Seen in the News

[Marilyn]

He had a nasty habit of shooting his victims in the spine, so that they could not move. They could see and hear and feel everything he did to them and their travelling companions, but they were effectively paralysed. Beyond evil.

[Stanley]

[Cathy]

Saw the headline, didn’t / wouldn’t/ couldn’t read the report. Thank God he’s gone, is there a Hell? - for him and those like him, I hope so!

[Stanley]

"Is there a hell?"
If not there should be Cathy.

[plaques]

A friend of Mrs P's sister who lives in Sidney was the foreman juror at his trial. The case affected him so much it took him years to recover from it. Even today he is well underweight to what he was before the trial. Terrible case all round.

[Tizer]

I expect someone like Milat would enjoy Hell. Too good for him.

[Stanley]

"A friend of Mrs P's sister who lives in Sidney was the foreman juror at his trial."
Isn't amazing how connections like that pop up even though the venue is half a world away!

[Tripps]

This chap is in a bit of a pickle. 290ft up a chimney

Good luck to him. I hope they rescue him.

[Tripps]

No wonder conspiracy theories develop soon after any incident.
This is from Daily Mail version of events, - laid out like a superman comic -

Back in the White House, having been informed of the explosion, they held their breath. Back in the tunnel, the US team dug through the rubble.
Not much of Baghdadi was left – but enough for a DNA test using a small field kit.
Within 15 minutes, news crackled through to the Situation Room on the radio: '100 per cent confidence Jackpot. Over.' Jackpot is thought to be the codename the US gave to Baghdadi, the same name they had given to Osama Bin Laden during a similar operation in 2011.


I was sceptical of this - in a battle area? in the dark? at 2.00am? - all tested and verified to the white House, in 15 minutes!

*********************
Now I've just seen this on the ITV news later same evening - from a US Army General -

"Remains were transported to a secure facility for DNA testing"

************************

[Stanley]

I share the doubts about Trump's account. One commentator asked how they could see the screen with a photographer stood in front of it to take his snap in the situation room. Same mistake as Dubya's 'Mission Accomplished' election broadcast. It will come back to bite him.
Dixon's chimney. A Competent firm of steeplejacks could ladder that chimney in under eight hours. (I've seen Ellenroad (240 ft) laddered in about three hours by two of Brooke Edgeley's jacks using Yorkshire style laddering.) Did nobody realise this? Pity they hadn't read Steeplejack's Corner!
A story for you. I asked a man who owned a mill that stood directly next to a canal why he was asking for tenders to scaffold the whole of the face to repair the guttering. The cost was about £8,000. He said it was the only way of doing the job. I pointed out that a competent jack could do the job by Bosun's chair at a fraction of the cost. He did that, saved himself about £6,000 and never even said thank you.



Here I am on Ellenroad chimney using the Brooke Edgeley Yorkshire laddering.

[Marilyn]

That reminds me of a dream I had last night. I won't bore you with it but I was extremely high up on a ladder, clinging for dear life and so paralysed with fear, I could not go up or down. I kept telling myself I was fine and must do one or the other and not to look down under any circumstances, but instead to imagine I was only 2 feet off the ground.
Suffice to say you would not catch me up there, though once I did climb a precarious ladder that went in a circular way up the outside of a corn mill. The scarey bit was coming down. It's then one realised just how rickety the ladder was and there seemed to be bits almost rusted through.
Resting my back as much as possible today, due to post gardening suffering.

[Stanley]

I'm not good with heights Maz. The thing about climbing chimneys was that it was part of my job and so I had to do it. My mate Peter, the jack, told me that when you stop being afraid of falling it's the time to stop! It's the fear that keeps you safe. How can any sensible person ignore the fact that a fall from 240ft is a serious matter! As a matter of interest, Peter told me the only death he had ever seen on a stack was a man who fell off the first ladder, he was only about ten feet up. Any fall is serious so you take care to avoid them, even on the ground.

[Stanley]

Have a look at THIS BBC report on the use of social media apps in what amounts to a slave trade in the Middle East. It is a disgrace and well done the investigative reporters who ferreted it out!

[Stanley]

Mothercare has decided it's shops aren't viable. (LINK) Another famous High Street brand bites the dust.

[Cathy]

Oh that is sad, when my baby was born 32 years ago I had bought her about 30 MotherCare pieces of clothing and bits and pieces. I’d been secretly collecting for years.... as you do .

[Marilyn]

Mothercare was fantastic... I had some lovely bits (mostly body suits) for my son...eeeee...and he is over 40 now. Such lovely quality.
( I had not been collecting, they were a gift from a friend)

[Stanley]

Yes it's sad but the verdict is that they didn't keep up with modern online sales techniques. There is apparently an international brand that isn't affected.

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report on the intriguing theory that Ferrari's lack of performance at the Texas GP was due to Red Bull asking a pointed question of the FIA about a ruling on whether using a cunning wheeze to manipulate fuel flow rates was legal or not. The FIA ruled that it would be illegal and strangely enough, for the first time in six races Ferrari suddenly lost their speed advantage. Note that they deny this but the coincidence has been noted as has the variety of 'explanations' offered by the team.
Of limited interest I know but a glimpse inside the normally closed world of F1 regulation and its effects on performance.

[Tizer]

They probably thought if VW can con the regulators for a decade then so can we.

[Stanley]

Could be Tiz. They only lasted 6 races and the world of F1 is watching with interest to see whether the performance returns, it looks as though they were caught red-handed and ceased doing it to avoid an official enquiry and fine.

[plaques]

Nick Boles ex-Tory minister calling Corbyn a pharisee. Boles A strange choice of words, weren't the pharisees a Jewish sect? Just when a large chunk of the Jewish community is saying Corbyn is an anti Semite, here we have Nick Boles saying he is acting like a Jew. Confusing isn't it.

[Whyperion]

Pharasee's - My understanding is that they believed in the immortality of the soul and punishment judgement for sins, that the written law should be obeyed entirely, basically that the word written was more important than concepts like Love and Grace.

[Stanley]

P, is Boles referring to the predilection of the Pharisees to pray ostentatiously and in public?

[Tizer]

This article written by Janice Turner was published in Saturday's copy of The Times. Note that she is a lifelong Labour supporter and therefore it's not written by an angry Tory...
`Feminists have fallen for the strip club myth' LINK

[Stanley]

Ms Turner is right in her selection of a target but I don't see what her politics has to do with it.