WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Tizer]

Trump and TikTok. He's allowing time for a US business to take over TikTok. No wonder Musk (Mr TwitterX) is cuddling up to him and the owners of the other big social media companies fell over themselves to have dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in recent weeks.

[Stanley]

And they were among the privileged invitees to the Capitol Shindig......

[PanBiker]

Notification this morning that our passport applications have been approved and are being printed. So our self taken photo's must be OK. They received our old returned ones yesterday. Not bad, we only applied last Friday, we didn't choose fast tracking or anything like that.

[Big Kev]

That's good to hear, a much better outcome than the horror stories in the red tops

[PanBiker]

Once in possession we just have to decide where to go now and when.

[Big Kev]

Decisions, decisions.

We're considering another cruise to the Norwegian fjords. Haven't been since 2015, just investigating the cruise lines that sail from Newcastle or Liverpool. We do like P&O but they only sail from Southampton currently, not keen on fly cruises.

[Stanley]

What news on the car front Kev? Have I missed the dénouement?

[Big Kev]

What news on the car front Kev? Have I missed the dénouement?

It's awaiting the appointment with the auto electrician, the earliest I could get it booked in was January 30th.

[Stanley]

Does that mean until then you can't use your car?

[Big Kev]

Does that mean until then you can't use your car?

It does. It currently runs OK but as soon as the soot level, in the DPF, reaches the point where the ECU triggers a regeneration it'll read the spurious data and shut the engine down. I'm not risking going anywhere until it's fixed.
I've had a trawl through a few on line forums and the issue is pointing even more to a broken wire, or a short, between a sensor and the ECU. Potentially not an expensive fix.

[Stanley]

But expensive in terms of lost vehicle hours Kev. I thimk Ford are letting you know where you come in the hierarchy..... It's a disgrace.

[Big Kev]

It has been a nuisance, fortunately I work from home so it's not needed for commuting. I have made trips to Aldi, in Colne, on the bus and today I am going for a 'big shop' with my neighbour.

[Big Kev]

The A59 at Kex Gill (Blubberhouses) reopened this afternoon, hurrah!

A landslip yesterday has completely closed the A59 at Kex Gill again. Additional roadworks, on the previous diversion route, aren't helping things either. North Yorkshire Council reckon it could be several weeks before it's open again.

Screenshot_2025-01-23-16-06-32-102_com.facebook.katana~2.jpg

[Stanley]

Glad to hear you are not too badly affected by the lack of the car Kev.
What grabbed me yesterday was my energy bill. For the first time a month's dual fuel usage was over £200.

[PanBiker]

My new passport was delivered this morning. This one is Black and has lost the EU logo etc. First internal page is a full plastic job with all the info on and the E-Gate chip. I submitted our applications online after taking our own photos last Friday so 7 days from start to finish which is excellent. I have had four emails and text messages updating progress at every stage of the process. Tracked but not signed for which I thought was the norm with out our previous issues. The envelope is marked "Do Not Safe Place and Do Not Deliver to Neighbour". No problem, OK now until 2035.

I sent both applications in at the same time. Sally's has not been delivered yet.

[PanBiker]

Sally's has just been delivered. Postman been twice today, unheard of lately.

[Big Kev]

Not a bad service at all, the passport office and the postman.

[Stanley]

Nice to hear of something that works!

[Tizer]

A reminder that computers, though more powerful, are much cheaper now than 30 years ago. We've been clearing out old documents and I found this invoice for our first `proper' PC, bought from DAN Technology, London, in late 1994 to start our home publishing business. It was an excellent machine and as we got the business going we bought more. It was a shame when DAN eventually shut down.....

[Stanley]

420mb of hard disk space in 1994 was amazing Peter!
I can still remember upgrading my Amstrad to 512kb memory. I wish I'd kept that old card......
What has got my attention today is news that an old employer of mine is failing. His mind is fine but his body has given up.

[Tizer]

I can still remember upgrading my Amstrad to 512kb memory.

My first computer was an Amstrad at home but at work I was using PCs on my employers network in DOS and then in Windows. After I'd got used to Windows I then started my own business with the DAN PC described above.

[Stanley]

Things have advanced a bit since then Peter!

See THIS report about Preston Hospital.....
A "significant" amount of money is needed to maintain an ageing Lancashire hospital after plans to replace it were delayed by up to a decade, an NHS trust has said. Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said the Royal Preston Hospital in Fulwood had a £157m maintenance work backlog that dated back to 2021. Plans to build a new hospital for central Lancashire have been postponed until at least 2037, the government said. The sum required to maintain the Royal Preston was highlighted by health bosses when they made the case for funding the construction of a replacement hospital.
Think of the number of times you have heard the phrase 'Safe in our hands'. This is not the only case. We elected them and paid them and they betrayed us.
Yes. I'm angry.

[Tizer]

I wonder if Trump, Musk et al. have ever hear the phrase `Events, dear boy, event'!...
`US tech stocks drop as Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek sparks market turmoil' BBC

[Stanley]

Peter, I think there's a lot Trump et al haven't heard of! I heard that report. I also listened to Colombia being forced to climb down. Trump might be emulating Teddy Roosevelt and carrying a big stick.
See THIS for a later article on DeepSeek.....
DeepSeek, a Chinese AI-chatbot app which launched last week, has sparked chaos in the US markets and raised questions about the future of America's AI dominance. The BBC takes a look at how the app works. DeepSeek looks and feels like any other chatbot, though it leans towards being overly chatty. Just as with OpenAI's ChatGPT or Google's Gemini, you open the app (or website) and ask it questions about anything, and it does its best to give you a response. It gives long answers and will not be drawn on expressing an opinion, however directly it is asked for one.
My first thought is what a brilliant name the Chinese took!

[Stanley]

Some of you may remember that a few weeks ago my Russell Hobbs electric kettle died on me. I bought what is their replacement for it, they call it a 'jug' now. It looks smaller but holds the same amount of water and wonder of wonder, it doesn't splash out of the spout when it boils and it is a perfect pourer, doesn't spill a drop. We often complain about modern design but in this case they did good!
Another thing that got my attention was the fact that my braces had completely lost their elasticity on one side. I wonder how long they've been like that and I haven't noticed. I threw them out and replaced them with another pair. What an improvement!
Small things but they make a difference.