Jump to content

Westward

Members
  • Posts

    2,101
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Westward

  1. Westward

    NHS

    I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I've come to understand that organisations like the big pharmaceutical companies operate with business models that are often compromising public health rather enhancing it. As a retired businessman I understand the drive for profitability, but it's wrong to prioritise the bottom line and the share price ahead of offering the best outcome for the patient. And the NHS, especially the GP practices, are acting as enablers by following prescription mantras - which are usually defined by the pharma companies - rather than treating individual patients as... Individuals.
  2. Westward

    NHS

    If everyone in this country considered the 5 basic tenets of a reasonably healthy lifestyle (which everyone knows), the NHS would be about 20% of it's it's present size, there'd be no waiting lists and we'd have enough money in the kitty to fix things like our 3rd world roads. The NHS doesn't need ever increasing amounts of money, it needs the public to understand that most heart disease, virtually all type 2 diabetes cases, many auto immune conditions and at least half of all cancers are the result of poor lifestyle choices and are therefore avoidable.
  3. Do go and see it. What strikes is that these 2 territorial divisions, the 46th and 56th had to attack across open level ground with no cover. The enemy front line trench was between 400 and 800 yards away and the British were advancing against against well prepared defences. It's amazing that any of them even reached the enemy trenches at all but, amazingly, some positions were actually captured, although they couldn't be reinforced or held against counter attack. This was of course a diversionary attack with the single purpose of drawing enemy troops and shell fire away from the main assault to the south and in this they did exactly what was required of them. Sadly, the casualties at Gommecourt were proportionately higher than for the rest of the Somme attack divisions on that day. As a footnote the Gommecourt attack was commanded by General Snow, grandfather of Jon Snow the Ch 4 newsreader and Peter Snow of swingometer fame. The 56th was reconstituted afterwards and despite being a territorial division, went on to be recognised by the high command as a first line division. As such they were thrown into every major attack until the end of the war. Ultimately suffering almost 35,000 casualties from a normal operational strength of about 12,000. And that excludes casualties before February 2016 when the 56th division was formed from the scattered battalions of the 1st London division.
  4. My grandfather was was a rifleman in the 1/12 battalion (The Rangers) of the 56th (London) division at Gommecourt too but wasn't there for the attack. Sadly he was killed by shellfire a couple of weeks earlier whilst preparing forward trenches. A few years back I travelled with my 3 sons to visit his grave in the CWGC cemetery in Doullens, France. It was an incredibly emotional experience that affected us all.
  5. I know, but most clay shooters also shoot live quarry and often use the same gun for both. The handling and feel of a gun matters to many of us. The much revered Beretta 682 Gold E was probably the first mainstream O/U to have light barrels and has often been described as too whippy in 30" but just about spot on with 32s.
  6. I've never understood the logic that longer barrels are somehow suited to longer shooters. Balance, weight distribution and a little thing called polar moment of inertia are what have most effect on handling and responsiveness and within reason the shooter's size makes no difference to those factors. There are plenty of ladies shooting full size 12 gauge O/Us with 32" barrels. Longer barrels seem well suited to sporting clays and on most modern guns the 32s weigh less than the 28" barrels of 20 years ago. Browning 425 anyone? Virtually all the top 20% of sporting clays shooters use 32s and that's by choice because they shoot better scores with them; they're not just following a trend.
  7. A very faint positive line is still positive but Covid is unusual in that the more virus you're carrying the stronger the line and the symptoms. My test line was very faint and I wasn't unwell at all but I caught it from the wife who had a much stronger line and she was unwell for 2 or 3 days. So I would say the answer is yes.
  8. I don't know what you mean by that. Even the BBC admits that the majority of the boat people crossing the channel are economic migrants rather than genuine asylum seekers. Our policy of aiding seafarers in trouble means that we are bound to "rescue" them from dangerous inflatables and bring them safely ashore. This means that they become legal rather than illegal migrants. My question on this is why do the French let them set off in dangerous boats and often enough in bad weather? I think we all know the answer...
  9. There's a grey area about the legal position. Although they do not have to claim asylum in the first country they pitch up in, there is a potential issue over where they come from. Basically, they do not have an iron clad legal right to claim asylum here if they arrived directly from a "safe country". However, there is of course a raft of organisations that would fight tooth and nail against the government if they refused claims on that basis As always, there's little that can be done to enforce anything and the migrants and traffickers know that. The traffickers working out of Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, France etc. are at little risk of arrest as those countries, along with Scandinavia, don't want the problem of the migrants either. Only the EU can slow or stop the flow by intercepting them at the borders, but as long as most want to come here (No idea why!), the EU isn't going to be interested.
  10. I've used 99 octane Momentum from Tesco for several years. My 2 litre non turbo petrol engine is smoother, quieter and significantly more powerful, plus I get about 5-6 mpg better than with 95 octane. If I keep to the speed limit it will do 54 mpg on a motorway run. Momentum is bought in by Tesco and is very different from their standard fuel.
  11. I recently bought my first prescription shooting glasses from Optilabs. Their on line ordering and uploading my prescription was very simple. Turnaround was fast as they have their own lab. Cost was around £160 with coated light yellow tint lenses. Very pleased with the glasses and the service, so happy to recommend them.
  12. Small Fords are okay if you don't plan for high mileage. They're targeted purely at the personal lease marketplace where there's little chance of going past 70K or so miles. Higher mileage Fiesta and Focus based cars keep the small garages in business replacing clutches, suspension and brake parts. Ask any MOT tester. Anything Japanese will have lower cost of ownership by outlasting any comparably priced Euro built car.
  13. Over the years I've known - and still know - people claiming benefits. This includes several elderly people receiving pension credits. Not a single one of any of them has been honest about savings, medical conditions such as bad back or depression, and the younger ones are busily working under the radar doing things like gardening for £500 per day or cleaning etc. The older ones typically hide their savings to meet the means testing requirements because once on pension credits they automatically receive housing benefit and council tax relief as well as free eye care and free dentist etc. My wife has an elderly friend on pension credits who buys new shoes about once a month and it flying off to Canada in a couple of weeks to visit her son. Another old lady had a visit from social services after she was widowed. At the time she didn't know what her income would be beyond her own partial state pension. Her visitor filled in the claim form and advised her to ensure that she keep her bank account under £20K. When she found out that she was entitled to half her husband's pensions plus an insurance pay-out she rang the DWP to tell them she no longer qualified. The operator laughed and said "Once you're on pension credits you're on for life, even if you win the lottery". So even people who try to honest are fiddling the system because of the way it's set up. Funnily enough the old lady really did win £60K on the lottery a couple of years later. Put simply I cannot think of any benefits claimant I've ever known who wasn't either playing the system or fiddling it - and often both - and don't get me started on the 10s of thousands of tradesmen, probably the overwhelming majority and including a good number I know personally, who claimed furlough money but never missed a day's work throughout the lockdowns. Back on topic, I read a few days ago that we've got more gas in the country now than we need as we have 3 purpose built LPG tanker terminals and in fact we've been supplying gas to the EU who only have 2 terminals. The nett result is that the wholesale price of gas is currently very low, lower in fact than it was before the last rounds of huge price rises. As the energy companies buy 6 months ahead they will soon start to make eye watering profits as there's no sign of prices falling back to 2021 levels during this year. I'm a free market believer at heart and normally anything but a lefty, but someone needs to get grip on the regulator and make them force the consumer gas price down to an acceptable level.
  14. The 694 action is virtually the same as with every other 6xx family gun so the little link that makes it auto safety is likely the same. Since most people want them removed rather than fitted, every gunsmith will have a box full of them.
  15. Why not contact AI and see if they can arrange supply of an MC stock to convert yours into an Allsport?
  16. Westward

    BT to EE

    4G all day long. Simple, portable, miles cheaper than anything on BT infrastructure and takes about 3 minutes to get up and running.
  17. As long as you don't want decent sound quality. LG however tick all the boxes.
  18. It's a good wheeze. Advertise premium products at low prices then deliberately supply a cheap alternative and try to convince the mugs that it's not worth the effort of kicking up a fuss. Probably not illegal but certainly a dirty way to do business.
  19. That's all well and good but I did not want them to substitute an alternative product. I had a particular reason for selecting the discs I ordered and I don't care whether Mercedes fit Stark products or not. Many other people have had the same stunt pulled on them by these people and in my opinion it's the sort of cowboy behaviour that gets the internet a bad name.
  20. Ref: Onlinecarparts.co.uk (and I gather several other online names) This dodgy outfit may have been mentioned here before and I now know from scouting around the car forums that they have a habit of doing to almost everyone exactly what they did to me. I'm anal about brakes and always do my own work. My front discs are about ready to be replaced and when looking around for price/availability of the type I want, I came across these people. I placed my order on 30th March but when it was confirmed I realised I was buying from a German business called Autodoc AG. (They also have an online presence using the same site layout as onlinecarparts). It took 12 days for the discs to arrived and in the box instead of what I'd ordered were discs branded Stark. I've never heard of Stark and neither had any of the many posters on the forums who'd had the same thing done to them. There's a huge range of parts branded Stark but who knows if any of the stuff is up to spec., where it's made or who's responsible for support or warranty. And so began the fight. First they insisted that Stark was just as good and I should just use them. They seemed to have trouble understanding that I wanted what I'd ordered, not what they thought I might like instead. Luckily I'd paid using PayPal and although they wriggled and twisted via multiple emails, eventually they paid for return shipment, but it was only the threat of raising it as a dispute with PayPal that got them moving to supply the right discs or refund my money. They then claimed my VIN number was no good, it was perfectly ok of course so I sent them a photo to prove it and gave them 24 hours before I contacted PayPal. They did ship the right discs and they arrived today, 6 weeks and numerous unnecessary emails since I placed the order.
  21. Know the Oxford fiasco fairly well, but what drives me nuts is roundabouts with traffic lights. What numpty came up with that idea?
  22. Optima chokes are a different fit from HP and not interchangeable. Having had both types my considered opinion is that there is no performance difference, especially as the bore profile is the same. Strangely there are also Optima Plus chokes which are different again. I would say that Gunman has it about right.
  23. No, the personal version can't call a landline. Search for VOIP apps.
  24. I think you can with the business version but not the personal one. There are apps available to make VOIP calls to any number but not all have free calls.
  25. Round here the charity shops have wised up to the online and boot sale scavengers. Prices have gone way up over the last couple of years making it harder to score a real bargain or make it worth selling on.
×
×
  • Create New...