. It was like summer for a few weeks then we awoke to a layer of frost followed by snow. 😀

23 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Catching up with Wales!

 

Copied from the Welsh Government website:

 

Since 1 April 2017, local authorities in Wales have been able to charge a premium of up to 100% of the standard rate of council tax on long-term empty dwellings and dwellings occupied periodically (more commonly referred to as second homes) in their areas. From 1 April 2023, the maximum level at which local authorities can set council tax premiums will increase to 300%. The powers given to local authorities are discretionary so whether to charge a premium on long-term empty properties or second homes (or both) is, therefore a decision to be made by each local authority.

The same as here (in Idaho). Full time residents get a substantial discount on their property tax.

I'm a bit nervous to point out that for a few years we didn't own two homes, we had three! This place which we bought 28 years ago, a house in Southern California while I was working there for six years before I retired and a small apartment half way between the two at Park City in Utah which was mainly for skiing.

When I got the job in CA we decided not to sell this place because it seemed like the ideal retirement home. It's fortunate that we didn't sell it because this area was "discovered" about twenty years ago and the value of this place has increased 350% since then.

The other two properties were sold when I retired.

2 hours ago, AndyID said:

There are a lot of speed limit signs on side roads here that are not enforceable. For example the road at the end of our little street is posted 25 but the legal limit for that sort of road is actually 35. The lower limit could only be enforced if there has been a professional (and expensive) traffic study conducted by the county, and there never was.

I should add that is in Idaho. No idea about other US states.

"The Hunt For Red Orion"