Off Topic Other Stuff (anything you want to share)

Biggest story of Saturday is that I once again had no problems avoiding the hysterically weird Eurovision Song Contest.....what is going on here I find hard to understand.....won by Switzerland and its non-binary singer.....I turned it on about 11.30pm to catch the voting....all those countries voting with their delegates praising to the edge of me nearly vomiting the wonder and privilege of being part of it.....and then the winning song sung again....I didn't wait for it to finish....I just zapped the screen and went to bed.

 

Haven't watched that since I was forced to by my parents. Truly weird and of no cultural, intellectual or artistic value whatsoever.

 

People seem desperate to see it live and travel from all over the world....and people also plan parties for months ahead....and literally wet themselves in anticipation of watching it.....and what do we get... the biggest group of weirdos ever to gather in one place at one time....never ever anymore do we get a genuine song being entered....because they know that it will never get voted for....the countries are generally grouped into voting for each other.....one song I read on the night was poorly sung and it made no difference to the voting and it still got into the top five.

Now its Switzerland's turn to spend millions on putting together next years horror show......and I thought the Swiss as a nation managed to stay sane and avoid being dragged into the world of nutters by staying neutral....not anymore.

 

Never watched it and dont intend on watching such rubbish. its like a freak show then plym

 

My Dentist never fails to leave me gobsmacked.

Just had my yearly check up....two x-rays taken....both ok.....then she wandered around my mouth with a camera (very small I hasten to add)....which shows up the state of my fillings.....plus all the other probing's that are done....waiting for that moment of me wincing when a delicate area is touched....but no everything fine....and for my age (85) she congratulated me for the state of my teeth..

BUT she then said that three of my fillings where ageing and should be soon replaced....she said she would draw up a plan and the receptionist would give me a copy and it would be valid for three months.

So the receptionist booked me in for my next visit to the hygienist and my next check up for next year....and then gave me the plan cost for replacing these three fillings....and asked me if I wanted to book in for the work to be done....having looked at the cost I said I would think about it and phone in some other time.

I went back to the car and read the plan and sat there in a daze actually.......

Cost of work......£1019-00.
Deductions....being in the Denplan scheme....plus a patients discount (whatever that means)....meant that the final bill was only...£741-50.

ALSO it mentioned that whilst doing this work that if any other problems where revealed the cost would be adjusted ? ?

I have been in this Dental Surgery since 1970 when of course it was still NHS....but as you all know Dentists dropped out of the NHS many years back....and there was no local NHS surgeries that you could swap to.....and even now there are very few....with long waiting lists of people wanting to join.

How did the Government of the time allow this to happen....how do they expect a pensioner to fork out such money on fillings that are ageing... just in case they suddenly let you down.

PS....the Dentist gave me two little wire brushes to help clean between some of the gaps in my teeth.....and I cannot find on the plan that she charged me for them....I know that they only cost about 50p each but I'm surprised that I've got them free....they must be all heart with their generosity...I'm obviously being unfair.

 

I really am fed-up to the back teeth with this government. Over the past few weeks, we’ve had announcements that:

1. It will increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP
2. It’s considering reducing income tax albeit by reducing the basic rate whilst what it should be doing is indexing thresholds for inflation.
3. It intends to focus out-of-work-benefits on the unable at the expense of the merely unwilling and to change the nature of the payments so they help people overcome whatever is limiting their lives rather than subsidising them to endure it for year after year.

Now it’s saying it is to ban sex education for under 9’s and there will be a blanket ban on any discussion of gender identity. If asked about it, teachers will be required to say that the latter’s theories are contested.

I’m not opposed to genuine gender reassignment for those that need it but currently poisonous and dangerous debate isn’t helping anyone and it certainly doesn’t need to be advertised in schools.

The point is that these are all things the government should have done long ago, not left to be mere promises when an election is looming. Where have they been all these years?

If only they’d admit Brexit has been an outright disaster for this country and that it was always inevitable that would be so, I might even go and vote for them again.

 

I know you Sky abstainers may not be quite so close to this but it's interesting news.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c4n1ndjd7nmo

To me, for a lot of reasons, it's killing the game and has to go. One of the things that annoy me most, but doesn't get much air-time generally, is that I cannot remember a situation where a penalty or potential red-card has been turned down after a VAR review, but has instead revealed a blatant dive, where the diving player has been retrospectively booked. Why not?

Diving is corrosive of the game. Most football fans will watch rugby as a second choice, but it's not so the other way around. Rugby fans are a significant fraction of the sporting audience but 99% of them will say "I don't watch football because I can't stand the diving and cheating". It's a moral embarrassment that blatant cheating is shown in slo-mo and yet nothing is done.

 

I find it difficult to understand how the NHS works.

I needed a blood test.....so was given by the doctor the appropriate form with all the little boxes ticked off for what needed to be checked.

Then its up to you to go online and book an appointment at one of the many blood clinics available.....top of the list would be the earliest available....and the earliest I could find within a reasonable distance was in a fortnights time ?

They do tell you to keep checking the website....because patients do cancel appointments....and of course they become available again....and if you get in quickly you can grab it first.....and then cancel the other one that you booked in a fortnights time.

This I managed to do yesterday.....and this morning I attended my new appointment time....so I pop along in time for it....and of the thirty seats available only one had a patient in it........My name was called 15 minutes early and I gave blood and was walking out still 10 minutes before my actual appointment time.....and there was still only one person sitting in the clinic....there was three blood nurses on duty in the clinic so it obviously wasn't busy in the slightest.

Being curious ....when I got home I checked the website to see what appointment times where on offer for this clinic.....the earliest one was 4th June at 2.30pm......so what was that all about.

You get an appointment through a doctors referral like I did....or you can get referred directly from one of the other clinics on site and you would take a ticket out of the machine and wait for your number to show up.

How is this possible that you can have three blood nurses on duty....and no damn patients for them....when maybe someone is desperate for an early appointment and this clinic says you'll have to wait until 2-30pm on the 4th of June.


PS.....I am now waiting for an ECG test date....this will be a letter that is delivered by the doddery old Royal Mail....heaven forbid.....maybe a Czech billionaire will buy Royal Mail and kick some life into it.

 

It seems I've been wrong about the financial viability of Plymouth Airport.

https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/ne...ve-economic-bonanza-reopened-plymouth-9284291

This is because I'd overlooked the potential of using electric fixed wing aircraft and/or vertical take-off models.

My only excuse is that the former don't exist whilst the only civilian "vertical take-off models" are what we normally call "helicopters". As you may have noticed only the rich and famous use helos. That's because the experts say they "cost a fortune" to operate, but they do of course have the advantage of not needing an airport at all.

Just goes to show you can get the answer you want if you find the right "expert".

please log in to view this image

 

Iran's President also uses an helicopter......or should I be more exact......he use to.

I'm sure they'll find some way of blaming Israel for his death.

Interesting how Vladimir Putin was straight on the blower to give his support to the NEW regime President (who ever he might be).....he wouldn't want to miss out on his war supplies from Iran....to fight the aggressive western allies of Ukraine.

 

Of course there is a far easier answer to the airport problem.

Buy yourselves a £2 billion Aircraft Carrier and park it out in the sound.....simple.

Or buy the catapult system and launch it from a nearby cliff over the sea.......of course there won't be any return flights....unless by parachute.....and the luggage carousel might need thinking out a bit.

 

The helicopter he was in was a venerable Bell UH-1 Iroquois, the famous Huey of the Vietnam War. First flew in 1956 and went out of production in 1987. Need I say more?

Cue Wagner....

And Surfin' Colonel Kilgore with "The Smell Of Napalm In The Morning":

 

So July the 4th it is then..... can happen when we go to the polls.

I know who I ain't voting for....just witnessed Ed Davey telling everyone that his party is the only party that can beat the Tory's.

The man is totally delusional if he thinks that can happen......they're the party of the woke world......Putin will be trembling in his boots.

 

I'm really not sure if I'll bother to vote and that's something I'd never have contemplated in past elections.

It's not that I have anything against Sunak. As I've said before, he seems to be a decent man and he's more interested in getting things done than self-aggrandisement. Quite a welcome contrast to Johnson. I can't say I'm enamoured with the right wing of his party though.

With Covid and the Ukrainian war, they are not entirely to blame for terrible Government finances and recent inflation - but then, neither can they take credit for inflation coming back down: it's mostly because energy prices have stopped going up, which isn't in their control either way. Strong share prices are largely because American interest rates are not coming down as fast as expected, so the pound is weak and that gives big UK multi-nationals arithmetic help help in converting their overseas earnings into sterling. It's not because trade is booming and it's unlikely to post-Brexit.

The one thing we need is restoration of proper indexation of tax bands. That will require firm control of Government spending and that's not going to happen under Labour. But then, neither is going to happen under the Conservatives: they seem to be happy to frolic in the margins by tinkering with National Insurance and Stamp Duty.

 

Back from my hols. Enjoyed Rhodes. People very friendly wherever we went and decent places to see. Didn't fall down visiting the Bar but had a damned good try. Temp 27 - 29 pretty much throughout. Then back to rain.........again.

I go away and come back to Rushi doing his thing and announcing the Election. I watched that woman from the Post Office this lunchtime giving her evidence. Nothing was her fault that she could remember but she could remember good meetings that had no minutes taken. I them heard Rushi giving his party political broadcast when announcing his election decision. Funny really because nothing was the Tories fault either. It was all either Covid or Putin or anybody really who they could point a finger at. It seems that nobody takes responsibility for anything anymore despite the pay they get. South West Water nearly poisoned half of Brixham but it was the fault of the rain washing away a field. Glad to see nothing has changed in any of that respect whilst I've been absent.

 

notDistant.....in the past I've said the very same thing about not voting.....BUT of course when things go wrong have you any right to complain if you haven't voted for or against what has been happening.

 

You would think that the Tories could have found an umbrella for their leader....or where they hoping he'd get washed down a drain and end up in the polluted Thames.

 

Glad you had a good time Sensible. I’m still coughing although less than before!

I’ve been to Rhodes - enjoyed it too. Oddly, we were there while the Euros were on - jeez that must have been 12 years ago I suppose! We certainly weren’t living here then.

That’s the point though - the adverse effects of Covid and Ukraine were nobody’s fault (apart from China and Putin obviously) so it’s a bit rich to claim responsibility for any improvement afterwards. But both have done a lot of damage to Government finances and it’s vital borrowing comes down.

We all know Labour won’t tackle the huge increase in those claiming to be unable to work and will I expect remove the 2-child cap on those benefits. Higher borrowing would be economic suicide especially post-Truss but Labour’s followers always want someone else to pay but higher taxes are exactly what the country doesn’t need. It is inevitably what we’ll get from Labour.

I’ve just seen a vix pop with two market traders on the BBC News. Immigration, an issue I have little interest in, loomed very large. Personally, if Brits don’t want to work, cut off their benefits and let those who want to come here to work do it. Neither party is saying that.

 

Matt cartoon on front of todays Telegraph.

Picture of Lemmings rushing over the edge of a high cliff........one Lemming says to another one........."Nobody knows what possessed the Tory party to call a snap election"........

 

I expect one of the big decisions of this coming election will be....is it more interesting listening to Keir Starmer (flip flopping) or watching paint dry.....I wavered for a moment but the paint won yet again.....in fact the dried out paint brush came second and Keir just made third.