WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Marilyn]

I had to buy a 2020 calendar. Too many things to remember written down on bits of paper and I can't feel organised unless it is all set out in grid form. I feel better now, and was pleased to find that nothing clashes.

[Stanley]

My social calendar is empty Maz. Just a chance of Xmas Dinner with Susan.... Oh, and I expect appointments for treatment at Airedale in January but no word yet.

[Cathy]

I’m the same with Calendars. Phone calendars don’t do it for me and the same with diary type calendars that show a week at a time, I need a square for each day and showing a Month at a time.

[Marilyn]

Ahhh.yep...sisters indeed....(we "get" the small things)

[Marilyn]

Actually... We get the "big things" too...

[Stanley]

The fact that my casting supplier sent a prompt and adequate response and apology for keeping me waiting. Such a contrast to the way big suppliers behave.
Did you hear 'You and Yours' on R4 yesterday? A flood of complaints about the way Amazon is pushing Prime and being evasive. They should take a leaf out of Stuarts' book!

[Tizer]

Mrs Tiz has got the local Sainsbury's supermarket to improve it's service. Sometimes, when we want a lot of heavy stuff, we order from them online rather than going to the store. She placed an order which was delivered on Tuesday. It was only when the van had departed that we realised the milk they'd sent had a Use By date of the following day. The milk we already had in the fridge had a Use By date of next Tuesday. She wrote and complained on their web site that they shouldn't be sending out milk whose date `runs out' the following day. They apologised and said they've instructed the packers to only send out milk with the longest Use By date. I get the impression they don't train the staff properly.

[Stanley]

Well done Janet, tell her I say she is a smart cookie! That's something I always check when buying milk. As you say there can be a lot of difference.
In contrast, some use-by dates are rubbish. The Worcester Sauce I am using at the moment (Courtesy of David!) is marked use by 2013. Anyone who knows about Worcester Sauce knows the older it is the better!
Avocados always make me laugh. Anyone who has lived with an Avocado Tree and used the results knows that you don't use them until they start going soft. That is a signal to the Co-op to halve the price and get rid of them!
Thinking about the Stuart response to my query... When Balfour Beatty were refurbishing all the water mains in Barlick a few years ago I had a gripe about the quality of reinstatement in the back street so I rang them. Imagine my surprise when I was put through to the Managing Director! He solved my problem and when I told him that I was amazed to be talking to him he said that it was a bit unusual but as it happened he was the only person there who could deal with my query. But he also said that he insisted that all complaints had to be addressed by senior managers, he wouldn't allow form letters. That plus the fact that their telephone number was easily available was unusual even then. I'll lay a small bet that it doesn't apply today.
(Stuarts have a telephone number, fax number, email and postal address on their correspondence. One of the advantages of dealing with small firms.)

[Marilyn]

In some ways here we have gone back to the 1960's, with every bit of organic matter having to be wrapped in newspaper to go in the green bin, along with grass clippings and pruning waste. They are now doing audits on bins and issuing fines to people who do not comply. I already take a bag of soft plastics to recycle each week, separately...I physically take that to a drop off bin outside our supermarket before we do our shopping. Other recycles go in the fortnightly bin as per schedule. We do not use plastic shopping bags, we provide our own bags at supermarkets. Our household waste bin holds little beyond used tissues or grease laden paper towels or used baking paper. There is always something to run to the green waste bin...from Apple peel/Potato Peel/plate scrapings etc. I do my best, but it does drive me a bit mad, and the thought I could be fined because someone put a banana peel in the wrong bin...gives me the horrors!

image.jpeg

People/companies are polluting our planet and oceans and I can get a fine for having a banana skin in the wrong bin?!!!

[Cathy]

When the bin men empty some of the household bins I often hear bottles tumbling out, they should be in the recycling bin, and watch your Tradies because they often have packaging etc that they put in the wrong bin.

[Marilyn]

My neighbour never uses his green bin at all. He has his lawns mowed by a lawnmower man who takes the clippings away and claims he has nothing else to put in his green bin! Mine is so heavy I can hardly wheel it to the kerb! (Kitchen waste/lawn clippings/plant prunings/weeds/leaves.)
Last week they had a party and as my household waste bin is almost empty these days, he asked it he could put his excess rubbish in our bin. Of course he could. But if we had of been audited last week, the fine would have been his.
( they had another very noisy party last night...I'm a bit dark about it...and will be clanging about making much noise early doors this morning...we have a side gate on that side that has a lovely loud bang if it is open and blows shut in the wind )

[Stanley]

There's a rugby match in Japan. Lewis Hamilton is getting close to his sixth world championship.
I have no neighbour or bin problems.

[Stanley]

I watch quite a lot of Youtube. One of the downsides you have to put up with is the ads that interrupt your viewing. Something I have noted of late is that many of these 'ads' are not commercial but seemingly pointless videos of people, mainly Chinese I think, doing inconsequential things or even simply street scenes.
I came across THIS android app, Tik Tok and I'm beginning to wonder whether this strange phenomenon on Youtube is in some way connected. I can't make any sense of it!
I shall not go into a decline but it attracted my attention!

[PanBiker]

Just won £20.00 in the Sunday draw in the Postcode Lottery.

[Tizer]

I came across THIS android app, Tik Tok and I'm beginning to wonder whether this strange phenomenon on Youtube is in some way connected. I can't make any sense of it!

Probably another way of collecting and selling information...
Wikipedia: `TikTok employs artificial intelligence to analyse users' interests and preferences through their interactions with the content, and display a personalized content feed to each user....In January 2019, an investigation by the American think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics described TikTok as a "Huawei-sized problem" that poses a national security threat to the West, noting the app's popularity with Western users including armed forces personnel, and its ability to convey location, image and biometric data to its Chinese parent company, which is legally unable to refuse to share data to the Chinese government.'

[Tripps]

Just won £20.00 in the Sunday draw in the Postcode Lottery

Pedants corner - On the horses - if you stake £10 and get £20 back you have won £10.

[Stanley]

Tiz, whatever it is the videos trigger my crap detector, it whines every time one comes on the screen.
How few and unobtrusive the fireworks were last night. The wind was favouring us in the case of the display at Victory Park and there were no local ones. Good!
I've been meaning to comment for a day or two on the appointment of Christine Lagarde as head of the European Central Bank. I like her and respect her opinions. A smart cookie!

[Big Kev]

Surveyors and conveyancing solicitors, I'm sure they make up most of it just to make a bit more money.

The third bedroom, in my current house, is in the attic. Looking at the construction of the room it's fairly obvious it was built that way when the house was built, lathe and plaster for the eaves walls, pine floorboards, pine stairs...

Oh no, you can't call it a bedroom as it doesn't conform to current building regulations, I'm not sure what current building regs have to do with 120 year old building construction, it'll have to go back to the buyer's mortgage lender as it may have been over valued. Just found out today, from my buyer, that it doesn't affect the valuation. It had 3 bedrooms when I bought it and I had a mortgage on it as a 3 bedrooms house..

The wood burning stove, where's the HETAS certificate for the installation? It was in the house when I bought it (2011) the HETAS regulations came in 2015 so no, I don't have one... I've already told the surveyor this.

Do I have the building notice and structural engineer's report for the removal of the load bearing wall? Which load bearing wall do you mean?

Do you have the building notice for the kitchen extension? No, I already gave it to my solicitor...

The list went on and was sent back with suitable answers which were all accepted, not sure why they bothered asking most of them. I've spoken to my buyer today, who is chasing his solicitor to speak to my solicitor about a moving date.

Patiently waiting

[Stanley]

Commiserations Kev. As for "I'm sure they make up most of it just to make a bit more money. " I have always thought that was the motivation for lawyers to move so slowly. They tell us it's necessary and charge us for the explanatory letter! Everybody's looking for an angle these days, it didn't used to be like that.
A qualified carer come in to give me a pedicure tomorrow morning, daughters can be such a comfort!
New Great grandson is imminent, any time in the next five weeks. Fingers crossed!
Vettel having a lousy day in Texas and Hamilton having a good one.

[Tizer]

Kev, I guess you haven't moved house for a long time now. What you're experiencing is now normal. All sorts of stuff gets raised and queried and gores back and forth. When we sold our previous house 2 years ago the buyer's surveyor spent almost the whole day in our house and we get a long list of queries. And then there was the other survey - for the energy certification. We'd done all that expensive internal wall and floor insulation with 50mm of Celotex to bring our house up to, or above, the standard of a new one. The energy surveyor was very apologetic but said he had to ignore it. We had photos of the whole process plus all the invoices from the builders, but that made no difference. He couldn't take it into account. The survey is done on a tick box basis and there's no box for what we'd done. We were given a very poor energy rating. Luckily we got a buyer who had the sense to look at the house and the evidence and ignore the rating!

[Big Kev]

My last move was in 2011 when I moved in here. What was interesting was my eldest son has just had a survey, for a remortgage, on the house I used to own. The layout is similar to this one with the exception of another bedroom on the first floor, his survey made no mention of the attic bedroom requirements.

I did renew the EPC certificate (a friend of mine has his own company) and he explained the limitations of the 'tick box'. There's no provision for mixed heating systems, I have underfloor heating on the ground floor and radiators upstairs, they both 'score' the same. The insulation the underfloor heating is installed in is less than 50mm so cannot be included in the overall insulation, the rating did go up from the previous certificate because of the kitchen extension and the new doors and windows.

Solicitors are now talking and I'm looking at November 22nd as a move date, I'm just awaiting confirmation of contract exchanges then I'll inform gas, electric, broadband and such...

[Whyperion]

They apologised and said they've instructed the packers to only send out milk with the longest Use By date. I get the impression they don't train the staff properly.

This is indeed the instruction, however I sometimes find in some stores the use by dates have less choice than other stores - Iceland items seem quite close to the date as can poundland items - is it a function of buying cheap from suppliers, for any day they get supplied last of stock that had not been sold to other retailers or inefficiency in their distribution network ? Also longer dated items can be hidden on the back of the shelf behind other items (unless all the canny shoppers had bought them out - sometimes happens )

[Whyperion]

Luckily we got a buyer who had the sense to look at the house and the evidence and ignore the rating!

Although not applicable now, I wonder if that house is one on the govt database that labour promise to put into an insulation and d/g upgrade programme if they win the next election - changing the paperwork might get them a minor instant win on the numbers needing proper u values from thermal imaging !

[Whyperion]

Oh no, you can't call it a bedroom as it doesn't conform to current building regulations, I'm not sure what current building regs have to do with 120 year old building construction,

What it might relate to is if anyone wants to rent out the property and will require landlord certification, some room sizes will be deemed unsuitable to be counted as a habitable room describable as a bedroom , this may be more of a requirment if it is let as a HMO as there are further regulations there now. Rather depends at the present time of mash up and mix of national regulations and any additional local ones. if there are grandfather rights that apply I am not aware of any- a problem with mums flat, as it is a two bedroom five adult person property - one of the bedrooms (strangely both are give or take the same size can have up to 3 adults of the same sex in them ( the HMO rules say max of 2 and can restrict it to members of the same family), before it is statutorily deemed as 'overoccupied', quite how if one was to let to a member of a religious group that allowed one gender to marry more than one of the opposite member (when are the civil partnerships going to be extended to recognise in law similar arrangements I wonder - probably not as marriages in uk remain only a 1 plus 1 arrangement though I think marriages overseas on other combinations are recognised for some legal things, and not for others ).

[Whyperion]

seemingly pointless videos of people, mainly Chinese I think, doing inconsequential things or even simply street scenes.
maybe its been reading the forgotton corners and flatley drier threads and thinks that is one of your main interests.