WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Tripps]

Fascinating. There are amongst us those who think there are many versions of the 'truth'. Getting a bit philosophical now - but there surely can only be one.

There are people who don't like the real thing and try to persuade you otherwise. I refer you to Prince Harry - who thinks his memory of events is as valid as anyone else's version. Also the recent 'interview' with Michael Schumacher which has now been revealed as AI generated. The guy that did it has been fired.

Nothing from such a source can be relied upon. I see you say you can dig deeper, but when do you stop? The AI gives the response that its programmer instructs it to. That Bing thing is still lurking on my Skype. Perhaps I'll ask it if I can rely on its answers to be truthful.

I've transferred my affections to a similar thing called Viber. That's a bit scary too. All it asked for was my name and mobile number. I got two welcoming emails within minutes. Presumably it searched my contacts and told everyone who was also on the Viber list of my arrival.

A 'cost benefit anaylsis' will be applied - I hold the power to delete it.

PS Actually you can't delete Skype unless you delete the whole Google circus - so I'll just ignore it.

[PanBiker]

PS Actually you can't delete Skype unless you delete the whole Google circus - so I'll just ignore it.

Skype was developed and is owned and operated by Microsoft. Nothing to do with Google and its why it now has Bing embedded in with it. As an application it is now at end of life and has now been replaced by Microsoft Teams due mainly to unreliability issues. Zoom has taken a large share of the conferencing market. You can also video chat on Whatsapp.

Why cant you delete it?

[Tripps]

Sorry - yes you're right Ian. I confused Google with Microsoft.

Thanks.


My notes say
"Can't delete Skype - to do so - need to delete all of Microsoft - including Windows - and there is a 60 day delay".

[Stanley]

The alarm w2qas very well mannered.....

[Wendyf]

Anyone received the alert? Nothing here....

[Tizer]

We both had our Moto phones switched on and not in aeroplane mode. Mrs Tiz got the alert, both noise and message although the noise was not very loud. I got nothing! Judging from BBC journalists' initial reports many other people didn't get the alert.

I also saw this on the BBC News site...
`Conspiracy theories spread over emergency alert test'
(Alistair Coleman, BBC Monitoring disinformation specialist)
The UK-wide emergency alert test has provoked a number of untrue conspiracy theories, shared thousands of times on social media. Many of these involve the fact it’s being sent via 4G and 5G phone masts, considered damaging or invasive within conspiracy circles. There are claims that the test today will cause death or injury to millions of people. One tells people to avoid the test by heading out of towns and cities to “avoid the wave”. Other theories claim it’s a government attempt to control your phone. There are also claims that the alert is a signal to activate a dangerous pathogen already present in the Covid vaccine, making people sick. None of these are true, and ignore the fact that these tests take place regularly around the world with no ill effects.

[PanBiker]

We both had our Moto phones switched on and not in aeroplane mode. Mrs Tiz got the alert, both noise and message although the noise was not very loud. I got nothing! Judging from BBC journalists' initial reports many other people didn't get the alert.

Have you checked that you have Emergency Alerts enabled in your settings Peter? I think it is normally on by default but it's worth a check. There is no reason other than differing settings for two identical models on the same network and in the same location to differ in the outcome.

[Stanley]

The fact that clean sheets, after a duvet cover change yesterday, are good for you. I slept 7 hours straight, not a usual pattern, I usually have at least one pee break.... I am a happy man.

[Tizer]

Have you checked that you have Emergency Alerts enabled in your settings Peter? I think it is normally on by default but it's worth a check. There is no reason other than differing settings for two identical models on the same network and in the same location to differ in the outcome.

Thanks for that Ian. Everything in the settings for Emergency Alerts is set to On. My provider is 1pMobile and that's piggy-backed on EE, not Three. So I should have received the alert.

[Tripps]

It's Gus Brennan's birthday today. No stranger to a party.

Look who's on the front page. . . .

Gus Brennan on Flickr

[Stanley]

Thanks for the link David. That passed ten minutes very nicely. If I'd carried on into his other pages I would have been rooted here for 90 hours at that rate. A lot of pics. Happy birthday Gus!

[Cathy]

It’s ANZAC DAY today. Lest We Forget
.

B437EBEA-0BB7-42DC-94FC-14FD7BF825C2.png

[Stanley]

Thanks Cathy, I had forgotten.

[Tripps]

I just saw Prince William laying a wreath in Whitehall for the occasion. Well done that man. Someone remembered.

This video makes me weep - every time - and I'm not ashamed of it.

Least we forgot - and I did today. . . . .


I assumed it was by Banjo Paterson - but no it's by Eric Bogle, and is (relatively ) modern. The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

[Stanley]

Thanks for that David, a long time since I last listened to it. If you look up 'An Australian Life' in the site index, have a look at father's (fictitious) account of Gallipoli which I found after a lot of research to be accurate even though he lied when he said he was there.

On a totally separate matter..... I noticed this in the front garden which was part of the wild meadow mix I put in last year.



I don't know what the posh name is but it's what we used to call Felon Grass. You can't miss it because the leaves have those saw tooth edges that can cut your fingers. I have a story about it.

There were times when we had something on our hands that was too serious for us and the vet was called. I remember one cow in particular which developed a bad case of felon while we had it, ‘Felon’ was the common name for mastitis. This particular beast must have had it bad when we bought it but it hadn’t showed up in the udder. This could happen if a hard quarter was treated with antibiotics and ‘cured’ when in fact the condition had been left too long and the infection had got into the cow’s system. This was the problem in this case and it soon showed up in a general loss of condition, going off food and swellings in the joints of the legs. We got the vet in but he wasn’t very hopeful about the beast, he gave it a ‘shotgun’ injection of several antibiotics mixed together and left it to see what happened. There was no improvement and it became obvious to us that this one was a likely candidate for ‘Jerusalem’ which was the knackers yard we sent casualties to near Bradford.
While we were coming to this conclusion we had a visit one Wednesday from one of our oldest customers, Wilf Bargh who farmed Backridge at Waddington. Richard eventually bought this farm off him and lives there now in 1999. Wilf had come to buy a couple of beasts but noticed this beast and commented that it looked in a poor way. John and I agreed and told him the story. He had a look at the cow and said that he thought there was a chance of curing it. He asked if there was any ‘felon grass’ on the farm. I told him that if he told me what it was I’d find some as neither I nor John Henry had ever heard of it. He described it as flaggy grass that grew in wet places and had a saw tooth edge to the leaf which could cut your hand if you tried to pull it up and your hand slipped. I knew where there was some in a boggy patch in Harry’s Field so I went off to get some. When I got back he told me to use my knife to cut a hole through the loose fold of flesh on the cow’s chest or brisket. I pulled the skin out and cut the slit right through it. Then Wilf told me to thread the twitch of felon grass through the slit and leave it hanging there. He told John to dislodge it every day to keep the wound open and wait and see what developed.
I didn’t see the beast again until a week later when John and I were doing our usual Wednesday task of getting cattle ready for the market on Thursday at Gisburn. I asked John how it was going on and he showed me what was happening, the wound was still open and it was leaking pus on to the floor. John said he’d never seen as much muck come out of a wound but he thought the beast was mending a bit and it was certainly eating better. Wilf came again that day and he told John that as soon as the pus stopped flowing he should replace the grass with a bunch of cotton thread soaked in disinfectant and keep the wound open with this until he thought it was clean. Then he could take the threads out and let the wound heal up. I called in at one of the local mills and got some thrums, the weavers name for a bunch of cotton threads used to repair broken ends.
John did all this and by the following week the wound was healing and while the cow wasn’t 100%, it was a lot better and definitely on the mend. We farmed it out to Hargy Howarth at Blackburn for him to care for it while it convalesced. John Henry said the vet had been in on another job and when he saw the cow assumed that his injection had cured it. John told him what had actually happened and the vet was very interested because he had heard of this treatment before but had never seen it done. He reckoned that what we did when we made the wound and kept it open was create a ‘focus of infection’ like a boil. The cows natural defences had seen this as a way to get the infection out of the system and it had all gathered in the wound and come out as pus. I’m not qualified to comment one way or another on the theory but what I do know is that the cow was dying and three weeks later it was well on the way to recovery.

[Tizer]

Felon grass...I've never heard of that name before but from your description of sawtoothed leaves and growing in a wet place I'd say it's Tufted Hairgrass (Deschampsia caespitosa). It's a common perennial grass and forms very obvious tufts. The leaves are ribbed longitudinally, very fibrous, and can easily cut skin. The ribs have tiny spikes all pointing in one direction which is why you can pull it through your fingers one way but tear your skin pulling the other way. Some close up photos of the leaves are shown on this web site: LINK (The species name was originally caespitosa but I see that we've gone American now and dumbed it down to cespitosa!)

Mrs Tiz has just reminded me - we have always known it as Toblerone grass! If you take a piece of the grass leaf and cut it across with a very sharp blade then view the cut edge end on it has the shape of a Toblerone bar. Back in the 1980s I was working on the science of cereal crops and had to get to know them and other grasses well. Eventually I got addicted to learning to identify British wild grasses, most of the 200 that are native to these isles. Mrs Tiz was always interested in plants (her mum was a botanist!) and we'd travel long distances to see rare wild flowers, including my grasses. My `bible' was a Pelican/Penguin book titled `Grasses' written by Charles E. Hubbard who had been the `boss' of grasses at Kew Gardens for most of his life and was probably the best known grasses man worldwide. After he died his own books on grasses were bought by an ex-Kew man who sold plant books from his home near Kew. We visited him and I had the good fortune to buy most of Hubbard's main grass books, some of those having been published in the 1800s and with hand-painted illustrations. Most people take little interest in grasses other than tending to their lawn but when you get to know them botanically they become much more interesting!

[PanBiker]

We have a "frost free" larder fridge that decided to give up the ghost a few months ago after 8 years. It is permanently working overtime and has 3" of ice clinging to the back, it's more like freezer. We have put up with it for a while and after checking that despite it's 10 year parts cover the cost of fixing it rendered it beyond economical repair. We went round the corner and ordered a new one. Arranged a slot for delivery this morning. Just been notified that our morning slot will now be 3pm to 5pm!

[Wendyf]

We have a "frost free" larder fridge that decided to give up the ghost a few months ago after 8 years. It is permanently working overtime and has 3" of ice clinging to the back, it's more like freezer. We have put up with it for a while and after checking that despite it's 10 year parts cover the cost of fixing it rendered it beyond economical repair. We went round the corner and ordered a new one. Arranged a slot for delivery this morning. Just been notified that our morning slot will now be 3pm to 5pm!

Which means no visitors for us this afternoon....and I've washed the kitchen floor and dusted the chairs!
Meeting Sally at the Esse cafe for a cuppa instead.

[Gloria]

Been to Boundary Mill, now that is a lot easier to navigate than it used to be.

[PanBiker]

Our new larder fridge came at 3.30 this afternoon. Only an unwrapping job and drop off, they don't install any more! As usual with these appliances the door was hinged on the right and our installation needs it hinged on the left and opening from the right. A job that used to take me 15 minutes now took the best part of an hour!. Anyway it's in, powered up and levelled and a damn site quieter than the one they took away.

We had to pay of course for disposal as fridges and freezers are the nastiest to recycle. All the packaging, mainly polystyrene was left as well, that's another item that they have to pay to get rid of. It goes in our domestic bins already paid for in the community charge.

[Stanley]

Interesting piece about grasses Peter.... I think I'll stick to Felon Grass!

[Tizer]

I'm glad I'm not in Spain at the moment!....
`Climate change: Spain breaks record temperature for April' LINK
`Spain recorded its hottest ever temperature for April on Thursday, hitting 38.8C according to the country's meteorological service. The record figure was reached in Cordoba airport in southern Spain just after 15:00 local time (14:00 BST). For days a blistering heatwave has hit the country with temperatures 10-15C warmer than expected for April. It's been driven by a mass of very hot air from Africa, coupled with a slow moving weather system. "This is not normal. Temperatures are completely out of control this year," Cayetano Torres, a spokesman for Spain's meteorological office, told BBC News.'...

[PanBiker]

Sally reporting yesterday that she had fallen on the way home after meeting Wendy for a brew and a cake at Esse. Apparently she misjudged the height of the curb by the telephone exchange and took a tumble. Nice that two young lads came over to help her up along with a neighbour of ours Barry who walked home with her. Thankfully nothing busted, just a bit sore.

[Big Kev]

Sally reporting yesterday that she had fallen on the way home after meeting Wendy for a brew and a cake at Esse. Apparently she misjudged the height of the curb by the telephone exchange and took a tumble. Nice that two young lads came over to help her up along with a neighbour of ours Barry who walked home with her. Thankfully nothing busted, just a bit sore.

I saw Sally had mentioned that on Facebook, glad there's nowt broke.

[Stanley]

Falls are sneaky little buggers. Glad Sally seems to have got away with it. She has enough sense to take it easy for a day or two....