WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Stanley]

I like good news stories about the NHS, not enough of them about!

[Stanley]

The continuing mild weather coupled with the report that 2016 was the warmest year since 1910. Go figure......
The effects I am noting from my recent change of diet to cut down carbs significantly. Like Col my tinnitus has lessened significantly and I have fewer stabs of unexplained pain..... Of course it could be coincidence!
The fact that Terry Waite has been doing thought for the day all week. I have a prejudice against this man.... I recognise the terrible fact about his long spell in captivity as a hostage but I also remember the controversy that swirled about him at the time about his connections to some very dodgy characters. Remember Oliver North? I could never trust Mr Waite.....

[PanBiker]

Picked up from Facebook land last night. Apparently our local branch of the Yorkshire Bank is to close in May along with a raft of others.

Full List

[Tizer]

Have you got any other bank or building society in Barlick? If not, you've been left in the lurch like Glastonbury was and need to follow their solution - contact the Nationwide and ask them to set up a branch. It worked for them.

[PanBiker]

Barclays and LLoyds TSB although the latter was once mooted for closure I think. We also had a Martins branch which morphed into or was assimilated into Barclays and a Midland branch which became HSBC then closed and is now a bookies.

We also have Skipton BS branch and I believe a couple of other BS's that operate from within local solicitors offices

Colne branch of Yorkshire has already closed so the next nearest Yorkshire branches will be Nelson and Skipton.

We use both the Yorkshire and Skipton BS. I have held accounts with Yorkshire since around 1957 or so (Yorkshire Penny Bank through school). Dad used to give me 6d or a bob a week if he was flush to take to school to put in my Red bank book. When you had saved up to £1 it was transferred to your hard backed Blue bank book. Usually drawn out for spending money at the holidays.

I still have my home savings bank, it's round and was manufactured by the Ohio Safe Company in 1932, I think I got it in about 1960, it currently has about 2/10d in. One went on Ebay last year for about £45 so I'm hanging on to it. The bank wrote the account off years ago.

[Stanley]

The thing that strikes me is how it affects non-mobile people like me. I am with HSBC and the nearest branch is Burnley. I do all my banking by snail mail now. Not much of it and I use Cash-Back on my debit card at the Co-op to get cash. That's my lifeline.... Customers don't matter now, only the bottom line on the balance sheet!
Dealing with the changes to my system! Not many but annoying until you get used to them. I have yet to tame the new version of GIMP!

[Stanley]

News coming in of a man deliberately driving a car into people in a shopping mall in Melbourne.....

[David Whipp]

Though the rescue plan for Earby Youth Hostel has worked, with the town council in Earby agreeing to accept a 'free' transfer of the building, and several people interested in operating the property, the YHA has acted disgracefully by, in Bob Abel's words, plundering the property of the Katherine Bruce-Glasier artefacts. Am engaged on demanding them back!

Anyone wanting to sign the petition to 'Keep Our Bank', can do so HERE.

[Bruff]

My first bank account was with the Yorkshire Bank in Barlick (manager: Mr Deddicoat). I think I was the only person at Leicester University who held a Yorkshire Bank account, and I used to toddle to the one branch in that city, on Belvoir Street. I also recall schlepping across London one time I was down there to their branch on Cheapside.

Things turned a bit sour when I pitched up in Sheffield and where naturally, there were plenty of branches including one at the end of the road where I had my digs – essentially I got into what we might call ‘cash flow problems’ and well to cut a long story short I took my business elsewhere. The branch in Sheffield at the end of the road is now closed and is a restaurant with interestingly, some years back, a chef from Barlick.

Richard Broughton

[David Whipp]

Thanks Richard.

My campaign to keep our bank has attracted a petition signature from Canada and I've had a message from the person involved to say they moved to Canada 40 years ago, but still have an account at YB Barnoldswick and visit the branch from time to time.

Wonderful of keeping that connection for so long!

[Tizer]

At least you've still got banks in Barlick then, Ian. They're dropping like flies here with places like Glastonbury being left without any bank branches. HSBC has announced another one of its many closures this morning.

[Pluggy]

To be fair Tiz, Barlick dwarfs Glastonbury in size. For numerous reasons, the whole world has heard of Glastonbury, there are people 10 miles from here who have never heard of Barnoldswick. But in terms of size, Glastonbury is little bigger than Earby. I don't think it has any open banks now either.

Barlick Still has Barclay's and LLoyds TSB as well as the ubiquitous Skipton Buidling Society (not much good for Banking, its a traditional building society, unlike the Nationwide which is a Bank in all but name).

You know what the answer is, shut down your internet banking, deal with cash and cheques and go into your bank branch regularly and convince several hundred other people to do the same. I I were running a Bank, I wouldn't think much of keeping expensive town centre properties open and paying staff to do their nails much of the time either.

[Tizer]

Advice to a young lepidopterist who contemplated getting married. From PBM Allan, `Moths and Memories', 1948. This page was shown in the magazine of Butterfly Conservation, latest issue 105.

[Big Kev]

Very pleased to find this in my messages today

[Wendyf]

Well done Kev!

[PanBiker]

[Big Kev]

Well done Kev!

Thank you Wendy.

[LizG]

A dreadful incident in Melbourne CBD yesterday where a maniac drove his car down the footpath deliberately targeting pedestrians. 4 people dead and more than 20 badly injured. The driver was shot, though not fatally, by police. All this after he stabbed his brother and kidnapped his brothers girlfriend.

Police were very quick to state it was not a terrorist attack, but the result was just as bad.

[Cathy]

Yes it's terrible Liz and watching it almost makes you feel like you are in shock
Hard to take in.

[Marilyn]

I hope they denied him any pain relief when they took his bullet out! ( no anaesthetic for you, you mongrel)

[Stanley]

Don't be too quick to rush to judgement. Events like this are terrible but we have had quite a few in the UK which were caused because the perpetrator had been let down by the mental health services. All right, they shouldn't have done it but we need to know the cause. This isn't criticism, just an observation.
The fact that when you make fundamental changes to your IT systems there are almost always side issues that take patience to resolve..... Mind you I'll admit, I don't enjoy being patient!
Kev, that doesn't surprise me, your standards are so high. Well deserved I reckon.....

[Marilyn]

OMG! He is out on bail.
Try explaining THAT to the parents of a little baby who needed surgery, the dead and injured.
I find it unbelievable!

[Stanley]

But does that mean he is free and roaming or is he in hospital?

[LizG]

I just saw that too! And they are saying more could die too. Many calls for the Premier to either step up or resign. It's an absolute disgrace.

Stanley, he was out on bail before he did this. He's in hospital now under police guard recovering from gunshot wounds.

[Tizer]

I know it's not in the horror category like your Australian man but we've just had this example of something ridiculous being allowed to go on and on...
`Man evicted from hospital for blocking bed for two years' LINK
"A hospital applied for a court order to remove a patient who had occupied a bed "unnecessarily" for more than two years. The man, who has not been named by the hospital, had refused to leave the James Paget University Hospital in Norfolk. The hospital said he had been "fit for discharge" and had been offered appropriate accommodation. It said the decision to go to court was a last resort and "not taken lightly". The man, from Suffolk, had been at the hospital in Gorleston, near Great Yarmouth, since August 2014."