WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Tripps]

Access to Ancestry.co.uk is free all day today. Hooray.

I have an idea that enthusiasm for genealogy research may be falling. Is it possible that those interested in it have done all they can? There's quite a lot more I'd like to do - but I'm waiting for a special offer. Who will crack first - me or Ancestry?

[Tizer]

`Hundreds of Pokemon Go incidents logged by police'
"Pokemon Go players have been involved in hundreds of police incidents since the gaming app phenomenon launched, the BBC has learned. Robberies, thefts, assaults and driving offences were among 290 incidents recorded across England and Wales throughout July. Lancashire Constabulary logged 39 incidents - the highest figure from 29 forces that provided data."... LINK

[Stanley]

Sat watching the TV, Sarah's engine is silhouetted against the light. It looks perfect now but before was a constant reproach because the cylinder was cocked up slightly. Lovely......

[PanBiker]

Reviewing the clues gathered so far from the puzzle cache series that I am doing still makes no sense, (see Favourite Walks). I know that E=93 and it also equals 247, K=6, C=7 and J=C, I have a few others but it looks like I will definitely need more clues from the remaining seven caches, all good fun.

[Stanley]

Modifying the other engine successfully. Test ran both on very low pressure and they are fine.
The fact that the loaf I baked didn't go well. I'll bet I put too much salt in! Edible but not up to the usual standard!

[Tizer]

Toilet paper running out? Just press the button next to the roll and Amazon will send you one. Washing powder or printer ink running out? Press the button, Amazon will send replacements. And in the next stage you won't even push a button - the washing machine or printer will order it for you when needed. It sounds like a great development to make life easier for us but it ties us to one supplier, Amazon. The company will be laughing all the way to the bank, knowing it can keep raising the price on products while we don't even see how much it costs until we get our credit card bill and knowing many folk don't even look at the bills. LINK

[Stanley]

Tiz, you remind me of what Daughter Janet said last Xmas, that for companies were on course for getting so big they would have the ability to smother most of their opposition, Amazon was one of them. What a depressing prospect! One thing is certain, dinosaurs like us will fight it to the death. But then I thought about people like you and Janet living far enough away from shops to make transport a problem as you get older and more frail. [Sorry to raise that one!] I can see that there is a core of customers who for this reason, or because they are so bad at managing their lives they see themselves as 'time poor', might welcome such a development. Lots to be said for being a dinosaur living close to the shops!
Later. Today the BBC starts charging anyone viewing on i-Player without a licence today. They haven't revealed how they are going to police this.....

[Tizer]

There's a search page here for the database of the University of Lancaster's Edwardian Postcard Project: LINK
It needs patience but if you're like me and incurably nosey then it's fun to look at what people were writing to each other. This is the email of Edwardian times!

[Stanley]

My Stiglitz book on the Euro arrived......
My butcher's are back from holiday so I can have a steak pudding!
Steamed Savoy cabbage works wonders for transit times......
Mark Steel's in town is back on Wednesday September 7th. I love these programmes and he's in Stockport next week where I was born. One of his themes is going to be the No 192 bus route. See THIS for a brief history of the route on Wikipedia. I can remember the days when it was a through tram service from Hazel Grove to Manchester Piccadilly and one of the longest tram routes in Britain. The joke was that it was the best massage in the world! When the trams stopped it was taken over by the 92 bus.

[Tizer]

Steamed Savoy cabbage works wonders for transit times......

Perhaps Southern Rail should try it as a way of getting their trains to run on time?

[Stanley]

The West Coast franchise is up for bidding at the moment and as PE points out operations in London are going to be compromised by the horrendously complicated job of adapting Euston to HS2 which is already generating overcosts. Who is going to pay for the delays that will occur there? Let's have a guess.....
According to THIS BBC report we are expecting a UK ban on microbeads in personal care products but as Tiz pointed out this is only the tip of the iceberg of long term pollution of the oceans with scrap plastic.

[Tizer]

Mrs Tiz's niece has an 11-year-old son who is very active, athletic and thin as a rake. His mother has just received a letter from his school warning her that he's overweight! It's down to using the BMI again. I mentioned this ages ago on the old OG site. BMI was first used in the 1800s and it wasn't meant for judging whether people needed to lose weight. It was adopted in recent times for this purpose because it was easy. It doesn't work with athletic folk because it doesn't distinguish muscle from fat. And it's probably even less appropriate for use with youngsters. When will they ever learn?

[chinatyke]

... His mother has just received a letter from his school warning her that he's overweight! ... When will they ever learn?

It's just the sort of thing that could cause a child at a sensitive age to have an eating disorder like anorexia. Seems crazy to me.

[Stanley]

Agreed! BMI fails if you have short legs as well. It's a very blunt instrument.
I see that the North Yorks hospitals have said they will think again about refusing to operate in elective circumstances on obese patients and smokers immediately. They imposed a year's delay but after a very negative reaction are having another think. All down to shortage of money and resources of course. Safe in our hands?

[Tizer]

... His mother has just received a letter from his school warning her that he's overweight! ... When will they ever learn?

It's just the sort of thing that could cause a child at a sensitive age to have an eating disorder like anorexia. Seems crazy to me.

Exactly. We mentioned it to my cousin's daughter yesterday who has two daughters aged 10 and 17. The whole family are very keen on swimming, cycling etc and you'd never say they are overweight - they are the ones I mentioned elsewhere who like a low-sugar diet. Mum is very health aware (she has worked at the hospital) and didn't give the school permission to weigh the kids when they were growing up because she feared they'd be wrongly declared as overweight and that it would have the effects China mentions. Mum is short with an athletic build and even she is BMI 24, just bordering on overweight according to the way BMI is interpreted. She takes clothes size 8-10.

[David Whipp]

Sunset at our favourite Cornish beach last week...

[Tizer]

Somewhere on the north coast, judging from the direction of the sun and the big waves!

[David Whipp]

Chapelporth - just west of St Agnes.

We first saw the beach when walking the coastal path before we had kids - it was a glorious immensity of sand!

Returning with little ones a few years later, we wondered if we'd remembered right; it was just a rocky cove! (Soon cured when the tide went out.)

[Wendyf]

Ooooh the Red Arrows flying low right overhead a few minutes ago. Heading south.
Looks as if they are travelling from Portrush to Chatsworth.

[David Whipp]

I'm flabbergasted!

Not long after my last post, the lady in this picture knocked at our door and tentatively enquired if we were related to the people who owned the house fifty or sixty years ago...

A long-lost branch of our family had found us after a gap of half a century - and, thanks to brother Keith's family history detective work, June and Chris (seen in the centre of the picture) were in touch with their father who they've not seen or spoken to for over 50 years!

I've mentioned before that my dad's dad had a liaison with his wife's sister. June and Chris are the grandchildren of the girl born of that relationship. Separated from their father when he remarried, June's last contact with her dad was around 52 years ago and Chris, still a baby at the time, has no memory of him at all.

It was a bit of a shock to them when I said their dad was still alive at the age of 90, and that Keith had been in contact with him recently.

June has lots of memories of our family and the poultry farm at Bank Edge. On occasional visits to the area, she'd searched unsuccessfully for the house. Then she spotted a picture she recognised on OGFB, googled my name and linked our house with the Bank Edge remembered from childhood.

Thanks to June and Keith's perseverance a blank section of our family history has been filled in and Chris and June are due to visit their dad on Wednesday!

[Tizer]

Lovely place! The red dot is Mrs Tiz exploring the rock pools at Chapel Porth, Cornwall.


The Red Arrows haven't reached us yet Wendy!

[Wendyf]

David, what a wonderful surprise! Lucky that you were home when they arrived....

[LizG]

David, What a great story. How lucky are they that they have not left it too late. It could been such a different outcome.

[Stanley]

That is a good story. Hope your dad doesn't get too big a shock! Well done them for searching, I can't think of anything more sad than losing contact with your kids.....

I got mail this morning, Susan and Janet are coming on Wednesday and we sign the completed LPA applications, then Janet sends them to Australia by surface mail and when they get back from signing by Margaret and Janet Janet G sends them off to be registered. With a bit of luck we will have them done and dusted before Xmas.

The man who planned to pack a Kangaroo's pouch with explosives and turn it loose in the city have been sentenced.... LINK

[David Whipp]

I'm still marvelling at yesterday's unravelling of a family mystery; I daresay our cousins will be marvelling about it for much longer!

Keith tracked their dad down only a few weeks ago - finding him 'all there' with some mobility problems - the timing of yesterday's visit was perfect.

June was full of memories of visits to Bank Edge and of the people living here when I was nobut a nipper; it was fascinating listening to her.