WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Stanley]

I saw the news item on the floods in Clovelly last night. We are so lucky in Barlick, living on the watershed means we don't have to deal with flood water from a large catchment area. Much to be said for living in the hills!

[Stanley]

News this morning of the house where the occupants were driven to distraction by an intermittent beeping noise. It got to the stage where builders were knocking holes in walls before the expiring smoke detector with a failing battery was found in a drawer. I had that one but luckily realised what was causing it.

[Nolic]

Neighbours and me had a similar problem s few years ago. One of weavers cottages was being renovated and someone had thrown smoke alarm in the skip. It had ended up inside a biscuit tin so that bleeps were amplified and distorted. Took about an hour for three of us to track the nuisance and cure it. Nolic

[EileenDavid]

Blue skies and sunshine always a nice start to the morning. About the smoke alarms I once thought I had a mouse as they squeak when the battery was low. The batteries are so expensive so what a waste with the skip. We also have one for gas at home and at the mobile home. The battery on the one at home has lasted ages, but the one at our mobile has had 2 in 6 months any idea's. Eileen

[Tizer]

Floods...the neighbour with the broken main sewer pipe has had his garden trashed. The water company have removed 40 tons of contaminated soil already and are still working on it. This happened once before, some years ago, and sewage welled up in the garden like one of those Icelandic geysers - we are on low-lying land and there's a pumping station to pump the sewage uphill, and there's a high pressure behind all that brown stuff. Glad it's not my garden (but then he must have known about the sewer when he bought the house).

[Stanley]

Must be a bad detector. Bin it!
I have news from the foothills: El Condor ha llegado! Our three months fight with the management and the bum algorithm in the new stock-control programme has been successful. Mind you.... Time will tell!

[Stanley]

Tiz, your post crossed mine... When I lived at Addingham we had a similar problem with a sewage pump sending crap up from a new development at High Mill down on the river. The problem was that when idle, the pipe contents were draining back to the tank and so when it fired up to empty it the gas in the pipe was forced back into adjoining sewers and as we were near the manhole we got the lot. It took a long time to persuade the authorities there was indeed a problem. They put a new and very expensive manhole cover on and ignored me when I told them it wouldn't cure the problem. Ah well.... we got there in the end.

[Tardis]

I have to get off 666 messages

[Stanley]

The 28 mile parachute drop was successful. Wonderful achievement but totally mad!
The young lady shot in the body and head because of her activity in advocating schooling for girls in Pakistan is en route by air ambulance to UK for treatment. Good, I wish her well and well done whoever initiated and financed the action.

[Nolic]

The Royal Marines charged with murder after the killing of a Taliban insurgent. Had it been the other way round the Taliban would be lauded as heroes. What a sad strange land we live in. Nolic

[EileenDavid]

I agree with you Nolic what happened to all's fair in Love and War. Eileen

[Whyperion]

The Pakistani government is reported as financing the treatment (and transport? ) costs. I dont hold out much hope though for the longer term outcome of the girl's progress no matter how good the medical care and attention.

[Stanley]

The fire in Harlow. Nasty crime and nastier developments hinted at.
A friend cut Eric Hobsbawm's obit out of the Guardian and sent it by snail mail. Refreshing to have dinosaurs looking after me!
The revolving door in action. See this link for resignation of the president of the British Legion, still protesting but caught bang to rights. (LINK) This is the tip of a very large iceberg and it's about time it was sorted out. These people are being protected by a rotten administration.

[Tizer]

The Royal Marines charged with murder after the killing of a Taliban insurgent. Had it been the other way round the Taliban would be lauded as heroes. What a sad strange land we live in. Nolic

I don't know any of the details of this incident but could it be that the insurgent was so badly wounded and dying in agony that they helped him by putting him out of his agony? I don't know what the Muslim attitude would be to ending someone's life for their own sake.

[Stanley]

Police in Harlow say they have ruled out racial crime. Sounds as though they have a good idea who did it....
News item about woman who heard tapping on front door and when she opened it it was a 12" high parrot. Somehow they found the owner and it got back home!
Nice piece this morning on Today about the history of Vegemite. Invention was triggered by the fact that U Boat campaign stopped importation of Marmite to OZ and in the 1920s a substitute was invented.

[Tardis]

How nice the people in The Fountain are.

I booked two rooms for my visitors, reserved a table to eat and we can take in all the dogs too. No deposit requested,

Hopefully I can heartily recommend them after the event

[Stanley]

Media have dropped the case of the missing child April but I can't help thinking about her and her family.
A firm in Stockton on Tees have made a small plant from standard components that makes gasoline from air. (LINK)

[Stanley]

Report in the BET that the boundary changes for Pendle constituency have been dropped. Good, it was a bonkers idea and I argued against it from the start by participating in the consultation process.

[Tardis]

Report in the BET that the boundary changes for Pendle constituency have been dropped. Good, it was a bonkers idea and I argued against it from the start by participating in the consultation process.

Hasn't been dropped. Pendle will take 2 wards from Burnley and Burnley becomes 2 seats

[Whyperion]

George Osborne , current chancellor of exchequer , and an aide , travelling on the 1705 Virgin West Coast train in First Class are requested to pay upgrade charge as they only have standard class tickets ( isnt that one of the money saving ideas of the post expenses scandals events ? ). Aide refuses to pay up , saying a man of the chancellors position should not be expected to rub shoulders with the (plebs?) second class travellers. Additional the tickets were booked for an earlier train , which they had missed due to overrunning meetings. At least they now know the pain ordinary travellers feel with the conservative inspired franchising of the railways and their pricing policies. The aide did pay up ( I suppose he should have said you've just got £40m out of us , don't we get a discount ? ) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20008342

(Former) Chief Whip , Andrew Mitchell has gone http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19922026

[Stanley]

Read my post again and stop nit-picking, I was talking about Pendle. The effect of the decision is that we stay the same with a small addition.

[David Whipp]

The commission's proposals won't be implemented before the next General Election ('cos the linked deal over Lords reform broke down).

We'll have to wait and see if an incoming government proceeds with such changes.

IMV, the revised proposals are better than the original ones (which would have seen Barlick and Earby stuffed in with a constituency reaching to as far as south of the Ribble at Preston.

[David Whipp]

Anyhow, what attracted my attention was view when I opened our front room blinds of the the magnificent rainbow arching over the sunlit autumnal tinted trees (beech, maple and birch) beyond the bottom of our garden.

[Tizer]

My dad grabbed my attention...he said he's realised maybe his intake of alcohol is too high. So he's now putting more ginger ale in his whisky! That's the sort of logic that has got him to 94 years old.

[Wendyf]

Nice one Tiz. I've been over to Leeds today and the trees are absolutely beautiful, making the journey a pleasure. I also saw a red kite over the A63 south west of Leeds....only ever seen them to the north before. I was close to Temple Newsam, so I suppose they must have moved into the parkland there.