Cosmicblue

Some are better to watch than other's though: https://youtu.be/k37zWR2ykm8

Another waste of life - was Chinese New Year on Saturday (a major festival like Christmas is to the west), so pointless.

To be fair Vince - the student nurse I shared the apartment with was native Chinese (has UK Citizenship), nursing was a second career have undertaken a a degree in Furniture Design in China and then a successful sales job there. She graduated from Kings College with a 1st and her first job was as an RN in Cardio-Thoracic Critical Care - 4 years later, back end of last year she was promoted to a junior sister (Band6). Breed rocket-scientists and that's what you get - the down side is that most don't want the hum-drum boring nursing roles and have a preference for the specialities.

40,000 nursing posts.... Well....I think back in Tony Blair's days they decided that to be an Registered Nurse you needed to do a university degree - for a caring profession. At a single stroke they wiped out all the foot-soldier staff nurses, never going to be rocket scientists perhaps but none the less could be trained even without a degree to deliver patient care. Yes, of course we also need highly trained nurses too and perhaps the Uni degree would be suitable for the academically orientated. The government used to pay for the Uni training - they scrapped that in, IIRC, the 2017/2018 intake so then trainee nurses have to pay the fees and living costs for the three years themselves - the study and work placements are often concurrent and its brutal. I shared an apartment with a student nurse who was going through Kings College London nursing course and saw it 1st hand and proof-read most of the essays. Some of the subject tasks were utter drivel - padding for something that could have been easily completed in 2 years. So a tough 3 year degree course, which you have to pay for that ends up in an underpaid, high commitment job with 24x7x365 12 hour shifts - and a big debt for the course and living expenses. The wonderful NHS Final Salary pensions ended in 1995..........its not very appealing is it?

Have you noticed that veggie team tend to look pale, thin and unhealthy? I won't mention the sandal wearing tendencies..

I see Keir Starmer was blabbing on the BBC Sunday morning about reforming the NHS.... I have an idea... Let's turn the NHS on it's head and start by paying the people who are hands-on delivering the care a realistic salary that reflects the commitment and dedication to do the job 24x7x365. NHS Trust Chief Execs are in the £300k+ territory - there's no way that anyone in the public sector can justify that kind of salary - are they delivering shareholder value as we'd expect to see in the private sector (hard to justify here too)? That would be a 'no' then. The salaries paid to the non-care delivery staff in the NHS need to reflect the job itself - not attached to an eternal gravy train funded by the tax-payer.

Seems to be working OK for me this morning.

One speculate how this is likely to pan out. 1) The Royal legal team will read the book 2) Figure out what is libel/slander 3) Take out an injunction to have the book removed from sale 4) Drag the pair of them through the courts in public with little or no verifiable testimony/beyond-all-doubt - they lose the case and cop the considerable costs and as result lose the security cover that they apparently need.

That's good to hear - generally speaking I think UK customer service has improved a lot over the years are arguably one of the few positive things that social media/forums like this one has given us - nothing travels faster than bad news so companies have learned to nip the problem in the bud. A really good example of the risks of failing to acknowledge and fix an issue is on this very site - there was a thread running where someone had an issue with Longthorne Guns and posted the issue here - if you Google "Longthorne Guns issues" then on the 1st page of results is the thread for it. As I recall the issue was resolved but the evidence sits in Google for ages.

A Perazzi DC12 - https://www.perazzi.it/en/dc12.php A SbS Perazzi - I've never physically seen one...would be great to have one in the cabinet though.

It's a sad end to an exceptionally gifted driver. The US reports said we was riding a snowmobile up a very steep incline - too steep as it turned out and the heavy machine flipped over backwards and crushed him. Was watching a video on YouTube of the 'Hoonigan' in a special custom electric Audi vehicle on Las Vegas (he switched from Ford to Audi in 2021) - doing stuff that a normal mortal would have thought for self-preservation reasons a tad unwise.😏

Samsung tablets are excellent, a little pricey at times. Lenovo Android tablets are decent too - here's one for £170: https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/d/deals-and-coupons/tablet-deals/?orgRef=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk%2F

I guess it's going to depend on the make of car you have - anything in the Volkswagen/Audi/Seat/Skoda/BMW/Mini rangee can use an OBD11 device - https://obdeleven.com/en/ These actually connect to a phone or tablet using Bluetooth.

I believe the nurse strike thing was regional - Warwickshire's RCN members - the majority voted not to strike, but I believe West Midlands did.

Working in IT as I do for a software vendor that makes a big play on 'AI', I do struggle with separating true Artificial Intelligence from simple logic based processes. Within the tech sector there have been IT based capabilities called 'Knowledge Trees' where known facts are compared against a question i.e. Shotgun doesn't fire: Is it loaded Y/N 1 cartridge Y/N 2 cartridges Y/N Is the the correct chamber selected Y/N And so on - we have probably all encountered such things as it falls into the category of 'automated help' and this is pure logic. AI is a whole different thing where the software attempts to predict an outcome or event based on the availability of data that maybe/may not be be present and extrapolates a probable conclusion/path of action based on previously learned events. This whole thing gets incredibly complicated - what if the previously learned events belonged to someone else - is that their intellectual property?

When I started shooting back in 2008 and was contemplating buying a 1st gun a Cynergy Black Ice was on the list - it looked so unconventional which, at the time, I rather liked. My coach, who also co-owned a gun shop, got a demo for me to try with the covering comment "you'll struggle to hit anything with it", he was 100% correct. I bought an Ultra XS Titanium Prestige instead which was a pretty decent gun. I've since learned that when worn the Cynergy is difficult to repair so that's one best avoided. Max respect to Browning for being brave enough to go for a clean sheet of paper design though.

Thanks for sharing - locking the fellows up and losing the key would work just as well.

One keeps reading of Albanian gangs being behind the people smuggling rackets on the French coast - maybe the focus needs to shift to the individuals that are organising the boats on a commercial enterprise scale - cut the problem off at the roots so to speak?

I grew up in Abingdon just to south of Oxford and did my apprenticeship in the city - it's place that holds many memories for me. Oxford has had a strange relationship with the motor vehicles going back to the 1970s when the 1st Park and ride appeared. A mate's father back then was chairman of the Oxford Traffic Committee and the guy didn't even have a driving licence. Additional irony in that the 1st MG sports cars were made in Longwall Street (close to the High Street) before production moved to Abingdon. I guess the issue is that the historic centre of Oxford is quite compact with few options to build alternative-route relief roads because of inevitably blighting some historic view - i.e. Christchurch Meadows to the south. They'd be better off banning all motor vehicles from the city centre instead of meddling in annoying half-hearted gestures. Oxford is best visited by train!

Wasn't Brexit supposed to be the answer to the immigration issue - another Boris fib?

The NHS staff are the exception and deserve a decent pay rise - on two counts: 1) They genuinely deserve it 2) We need the NHS so it there has to be an attraction to work there - a respectable salary would go a long way to fixing the lack of staff. For the rest of the striking groups, then that's a case of doing what all of us in the private sector have to do when the rewards aren't there - go and get another job! The truth is that long-term working in the public sector results in an 'institutionalised mind-set' without the flexibility to get a job where accountability is expected. I'd sack the strikers, no question because a job that doesn't pay enough is still massively preferable to no job at all - simples.

Allegedly the nation's favourite for undies...M&S do decent stuff at not silly money either - I'm a clay shooter so don't want anything bulky: M&S Thermal layers - link

Mine does volunteering at the National Trust - most volunteers are retired and they also do exchanges so she can have a few days away volunteering at another NT property too. They get mileage for travelling to the property they are at too.

Was excellent - insightful, Kaleb acknowledging Jeremy's guidance over taking financial incentives being unwise as he first became a TV personality - playing the long game. They still tease each other unmercifully which makes for a light hearted but I think 100% genuine interview.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/63801857 Is it just me or is there something incredibly cold-hearted about terminating a contract just before Christmas?