WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Moh]

Sorry Stanley they should have been on the Today I shall be mainly following the military grave yard theme. (It was me who sent them not Maz!!)

[PanBiker]

I moved them Moh, so did Wendy, double service!

[PanBiker]

Ian, you have my sympathy; water ingress is horrible at any time but when you've just fitted out the kitchen....aaagh!

Roofer has been and raked out the mortar above the flashing to effect a repair with a sealant compound. In the process he discovered that the flashing was incorrectly installed with only about 15mm pushed into the seam and then pointed up. The lead was pushed in and doubled over rendering the joint fairly useless as any water ingress due to the mortar breaking down (which it eventually will) will just run straight down the back. Flashing should have been installed as the wall was being built not as an afterthought, it should be bedded 50mm into the joint. I'm not a builder but my dad was and that is one of the things I picked up from him. The pointing on the bathroom extension is a particularly sandy (wrong) mix and is wet and needs replacing but its not the weather for that. We will have him back next year to redo the lot. I think I will get the chimney stack redone as well and the ridge tiles re-bedded. Hopefully the new sealant will stop the ingress.

I have to say I am not really surprised, when we moved in after buying the house the first thing I noticed when I went to the loo was the ring main socket installed next to the toilet! I missed that on both viewings of the property before we bought (you don't really expect to see mains sockets in the bathroom), needless to say disconnecting that was one of my first jobs on the house. I have regularised a number of other shall we say faux pas over the years, its just as easy to do the job right albeit a bit more expensive. I think the kitchen and bathroom was originally built on a very slim budget or by a bunch of cowboys, maybe both.

[Stanley]

Bit of a mystery here. Yes, you're right Maz, it was Moh, I looked back at the original message. Sorry Moh, senior moment! In my defence, this was the message you sent.... "Could you please put the enclosed photos on 'What attracted your attention'".

This got my attention, mail from a friend of mine. I've posted it in politics but I'm putting it here as well as I know not many people look at Politics.

"Today all Lancs County Council staff were briefed on the proposed budget cuts planned for the next few years. The details were sent to the press this afternoon so you may have seen reports if you have looked online.

Forty out seventy-four libraries are to close. They plan to have one library in each of 34 so called 'service provision areas.' One of these covers Accrington and Oswaldtwistle, so Accrington may stay open (at least partially). Haslingden appears to be the only big library in the Rossendale West SPA so it may survive.

Six museums are to close. Queen Street as we expected, but also Helmshore. I'm not sure where that leaves Higher Mill. I assume the trustees will have to take it over again. Do you remember if the lease allowed either party to pull out before the end of the term? I assume that LCC bought the big mill when it closed, so they may try to sell it. If it is true (as Blundell said at that meeting at Woodcock's) that LCC had bought the Arkwright machines, I suppose they could sell those too."

See this LINK to the BBC report.

[PanBiker]

Doc and Carole are currently anchored in Tenerife where they are staying for about three weeks. Family and friends are visiting them while they are there. They are making ready for crossing the Atlantic after another two sailing friends have joined them on Hocus Pocus. They will sail the 1000 miles or so down to the Cape Verde Islands and then tackle the 2,500 mile crossing over to the Caribbean Islands.

[Tizer]

Ian, I'm glad you've got the builder and discovered the reasons for your water leaks. The money spent repairing those problems will be a good investment. Our present house had some minor leaks from a horizontal roof valley when we arrived but they got worse over the years. When we finally had the builder take it apart he found that the edge of the roof felt was tucked under the lead valley instead of over the edge! Luckily the tiles were good, close fitted and went over the valley edge, so most of the rain water went into the valley but any that got underneath went into the loft.

[PanBiker]

Hopefully the sealant will have some effect, we'll see the next time it belts it down, should not have long to wait.

News today that St Josephs Primary School is closed today following the accident in the school car park yesterday involving a 78 year old pedestrian. Apparently a gentleman was knocked down, he was rushed to hospital with head injuries but has subsequently died. There was a lot of chatter yesterday evening on the local FB sites about all the sirens and emergency service vehicles going through town, with obvious reason now. Very sad news.

[Bodger]

An interesting recovery of a walking dragline, ps keep sound low or off
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46tQNSUfiyY

[Stanley]

Interesting video Bodge. Two things struck me.... Why didn't they cut the boom off and recover it separately? And why was the diver wearing wellies? No doubt good reasons for both.... As for thanking Jesus....

[Stanley]

Voting this morning for the Town Council. Must exercise my rights!

[Stanley]

The cry of outrage in the BET this morning as the full extent of the LCC cuts becomes clearer. We are slowly realising just how much austerity is going to affect society and I'm sorry to say that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Tin hats on everyone.
Meanwhile in Stephenson's piece in the BET 'From the House' is yet another bunch of platitudes about the ISIS attacks on Paris. Not a word about spending cuts, the Tory attack on society.....

[Stanley]

See THIS for the latest trend in oil price. The BBC is reporting that Goldman Sachs have mailed their clients warning them that $20 a barrel isn't impossible. This sounds good on the face of it but like everything else in this modern world it's not as simple as that. The low price means that all the storage tanks are full and loaded tankers are being 'parked up' world wide depressing the transport industry. Countries like Russia which rely on energy sales for income are seeing catastrophic falls in revenues and this could lead to political instability. Meanwhile OPEC warns of a future spike in oil prices when they succeed in their aim to knock out the competition and get greater market share.... Nothing is simple and this looks like a can of worms.
Cameron, wearing his tin hat, promising us more planes for the armed forces and two new 'rapid response' brigades but with no extra spending on defence and cuts still being made in manpower. Is this meant to reassure us?

[Tizer]

We're now buying Boeing P8 reconnaissance and surveillance aircraft from the USA because we gave up on our own Nimrods. Some of the new version of Nimrod were built recently but scrapped before even entering service...at a cost of £4 billion. The news media have been surprisingly quiet about the fact that we had to ask for French and US aircraft to chase a Russian submarine out of our territorial waters last week.

[Tizer]

For anyone who's interested, the Panorama programme titled `VW Emissions Scandal' which was postponed due to the Paris incident is on BBC1 tonight at 8.30pm.
----------------------------------
The VW Emissions Scandal
Panorama
Volkswagen fooled the world with a scam to rig pollution tests. Millions of customers are still driving around in tainted cars. Richard Westcott investigates how the company used clever computer software to hide just how dirty their cars are and reveals how our cities have become clouded by an invisible killer.
----------------------------------

Perhaps the reason I haven't been able to get a response to my questions from VW UK is because they are waiting to see the programme. I rang them today and they said they are still `dealing with my queries' but I think they're playing for time! I suspect they're having trouble getting information out of VW Germany. It's a strange company, idolised in Germany yet with some black history, skeletons in the cupboard and all that.

[Stanley]

I watched it Tiz. Interesting programme that will do VW no good. Or GM for that matter because they tested an Opel Zafira and it failed the tests as well.
Not too sure what to make of the fact that VW have promised an amnesty to ant employee who comes forward to blow the whistle on how it happened.... management covering their bases?

[Tizer]

What grabbed my attention at 08.50 was the announcement that Turkish fighter jets have just shot down a Russian fighter plane and it's been shown on TV. The pilots bailed out of the Russian aircraft. There's now a dispute between the two countries about whether or not the plane was over Turkish air space. Turkish planes have previously driven back Russian ones. Russia claims their plane was over Syria but it all happened at the border.

The VW programme was disappointing from my point of view, nothing new and no interviews with VW executives. No attempts to clear up contradictory reports about how the `repair' of the affected cars will affect performance or the degree to which s/h values may be affected. Vauxhall/GM was in the newspapers weeks ago over the Zafira after a Swiss testing lab put out a report on its high emissions.

[Tripps]

I watched it too - how about this for an angle?

You can only get out, (in particulates nox etc) what you put in. Each gallon of diesel will emit the same 'pollution' - just that some (such as yours), will take you 60 miles - hoorah; whilst others (such as mine) - boo, take you just 30 miles. The test figures, just define the rate of emission. Surely no one has believed the test mpg figures in years? I haven't

The trend now seems to be small turbo charged petrol engines. I can't get used to seeing 1 litre three cylinder engines in quite large cars.

[Tizer]

I can see what you're trying to say about burning a gallon of diesel and understand it when we are talking about energy in, energy out; but you can burn it efficiently or inefficiently with regard to amount of pollutants emitted.

There is now a 1.0 litre 3-cylinder petrol Golf. It has almost everything that the `normal' golf has (comparing like models) but it has a lot of energy efficient features - engine mods, less ground clearance for aerodynamics, fancier turbocharging etc. It has similar acceleration to the 1.4 TSi, only slightly less horsepower but its claimed fuel consumption is much lower. It's engine is an EU6 type and not included among the compromised VW engines.

[Stanley]

We've come a long way since the Ford 8hp side valve engine.... (Whip the lid off and decoke it every 5,000 miles for best performance....)
Foot neuropathy this afternoon at the surgery... A nice lady will stick a pin in my feet....

[Cathy]

Our Sydney Harbour is home to 5 P&O luxury cruise ships at the moment. It's a Ship Spectacular to celebrate and officially name the fleets newest additions - Pacific ARIA and Pacific EDEN.
Wow what an impressive sight and so graceful!

[PanBiker]

I reported last week that Doc and Carole are about to set of to cross the Atlantic from the Canaries to the Bahamas. They will need to post a watch for the bloke I heard on the radio this morning who is setting off to swim the crossing, it's only 2,500 miles.!

[Stanley]

Must be some sort of a death wish....
I see the US has admitted that bombing the MSF hospital was their mistake....

[Stanley]

The media inform me that today is 'Black Friday'..... Supposedly the busiest day of the year for online shopping. I wonder what proportion of the sales generated will not be adding to personal debt.... Or am I just an old Scrooge....

[Big Kev]

The media inform me that today is 'Black Friday'..... Supposedly the busiest day of the year for online shopping. I wonder what proportion of the sales generated will not be adding to personal debt.... Or am I just an old Scrooge....

I thought Black Friday was for physical shopping, is it not Cyber Monday for online shopping? Whichever it is I will be hiding in the office quietly working

[Tizer]

Me too, Kev. I think it must be called Black Friday by retailers because it's when they shoot themselves in the foot. At the time when people most want to buy their products they slash the price - what kind of daft business model is that? I've just read the following comments from people who closely observe retail companies:
James Miller, senior retail consultant at Experian Marketing Services, said: "There is little doubt Black Friday has dramatically changed the way people shop in the run-up to Christmas and has created an expectation of deep discounts that arguably did not exist before. "Offline retailers in particular need to plan very carefully for this new 'spiky' festive period. While Black Friday offers the potential for a short blast of extra sales volume, this will be at the expense of margins during the most crucial period of the trading year." Consumers association Which? also warned shoppers to be careful. Which? editor Richard Headland said: "There will be a whole host of deals available on Black Friday but not all of them will be genuine." Paul Green, business development manager at retail systems integrator, Tryzens said Black Friday should be got rid of altogether. "Black Friday makes little sense in the UK. Without Thanksgiving, the event's focus point, the decision to concentrate so many resources and discounts on a Friday in November seems arbitrary at best and significantly disruptive at worst."

On a different note, I've just found that my sister-in-law who lives in the Home Counties now has a cleaner and pays her £20 an hour. Here in Somerset that's what we pay our builder. That's probably what you pay a solicitor up there in the Pennines!