OneGuyFromBarlick

I had another one from 'Microsoft' (or I assume thats who they are because they always hang up when I say 'Computer Repairs' ). I have never been blessed with the Microsoft employees in Delhi showing concern for the problem with my computer.......

I used to get a lot of calls encouraging me to claim compensation for industrial injury. I ignored them all, genuine or not. The 'Official Microsoft' one always annoyed me because of course I avoid Microsoft like the plague! If I get one i just hang up immediately.
I had a dangerous email this morning titled 'Your verified Visa by Visa password has been deactivated' the sender is 'verified by Visa'. That one will fool a lot of people as I am certain it's a phishing expedition.
this caught may attention this morning. A piece of a Boeing 777 has been washed up on Reunion. It could be the first clue to the fate of the airliner.

The 777 'flaperon' is to be shipped to France for examination. They are almost certain it is from the Malaysia Airlines plane because no 777 has been lost over the sea apart from this one.
The quiet work that is still going on in relation to abused children and miscreants in high places. I get the feeling that sooner or later we are going to get some surprises. The Saville affair certainly triggered an earthquake!
How depressing it is to be able to read Private Eye again. The revelations about nepotism, revolving doors, corruption and the devious ways in which this government is forwarding its march towards even greater inequality make sad reading.
The full implications of the Greek affair is sinking in, both in Greece and Europe. In effect Greece is now not a sovereign country but a satellite of the ECB and will stay that way for the foreseeable future. Question is how long before the Greek people revolt?
I have just paid a pound for a copy of the Barnoldswick and Earby Times.... Two pages headed BET, one with two articles about Earby and one with my article on it. No Barlick news items at all! All the other pages headed 'Nelson Leader'. I think I'm going to have to write to Edward Lee.....

I have just heard a surprising fact about divorce in the IPM programme on R4. A lady whose twenty year marriage broke down because her husband was engaged in very serious homosexual relations with men at his gym finally reached breaking point and applied for a divorce on the grounds of adultery. She was amazed to find that the law doesn't regard same sex relations as adultery. Her argument is that if we allow same sex marriage we should admit same sex adultery. Sounds reasonable to me.....

Yesterday I became the target of a mobile phone scam and learnt just how much grief such things can cause when you're already stressed by unrelated events. Under normal conditions you'd see through the scam quickly but when you're stressed it's more dangerous. Fortunately it didn't get any further than being a major irritation to me and several members of the family. It revolved around several things happening around the same time, as follows.

At lunchtime I had to take Mrs Tiz to Taunton to catch a train to Totnes where she would be collected by a minibus for her journey onward. I was then to go on to Bridgwater where a local hospice was clearing more stuff from my Dad's flat. At Taunton station we found that all trains to the west country were stopped due to someone being hit by a train at Tiverton and there was no information how long it would be before they started again. She chose to stay and wait and sent me on to deal with the flat. I set out for Bridgwater and got halfway but then the traffic was at a standstill. After waiting ages in the jam I managed to turn around and head back, with the choice of returning to Taunton or diverting to go home.

I hadn't heard from Mrs Tiz and couldn't get through to her on my phone, but I received a text message from her sister - saying she'd broken her leg and needed help. You can imagine how I felt about the situation. To cut a long story short, after a lot of driving and phoning I found out that the text message was not genuine and sister was happily at home with the grandchildren. In retrospect I felt foolish and should have been able to work out that the message wasn't genuine, but when you're stressed by other things you're more vulnerable and analytical thinking doesn't come quite so easily! I guess the text message was one of those scams where the next step is they try to get you to send some money to your `broken-legged relative' but in a way that it gets intercepted. Oh well, at least I didn't get that far into it!...And yes, Mrs Tiz did get to her destination, albeit a few hours later than expected, and the minibus had to wait for her because it was collecting other people from the trains.

Oh that's awful Tize, was it just coincidence that you received the text when Mrs Tize wasn't with you or did they actually know
? That's quite scarey.

Very strange Tiz.... I don't see how you could have reacted in any other way to the message, stressed or not so don't beat yourself over the head! Have a look at THIS, evidently you are not the only one.....
Getting told off by my old mentor Steve Constantine for supporting Corbyn.
Talking to Uncle Bob in St Louis, he's doing well and just retired as Dean of the Honors College but he's not stopping teaching on the ordinary faculty..... (By 05:30 yesterday he had ridden 16 miles round a big wild reserve nearby)

Cathy, I think Stanley's posted link explains it all. The message I got was almost the same words but a different phone number. When I examined my message again after the panic had abated I then realised that it couldn't be genuine. It only had Mrs Tiz's sister's first name, not surname, and the scammers must send out thousands of the text messages in batches, each batch with a different Christian name. Some of the messages will reach people who, like me, are already in a bit of a panic over something else, or other people who are less able to understand what's going on. Statistically there will be some cases where, by pure coincidence, the message seems to fit the circumstances. In my case I could see the sender's phone number was not the same as sister-in-law's number in my address book - but I thought it might be a hospital's number or she was having to use someone else's phone. When you're as worried as I was you start making up stories in your own head to fit the facts, and that's were you might get scammed if not careful. Also I wasn't sure whether my sister-in-law was on holiday, possibly abroad, because she's always having holidays! And the broken leg...well, on a recent holiday she was paragliding, and not long ago she managed to get a metal nail in her foot and needed treatment and that was only in her back garden!

After my failed attempts and wasted time trying to get to my Dad's flat to check that the hospice had taken everything I found out yesterday that they haven't made the visit. And yet they had the address and phone number and had phoned to tell me they were nearly there!

Yes I viewed the link, it's sick really the opportunists that are 'out there '.
Good to hear that you had you the wherewithal to check your sister-in-law's phone number.
Hope all is calmed down for you all.

Yes, Cath, I've made my apologies to the family members that I disturbed. They were very relaxed about it. Fortunately sister-in-law and her husband were together but hadn't been able to answer their phones at the time, so they both knew she was OK. I'd left a text message for Mrs Tiz, she found it and phoned sister and that's why I couldn't get through to them, they were talking on the phone. So everyone but me knew that sister was OK!

Glad that helped..... Yet another reason why I don't use the old cell phone that Doc gave me except in emergencies....
The house renovator next door is doing the final fix on the kitchen and bathroom. His favourite tool is a 14lb hammer..... His nephew told me the other day "Uncle John has his own ways....." It will be nice when he eventually finishes.

The investigation into alleged offences committed by the late Edward Heath...
The announcement that the ageing Tornadoes operating out of Cyprus are to be retained beyond their sell-by date. We have nothing to replace them....
The news that Health Trusts in England have been 'advised' to re-calculate their spending plans in the ligh of the growing cash crisis in the service. ("The NHS is safe in our hands" ??) See THIS for a Guardian report on the matter.

Stanley wrote:("The NHS is safe in our hands" ??)

Perhaps we should follow the American 'Medicare' system where all pensioners have to pay about 25% towards their bill. Medicare.The Republicans have been pushing to raise this to around 65% at some future date. All those in favour please post your comments.

Incredible isn’t it? In the US knocking on 20% of GDP is spent on health care costs. Millions are not covered; outcomes are worse than here. Medical bills are the largest cause of personal bankruptcy. But as the major US political parties are either very right wing or extremely right wing, the same rule of thumb applies as to the Tories here: if there’s money to be spent then someone should get rich. And if that you and/or your family through the policies and arrangements you engineer, so much the better. Nothing will change there and here, well folk simply lick there lips at the riches they see should we change things.

Richard Broughton

Quite right Richard. We have almost the cheapest and most efficient health service in the world and can't be bothered to fund it properly. I have a friend in Hawaii whose uncle killed himself when diagnosed with cancer because he knew it would bankrupt his family, not uncommon in the US. My friends in the US envy us our non-profit making service. Yet as you say, the 'glittering prize' attracts the people obsessed by money. The most hypocritical aspect is that those in the US who support profit making don't cite that as the reason why they want private insurance, they say it is a 'socialist' system, in US speak that means Communist.....
What started as suspected police malpractice has suddenly expanded into the HEATH AFFAIR. Another public life comes under intense scrutiny. I get the feeling we shall be seeing a lot more items like this....

See THIS for what I think is a very perceptive article triggered by the failure of the Kids Company charity. It blows the Tory concept of 'The Big Society' in which social care is outsourced to the charitable sector to smithereens. The last sentence is brilliant, "It’s not enough to have a big society. You need a big state, too." The same criticisms apply to the outsourcing of care to private companies who, in order to make a profit demand bigger and bigger fees from cash-strapped Local Councils.
What troubles me is not only the misery caused by this abdication from responsibility by government but the long term effects and the increase in cost in other areas this will cause. This is short-termism at its worst and sooner or later the bill will have to be paid. All the research that I have seen into this syndrome suggests that the cost of early investment and intervention is far less than the long term bill.
The policy makers must have seen this evidence as well and the question I ask myself is why no change in policy. The only answer I can come up with is that it is a cynical and entirely political decision. Apart from the lack of compassion, in economic terms, this is very bad governance.
07:15 I just heard a statistic: "There are 60,000 children's charities in the UK and in the last year they have lost £150million in funding." The lady reporting this has spent the last twenty years in charitable work. Her first name was Cathy.... She sounded plausible.

Stanley wrote: 07:15 I just heard a statistic: "There are 60,000 children's charities in the UK and in the last year they have lost £150million in funding."

That's only £2500 per charity, I wouldn't have thought that would cripple them.

Stanley wrote:It blows the Tory concept of 'The Big Society' in which social care is outsourced to the charitable sector to smithereens.

For balance, let's not forget that the Labour government was happy to hand over the job to Kids Company too.

I'm a bit miffed by charities at the moment. I've been offering my dad's furniture and clothing etc to charities and was surprised at how little interest they showed. I've spent two weeks trying to sort it and only now getting anywhere near managing it - and meanwhile the tenancy is about to end and the council will charge me a big fee for removal of anything that's left in the flat. There's lots of clothing, some of it never worn, and I'll end up filling the car and taking it to charity shops because they `don't make clothing collections'. The armchairs and double wardrobe are more problematic and so far the charities have rejected them because they are `not good enough quality' (the chairs have fire risk labels) or `we've got no space for it'. Where's all this austerity we hear about?

China, despite your reservations many charities are closing because of under-funding including some big ones. (LINK)
Tiz, it can be a problem but our local council runs a scheme whereby they collect bulk waste free of charge and recycle the suitable items in cooperation with this local charity. (LINK) Is there anything like it in your area?

I worked for that charity for a number of enjoyable years before I retired. Funny you should mention them because I was thinking about them yesterday in relation to the discussions about Kid's Company. That furniture recycling charity and probably most small charities like it are set up by good, honest, enthusiastic people who would give all they have to help those in need and for that very reason they are hard to tie down to constraints placed on them by outside funding. Very easy for things to go wrong if they employ wrong'uns in the back office! I'm not suggesting for a moment that anything went wrong where I worked but the potential was always evident.

We do have something similar that's linked to the council. I was directed to one of these but they wouldn't come as far as the town where my dad's flat is located. Then I found there is a closer one and they are coming on Monday `to have a look'. They're all saying they have too much stuff and seem less than enthusiastic. I've got a good response from Barnardo's about the clothing if I take it to them, so that's as good as sorted - though it might need multiple trips. My dad having been a bit of a dandy he had lots of clothes, much more than my mum ever had, and he wouldn't give any of it away.

Remember my problems last Friday and Mrs Tiz delayed 3 hours on her journey to the west by all trains in the West Country being stopped? Well guess what, she's on her way back and all trains in the West Country have once again been at a standstill due to a breakdown between Truro and Bodmin. This time it's a train with `a broken windscreen'. That surprised me, I would have thought their windscreens were extremely tough. Folk in the West Country will be getting outraged by all the delays, especially in the busy holiday season and having had the long period with no trains after the collapse of the Dawlish sea wall. The problem boils down to there being only one route down the peninsula. A problem anywhere along that route backs up and stops all trains in the West Country. There's no built in resilience with alternative routes.

I've just heard this morning that the sale of my next door neighbour's house, which has been on the market for 12 months, has just fallen through. It took a long time for them to get this potential buyer and now it's back to square one. The house is empty after the neighbours moved last year to a newly reconstructed house in Cornwall that had belonged to a relative. Now I also hear that in the early stages of reconstruction that house burnt down and they had to start again. They say the fire was due to faulty electrics and a water leak.

At least there's some good news here! The flood works have finished, the main road is open and we have peace and quiet once again. Heaven!

They will never forget that house move! They are all stressful but really.....
Glad you have a functioning main road again. Now all you need id the council to come and repair the damage done to your lane by the heavy traffic!
How are they getting on with the dredging and channel clearing? Is it happening as was promised? I hope we all remember Cameron's promise of 'as much as was needed' for the remedial works......
The satisfaction of a job well done.... My magnificently maintained back gate. Small things amuse small minds.....
Later.... Reports that outlets are running out of bottled water in those parts of Lancashire affected by the Cryptosporidium parasite. Have they never heard of boiling water? Sales of expensive bottled water will stay up even after the contamination has been cured.... (LINK)

"How are they getting on with the dredging and channel clearing?"
They seem to have done what was promised but engineers are saying there's still a need for sluice gates and pumps in various places. It comes down to being a cost-benefit balance with a lot of work to protect fewer buildings and farms.

Time will tell, any weak points will show up the next time we have a wet winter....

Went to see "Last Cab to Darwin" last night...an Aussie film...fabulous! Right up there with "The Castle" in my opinion.
If you like seeing The Outback without having to go there, and you can relate to our down to earth humour, give yourself a treat and go to see it. Centres around the serious topic of euthanasia, without the hype, and there are many touching and funny moments. I give it a 10.