WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Stanley]

The melt-down of Afghanistan again...
The fact that we are half way through August and next month, September, has always been the start of the run down to Autumn for me. Once again we seem to have had a fortnight's summer weather. Why am I always disappointed?

[Tizer]

A neighbour's fridge-freezer has died and he's had to have it taken to the dump. He went to Curry's to order a new one. They said it could be a long time because he's 43rd on their list of people waiting for fridge-freezers. The company had a lot of containers on that ship that got stranded in the Suez Canal and they're still waiting to receive the goods.

[Big Kev]

A neighbour's fridge-freezer has died and he's had to have it taken to the dump. He went to Curry's to order a new one. They said it could be a long time because he's 43rd on their list of people waiting for fridge-freezers. The company had a lot of containers on that ship that got stranded in the Suez Canal and they're still waiting to receive the goods.

Did it not dock in Felixstowe a couple ofweeks ago? I did notice a lot of things in the centre aisle at Aldi last week. Ideal time to go and stock up on a 3 man tent and a new canoe.

[Stanley]

The fact that it's weekly shop at the Co-op tine. I am sticking to going early doors just once a week.

[Tizer]

Kev, you prompted me to have a gander on google and I see the ship docked about 10 days ago at Felixstowe. The news story said most of its cargo was unloaded at Rotterdam and it mentioned a business here expecting to get its goods in about a week's time. Of course Curry's story might really have been that their goods were in one of the hundreds of other ships that had been held up in the Indian Ocean by the canal blockage or one of those that went around the Cape.

This story today suggests we might see more of these delays - don't order your Xmas pressies from China!...
`Ningbo: Global supply fears as China partly shuts major port' LINK
`The partial closure of one of China's biggest cargo ports due to coronavirus has raised fresh concerns about the impact on global trade. Services were shut on Wednesday at a terminal at Ningbo-Zhoushan port after a worker was infected with the Delta variant of Covid-19. Ningbo-Zhoushan in eastern China is the world's third-busiest cargo port. The closure threatens more disruption to supply chains ahead of the key Christmas shopping season. Closing the terminal on Meishan island until further notice will cut the port's capacity for container cargo by about a quarter. It comes as the cost of shipping from China and South East Asia to the East coast of the US has already hit a record high, according to the Freightos Baltic global container freight index. And some UK businesses were already feeling the pressure of much higher shipping costs.'...

[Big Kev]

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[Big Kev]

Where's he been and where's he going?

[Wendyf]

I see US Air force planes fairly regularly on Flight Radar and ponder....

[Wendyf]

The journey started somewhere in Maine, and it's currently flying over Germany.

[Big Kev]

They're just being nosey

[Wendyf]

Landed at Ramstein Air Base!

[Tizer]

It could be a stop-off on it's way to Kabul. The US is deploying its 82 Airborne Division and they move by Globemasters... AirforceMag

[Wendyf]

A US Military Hercules from Ramstein just flew over. I just heard a plane and looked, I'm not glued to it all the time honest! It's coffee time.

[PanBiker]

It's heading over Pooley Bridge now.

[Stanley]

I can see the man heading into the oval office.... "Mr President, are you aware that there is a group in Yorkshire England monitoring our flights over the UK?". Menwith Hill will be monitoring us.
Have you noticed how the number of repeats is rising on the BBC. New content is getting very thin and patchy. What there is is too often the cheapest available. It is not the organisation it used to be. Very sad.

[PanBiker]

It's been quite difficut to make new programs during the pandemic.

[Stanley]

It was happening long before Covid Ian. From the time of Birt, the administration has swelled like a balloon and the people actually doing the research and making the programmes have been quietly chiselled away. News in particular has suffered.

[PanBiker]

Reports on Facebook from our two main milkmen in Barlick. They are sad to report that a lot of their milk and egg deliveries have been stolen at some time after 2.30 this morning by a gang of young teenagers.

Milk.JPG

[Whyperion]

It's been quite difficut to make new programs during the pandemic.

BBC always plan repeats in the summer months, relying on Sport for the rest of the programming - well we have had the T100 ? and Test cricket and the muddle of the Olympics. BBC2 does have the new quiz season back with University Challenge and Only Connect. The other repeats have at least been themed, with some good re-runs of cookery series of recent years, Nigella, and so on I think the previous shown as weeklies were done as dailies. Portillo visited some new places on railway systems, and this was preceeded by a couple of the previous series, and a few other programmes have been packaged into new material - Countryfile, Gardners World, Songs of Praise all have some heres something we made earlier in them. (this should probably be on the TV thread).

[Stanley]

That's truly shocking Ian. There has always been a low level of theft off the doorstep and we had it with early morning school deliveries as well. Somehow it isn't as bad if it's someone who is in genuine need but to see it done by young kids is a shock. Mr Greenwood is quite right, how come the parents are allowing the kids to be out at that time? My advice is to put the word out who was responsible and let it filter through to the hooligans.
Later.... I have just been listening to President Biden making the case for getting out of Afghanistan and have a lot of sympathy with his reasoning. We can argue about how it was done but not why.

[Stanley]

My heating season started this morning. I have my thermostat on the same setting year round and never turn the boiler off. It has just kicked in and aired the radiators. August is a bit early!!

[PanBiker]

I agree about Biden, a problem not of his making and when do you pull the plug? He was perfectly correct in that they were not there to nation build, the Afghan army have thrown their hands up and the bloke who is supposedly in charge has done a runner. You could hang around for ever and just lose more lives trying to defend the indefensible resisting guerilla factions, (amazing what can be done with mobile phones).

Never a good time to evacuate and all those involved have been caught on the back foot with the speed of the collapse. They should never have gone in in the first place having seen the Russian experience. I seem to remember there was not this furore when they pulled out, just a few pictures of lines of tanks heading out of the country. I suppose going in with a big stick is easy, the end game is always the problem. When will we learn?

[Tizer]

`Tesla Autopilot: US opens official investigation into self-driving tech' LINK
What caught my eye was the last sentence in the BBC report: Tesla disbanded its public relations team in October 2020 and cannot be reached for comment. Sheer arrogance and no concern for their customers or the general public.

[Stanley]

Quite right Peter, arrogant. I shall not buy one of their cars....
Mail from Stuarts, they are sending me another flywheel casting. Interesting thing is that they explained that these kits were packed up long before they took over the business. It makes you wonder if they are simply selling Stuart's old stock off. If so they will become scarce.

[Stanley]

The flywheel arrived before noon, quite remarkable speed. The postie told me that one or two people had the same reaction yesterday, the Post Office must have been running smoothly over the weekend.