WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Tardis]

Sabbiyah, who lives in Barnoldswick:

http://sabbiyah.co.uk/caase-community-a ... loitation/

She does do her campaigning in Bradford, wonder if there is something similar in East Lancs

[Stanley]

I remember VE day well. We ran round the playground at St Thomas' CofE school in Heaton Chapel singing "We won the war!" and then went home after school dinners. People argue whether kids understand these things, I can't speak for today's young but can assure you that we certainly got it.
Death toll in the factory collapse in Dakar reaches 800 and still climbing. The only good thing is that it seems to have triggered off inspections of other factories in this troubled sector, 18 have been closed down in the last few days. However, 7 die in a factory fire in the same area. And some people argue against effective unions...... Remember that we didn't reach the standards of employment we enjoy today because of the kindness of the factory owners!

[Bodger]

Friday, 10th, BBC 4, 20-30 to 24-00 , some great music from some brilliant performers!!

[Tardis]

Waking to discover a text from my son to say he and my daughter will visit

[Tardis]

The many tributes paid today to all those use served on the Atlantic Convoys during the war

Heroes all

[Tardis]

A little altercation in Valley Gardens between the police (pc 3424) and the homeless man:

[PanBiker]

The many tributes paid today to all those use served on the Atlantic Convoys during the war

Heroes all

About time too, pity this wasn't actioned 60 years ago rather than waiting until there are very few of these brave men left. Same goes for the survivors of bomber crews who were swept under the carpet until quite recently also. It's a welcome step but a National disgrace that it has taken so long to recognise the sacrifices made.

[Bruff]

There is a weekend of commemorations and events to remember the Battle of the Atlantic taking place in Wirral and across Mersyside this Spring Bank, finishing on the Tuesday with a procession of ships of all kinds out of the Mersey, which is promised to be quite a spectacular. This has been long in the planning.

Radio hams from all over are descending on Wirral to make linkages across Europe and the Atlantic amounting to the total of those killed during the battle.

Richard Broughton

[Stanley]

When in Liverpool I always went to pay a visit to the Merchant Seaman's Memorial which was on a piece of waste ground close to the Littlewood Building. I doubt if many knew it existed.
Funny, I have just searched for it on the web but none of the ones listed are the ones I knew. It was a steel construction, rather like a Crow's Nest as I remember it. I'm sure I have a pic but can't find it....
Death toll in the Dakar factory collapse is now over 1000 and still rising....

[Tardis]

The Maritime Museum in Liverpool used to be well worth a visit, out on the Albert Dock

There used to be a submarine moored in the mersey too on the opposite bank, but I think that has closed now. That was interesting for a walk around

[Tardis]

A little altercation in Valley Gardens between the police (pc 3424) and the homeless man:

I'm told by the police that the homeless man was taken to open door last night, having been warned that he risked getting an ASBO

[Thomo]

When memories of World Wars are mentioned, it is often the case that only the headline grabbing events come to the fore, the Battle of Britain being a prime example, that this event deserves mention is beyond doubt, and it is well documented as it took place mainly over the South of England. Yet before, during and after that battle, Service personnel were doing their bit far from home, in the skies over Europe, the deserts of North Africa, the Asian sub continent and in the vastness of the oceans. In the latter they were joined not only by Merchant Seamen but by innocent passengers including children. I have spent much time in the North Atlantic and it is frequently grey, cold and forbidding, it is also extremely unforgiving and relentless, even in peacetime. In wartime and often at night it is hard to imagine the misery, fear and hardship that the Sailors endured, seeing all hope fading into the dark short horizon, covered in choking stinking fuel oil is not a good way to die, and many did just that, my ten year old Cousin Gordon was one of them, lost when the SS City of Benares was attacked by U48, that there were survivors was nothing short of a miracle, Gordon is remembered in Liverpool and on the Plymouth Memorial. All who served and died are deserving of recognition, they who survived share much the same rights.

[Bruff]

The submarine's still there over at Birkenhead - it's actually a German U-Boat (was the one you remember a British sub, as there isn't one of those as far as I'm aware?) The attraction is the U-Boat Experience, and is at the Woodside ferry terminal.

Also at the terminal, outside on dry land, is a replica of the Birkenhead-built pioneering submarine Resurgam, originally built in 1879. It never saw service, sinking in Liverpool Bay in 1880 where it was discovered in 1995, and still remains, being subject to periodic wreck conservation by folk experienced in these things.

The Maritime Museum is very good. There is quite a discussion on the SS City of Benares in there, as a part of the permanent Battle of the Atlantic stuff. The museum also contains the International Slavery Museum which is rather sobering.

Richard Broughton

[Tardis]

It was a 'modern' british boat, there was a rusting u-boat in the yard but we couldn't go around it then. It was interesting

[Thomo]

There was a British "Boat" in that area at one time, may have been a "T" Class, I will have a look at the records tomorrow, I also have some pics of the North Atlantic on a bad day, I will post them as well. The exhilaration of a "Kill" for U48 was short lived as when the Commander, Herr Kapitan Blackrodt discovered what the target was, he knew what he had done! Refugees mostly children. I have "supped" with men of the German Navy who took part in World War Two at sea, but these were not fanatics, just ordinary Sailors doing what they were told. In a chance encounter in the Market Tavern at Amlwch on Anglesey, I fell into the company of three Merchant Sailors from WW2, one had been in the ship ahead of SS City of Benares, the other two in the ship astern on that awful night just to the North West of Ireland, they described what they saw, I am glad that my uncle never heard it, I still feel it, not hatred, just sorrow. I have been to where HMS Prince of Wales, and HMS Repulse lay on the seabed, and although I didn't know at the time, there were "Barlickers" down there, more were on HMS Royal Oak in Scapa Flow, and there was at least one on HMS Hood, What is done, is done, gone but I hope, never forgotten.

[Stanley]

The young woman pulled out of the wreckage after 17 days....
This LINK from the Northfield News. He was my mate Martha's cat so I knew Toff well, he was an independent cat!
Remember the volunteer paramedic hailed as a hero after the explosion at the Texas fertilizer plant last month? He's been arrested for possessing bomb-making equipment and whilst not connecting this to the explosion directly, the police haven't ruled it out and are looking at the cause again.

[Stanley]

On Sunday, the fact that the site was down. Amazing what a hol;e it makes in my morning! Thanks to Pluggy and Doc for getting us back online. Forget the glitches, at least we are up and running, I have no doubt the errant behaviour will be sorted eventually....

[Tardis]

Yes, I saw the white pages on Saturday

Today: I'm a senior member...I suppose that there's no going back

[Pluggy]

Stanley is conspicuous by his absence this morning. I'll call round a bit later and check he's OK.

[Pluggy]

Site is still playing silly beggers, I just rung him. He couldn't get on, he's in now but there is something amiss somewhere.

[Stanley]

Nice to know Pluggy was taking notice, it's appreciated. He rang me and I told him the reason why I wasn't on was that my login page for the portal was coming up with an error message and the same happened if I went to the portal via Google so it wasn't my end. While I was talking to Pluggy I tried some of the other Google entries for Oneguy and found that I could get in. We experimented a bit m,ore and found that if I stayed logged in when I shit Firefox down the site opened normally. If I logged out first I got the error. Pluggy tells me that some members have posted this morning and it looks as though these are people who don't log out after a session. So I shall be doing the same from now on while Pluggy looks for the fault that is effectively barring anyone who is not logged in. Sorry for all that.....

[Wendyf]

I can't get on the site at all using my tablet this morning...all I get is a message saying "An SQL error occurred while fetching this page.Please contact the board administrator if this problem persists."
I got onto the forum page using my browsing history, but there was no forum....just the header & site statistics. I was asked to Login, but my password was refused.
I stay logged in on my laptop, which I'm using now, but not on the tablet.

[Tizer]

I had a similar problem - couldn't get in through my usual bookmarked `Active Topics' page and had to use a back door...a link to the FAQs page.

What grabbed my attention yesterday was attending a parish council meeting in the village's church hall held to allow the villagers to put questions to represenatives from County Highways (Somerset) and the Environment Agency (EA) regarding the local roads closed for months last year due to floods. First thing was how few people made the effort to turn up to the evening meeting even though the closure of the main road through the village almost put out of business the post office, newsagent/grocer, baker and pub and seriously affected the school and other local businesses. It was when my dad was in Exeter hospital and I couldn't get to visit him and the closures had a knock on effect, creating traffic jams in local towns and coinciding with other traffic problems. Nevertheless, those of us attending made up for the missing folk!

The EA man spoke first and was blatantly `smokescreening', presenting lots of data and glib, meaningless statements...all talk and no useful information. Then the county man who was better and more willing to discuss rather than present. I suppose he has to be more attuned to local people than the EA man and is more used to hanlding us diplomatically and not treating us as if we all wore smocks and had straw hanging out of our mouths!

The chairman asked us to be orderly, put our hand up to ask a question, direct it through the chairman and give our name. I almost immediately broke all his rules when the EA man answered the first question - I couldn't let them move onto the next question and had to make a strong comment. Both he and the County man kept saying `last year was not a normal year' and essentially using this as an excuse to do nothing. I pointed out that we aren't going to get any more `normal years', we're into a period of climatic turbulence and have to expect extreme events to be more common from now on. The EA man persisted in the outdated argument that we can't say the extreme events are due to climate change and have to assume they are only weather events. I can cope with this from climate deniers but it's shocking to hear an EA man parroting the same story. It has become a defensive, `cover my back' argument rather as the Health & Safety and Data Protection Acts are used. we sparred a while and then had to let others ask their questions...I'm glad to say that the others took up the argument and didn't let them get away with the `not normal year' again!

It all comes down to money of course, with both men basically saying "Sorry guv, no money for it, you know how things are now, credit crunch and all that'. Another reason the flooding is worse now is that the local rivers are no longer dredged and we discussed re-establishing a dredging schedule. One slight problem..."We got rid of the dredgers". Several of us emphasised that the main problem is not so much the flood water itself but the closure of the roads and that a solution would be to build a causeway about a mile long over the moor were the water keeps coming over the road. It would have low arches to allow the water to flow underneath. The County man said it would be too expensive, I said the Romans would have done it, he said we don't have the labour now, my neighbour replied "Then you should get people like the Huhnes and give them spades instead of letting them out of prison early!" (Not very helpful but it got a laugh.) Finally, he agreed to cost it out and report back to the parish council. I told him "But we don't want any consultants involved" to which he agreed with a smile.

I doubt that we'll get anywhere, due mainly to all such work being terribly expensive nowadays but also to the EA's attitude to `extreme weather events' as if they were never going to happen again.

Finally another note on flooding. The government and the insurance industry have until 30th June to agree on how to solve the problem of the industry refusing to cover previously flooded properties. If they don't agree by then it will the equivalent of the disastrous US `fiscal cliff' scenario - thousands of people throughout the UK will be unable to insure their properties against flood risk and the prices of their homes will plummet. And, no, that won't help first-time buyers because they won't want to live there. There's no sign yet of agreement being reached.

[PanBiker]

I had a similar experience last night. I logged out of my account and tried to log in with Sally's credentials to check something as a normal member. The site threw the General SQL error when logging in as Sal and also when trying to log back in as myself. Recovered from history but noticed the portal page was very much truncated reporting that the site contained no forums. Clicking the forum link worked as normal though.

[Marilyn]

So what, in your opinion, is needed to prevent such flooding and mayhem?
Can it be fixed with banks, flood walls and drainage/pumps?
I am just thinking that those greatest affected may be willing to have the work carried out and repay a LEVY over a period of years to pay for it, possibly deemed via their address or zip code.
We all pay a levy here, for our major river. We also pay an Emergency Services Levy each year...