WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Marilyn]

I can't believe a 28 year old woman, weighing just 35 kilos, died from laxative abuse here.
If you can believe the story, she was consuming 800 laxatives a day. Husband was shelling out £250 a week for laxatives and picking them up from the chemist by the crate. ( wife had told him she had Ovarian Cancer and the laxatives removed toxins from her Chemo therapy. But she didn't have Cancer.)
What is wrong with people?
( who wants to spend their days on the loo?????)

[chinatyke]

I can't believe a 28 year old woman, weighing just 35 kilos, died from laxative abuse here.
If you can believe the story, she was consuming 800 laxatives a day. Husband was shelling out £250 a week for laxatives and picking them up from the chemist by the crate. ( wife had told him she had Ovarian Cancer and the laxatives removed toxins from her Chemo therapy. But she didn't have Cancer.)
What is wrong with people?
( who wants to spend their days on the loo?????)

She may not have had cancer but she was definitely ill. Poor woman. What was the husband thinking?

[Stanley]

She may not have had cancer but there's something very wrong there.... Poor woman and the husband as well!
What grabbed me was that the postman delivered an anonymous parcel this morning but I knew exactly where it came from. Do you remember Tripps singing the praises of the Rubens Apple? Six of them came in the post this morning and I have to report that he is quite right, a lovely sweet juicy apple! I gave one to Pluggy, he may be reporting back as well. Thanks David, a kind thought!

[Pluggy]

Yep, definitely a good apple.

[Marilyn]

It seems the aforementioned woman died in 2014 ( so why it made yesterday's news I am not sure).
Husband claims he had not known the cause of her death until the Coroner delivered his report. He had been dropping off and collecting his wife from "Chemo" appointments and various "surgical procedures" ( which she wasn't having) but had never spoken to her doctors, believing his wife deserved her privacy.
The woman was skeletal and could barely stand or walk.
When she was hospitalised 9 days prior to her death, abdominal scans revealed masses of undigested pills inside her.
She discharged herself, signing a risk form before doing so.
I'm reluctant to say this, but was her husband a complete twit?

[Stanley]

The satisfaction of knowing that the FM3 is perfectly clean and silent and is in as good condition as new, all backed up and furthermore, I took the opportunity to give everything a deep clean round it with the hand held cleaner and we have never been as clean!

[Tizer]

Poor woman. What was the husband thinking?

And what was the pharmacist thinking? They have a duty of care and should do their best to prevent over-prescribing. Perhaps the woman was touring the pharmacies or buying online. In the old days, pharmacists in a town would communicate with each other to make sure customers couldn't buy excessive amounts of drugs by traipsing around the shops. (Coincidentally, the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has just decided to allow Viagra to be dispensed without a prescription so you might see queues outside the chemist's shop!)

[Stanley]

They kept that quiet Tiz!
The satisfaction of seeing properly shaped milling chips as I tested the cutters I have sharpened. Only a small thing I know but small things amuse small minds......

[Tizer]

We've got the men in this morning installing pressure-treated 6-foot high closeboard fence panels on 4x4 posts around our garden to replace the conifer hedge. In the last two days we had 5 men felling 5 trees and taking out about 35 metres of conifer hedge which was 6 foot high and 6 foot wide. The hedge and trees were 40 years old and the trunks in the hedge were about 6 inches diameter and spaced at less than one per metre. The outside 6 inches was all green but the inside of the hedge as all tangled branches and dead material. The men did a great job and it was marvellous to watch them moving about, all knowing what to do, nobody unoccupied, everything running like clockwork. It's a tree surgeon, Andrew Glide, who we've used before and he has a science degree and National Certificate in Horticulture (Arboriculture). They arrive in a long wheel-base Land Rover towing a trailer with a stump grinder on it and a pickup truck towing a shredder. It's like being attacked by David Stirling and his Long Range Desert Group! One of them jumps out with his clipboard and runs through the H&S matters and then, bang, they're off! Everything is cleaned up afterwards and they sweep stuff out of the road as they go. They're very professional and impressive and it's not surprising that they have a waiting list of customers three months in advance. If the Government wants greater productivity they should use Andrew's team as an example of how to do it!

Talking of productivity, the Money Box Live programme yesterday provided some interesting information and analysis of the UK's low productivity - if it really is low. It all depends what you measure... LINK

[Stanley]

Lovely to hear of something going well Tiz. You're right I reckon, I love watching someone doing a job who knows exactly what they are about. There is grace in purposeful work whether it's baking a cake or taking a hedge out.
PE had a satirical piece about low productivity blaming it on the fact that people are constantly on their smart phones even in working hours. Very funny but earlier I had heard a serious report on R4 that suggested this could be a factor, constant interruptions not only in time but in trains of thought. I have often pondered on what effect the the interruptions to work that were inherent in Windows had on productivity. I don't know about later versions, they may be better but countless early versions are still running, even some naval and defence systems are based on Windows 7!
It's all about concentration on the task in hand. I have a clear memory of hearing an interview with Stirling Moss once on the techniques of driving. He surprised me and the interviewer as well I think by saying that he most admired long distance wagon drivers because they had to maintain levels of concentration for many hours. The same applied to engine tenting, if your concentration slipped things could get very dangerous and I am convinced that long exposure to these disciplines has shaped my attitude to the job in hand, I find it easy to maintain concentration if I'm not interrupted. This sounds like boasting but it isn't, it's a fact of life.
Now think of modern work conditions where so many conditions don't demand 100% concentration. What effect does this have an attitudes of mind to the job in hand? I rest my case.....
05:10. I have just heard something quite extraordinary on World Service. The continuity announcer came on to introduce the 05:00 news and appeared to have a complete melt-down. He started talking gibberish. He repeated himself a couple of times and then was cut off and Neill Eunis came on as usual to read the news. When he had finished we went back to a different announcer. I've only heard this once before when an announcer was taken ill on air. I hope the poor bloke is OK, something quite dramatic happened to him.....
BTW, if you are of a delicate disposition don't read 'In The Back' in PE, it is a litany of greed, corruption and incompetence that does much to explain why we are in the mess we are in...
05:20. The announcer has just been back on air and apologised. He explained that he has Type 1 Diabetes and was confused because he suffered a low sugar episode but he's fine now. he sounded perfectly normal again.

[Tizer]

There's a BBC article today about Type 1 diabetes being misdiagnosed in adults... LINK
`Adults being diagnosed with the wrong diabetes, study finds'
"Many might think type 1 diabetes is a "disease of childhood", but research, published in the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, has found it has similar prevalence in adults. More than 40% of Britons diagnosed with the condition are over 30. Many of these are initially diagnosed with type 2, and receiving the wrong treatment can be life-threatening. Charity Diabetes UK is calling for doctors not to rule out the possibility a patient over 30 might have type 1."

[Stanley]

Almost sixty years ago my old GP, Arthur Morrison, tested everybody's water. He said that one in four people had some level of Diabetes. I suspect he was in front of the curve!
What grabbed me was the case of Damien Green and the legal but 'pornographic' thumbnails on his desk top machine. There are two aspects of this, first is what exactly constitutes 'pornographic'. Much of what we do with our partners in private would come under this heading and even the mildest manifestations become 'pornography' when exposed to public view. Second is the way religion has modified our attitudes in their attempt to exert control over peoples natural instincts. I think everyone of my generation was reared to believe that anything to do with sex is 'dirty'. I saw a statement somewhere; " In my youth, with great care and affection, my parents placed on my shoulders a burden of guilt and insecurity that only now am I escaping from". I've probably modified that but the gist is correct. Part of that guilt was the perfectly natural mechanics of reproduction and my guess is that Mr Green is a victim of this and despite the fact that he appears to have been 'caught red-handed' his knee jerk reaction was to deny everything, admit nothing and this is his current problem. I do not judge him, I sympathise. The trap was not of his making and he is a victim of that ancient guilt.
I believe in the old adage that 'a gentleman never tells' but will admit that during a long life some of my most enjoyable experiences of pure joy have been what the puritans would describe as 'pornography'.
07:15. Just in from Oz, a short video of great grandson Alexander with his engine being run on compressed air by his granddad. He is over the moon with it! Margaret rang me and Alex came on the phone to thank me. Worth all the effort I put into it..... Do you think it might trigger another engineer in the family?

[Stanley]

Trump tweeting his way into trouble.... The moral of this is if you are in the shit, keep your mouth shut!

[Tizer]

If you told Trump he was sinking in it he'd still be opening his mouth to shout `fake news'!

[Stanley]

I agree. God knows where it is all going to end. Problem is that his supporters are cast in the same mould......

[Big Kev]

The new Aldi supermarket completion , on Skipton Rd, is now July 2018. Delayed by water on the site, word on the street is there's an underground stream.

[Stanley]

Sounds suspiciously like the Bowker Drain to me. I once offered to share my knowledge with the developers of the Wellhouse site but they ignored me. Ah well.....
How easy it is when you are retired to declare a rest day or two.... Lovely! I am going to give every chance to my finger and the last thing I want to do is knock or disturb it. I am re-reading Puck of Pook's Hill, can't think of a more relaxing thing to do.

[Tizer]

`Landlords force tenants to fund fire cladding' LINK
"Owners of private flats with the same cladding as Grenfell Tower face bills of tens of thousands of pounds as landlords charge them to make the buildings safe. Leaseholders at one development owned by Vincent Tchenguiz, the property tycoon, face a collective bill of up to £1 million to remove defective cladding of the sort used on Grenfell, the 24-storey block in central London where 71 people died in a fire in June.

[chinatyke]

`Landlords force tenants to fund fire cladding'
"Owners of private flats with the same cladding as Grenfell Tower ... where 71 people died in a fire in June.

There was a fire in the next apartment block to me this morning. 5 engines turned out including a massive turntable ladder. Very impressive but you need big tackle to fight fires in multi-storey apartment blocks. I missed all the action and don't know what was on fire. Firemen are a branch of the military, the PLA. http://www.theworldofchinese.com/2012/0 ... refighter/

My friend stayed with me last week and noticed a leaflet on the main entry door to our block. It was informing residents that they must not park their cars outside the site access gates and block entry for firefighters or their cars would be towed away. We discussed the risk of fire because some of the residents park their electric motor scooters inside our entrance lobbyway and charge them overnight. We discussed what a major risk it was in the stairwell and it wouldn't be allowed in a regulated area. He asked me why I didn't complain to the management or the fire service and I said I couldn't complain and make trouble or we'd be evicted from the roof area which we've illegally occupied and walled off, and in any case I wasn't worried as I had my own means of escape across the roof to the next apartment block.

Later I noticed that all the electric extension leads in the lobby had been cut. Perhaps the site managers have finally got off their butts and done something about the problem. We'll see how long it is enforced.

[Stanley]

I saw that reported in PE Tiz. I note the government has forgotten it promised to fund. Remember Cameron after the floods? These promises are worthless.
The annual rail price rises..... The poor aren't the only people who are getting screwed. Transport should be a state-run subsidised social good. The multiplier effect pays the cost in the long run.

[Stanley]

Trump going amok in the china shop of the Middle East..... Rabid evangelism and the need for the Jewish vote combining to manufacture yet another volatile situation.
See THIS for an account in the Guardian of the gaoling of the Volkswagen executive in the States held responsible for the emissions fraud. Any chance of similar action here? Don't hold your breath!
Read THIS and perhaps like me shake your head at the madness of paying this woman £800,000 in her final year. Snouts and troughs come to mind. It is immoral.

[Tizer]

They all grabbed my attention too. Especially the fact that America jails VW execs who break the law to make big profits for their company whereas we just let them get away with it. They jailed another VW exec for 3 years recently too.

Have a look at Andrew Adonis speaking about student fees and uni chancellor salaries on the Radio 4 Today Twitter feed on this link. Scroll down to video of him speaking: LINK

[Stanley]

I heard Adonis on Today. I like his suggestion that the Archbishop of Canterbury should be asked to chair a regulatory body as his stipend is only £60,000 per annum.....
If greedy people are given the opportunity to get money out of a system they will do it. Don't give me the old guff about them having no influence on the outcome, of course they have back channels! The only full answer is to set a ratio with the average earnings of the other workers. Simples!

[PanBiker]

Got a heart stopping text this morning from our Jack, "Crashed car, I'm OK". Sally couldn't ring but I did, the lads at the side of the road waiting for recovery over the Herders somewhere around Stanhope. Apparently he shredded a tyre and ended up off the road. He's OK, safe and warm waiting for the RAC. No doubt will get further information later.

[Marilyn]

Must have been worrying for you, Panbiker?
I understand Sally's reaction. I find my legs "go" at times like that. ( I am likely to sink to the floor).