randombloke

Once more I recommend Steve at Inclean Services. This is the second time he has visited and done a sterling job. He came recommended on the forum. His contact no is 07941 344 137

Thanks for the reply. I got a call later on and got fast tracked through a centre in Croydon.

I arrived for my 1:45pm appointment today. It is closed today, tomorrow and Monday. So don't bother. No notification and no apology. I can't begin to describe my anger and disappointed at this situation. Unacceptable. If you add to this thread with a similar experience I will write to Helen Hayes. David

Josh has done an excellent job designing and installing the bookcases exactly as we envisaged them. Together with additional work in our hall and office. He's trustworthy, efficient and friendly and competitively priced. We'd not hesitate to recommend him. Thanks Josh.

This may sound facetious but actually it isn't. Just act deranged so they keep away. I'd suggest shouting in a Liverpudlian accent (I'm from the Wirral and doing so terrifies southerners) but shouting is really not terribly socially aware at the moment. Too many people aren't taking this virus seriously. If it is transferable via aerosolised droplets then merely talking can infect people 30 feet away, that's 9 metres. I queued on Friday outside M and S on LL and was aghast at the stupidity of people walking aka brushing past me. If you feel a need to shove someone or be rude, then do so. If you said "I may be infected, but maybe I don't know it yet" you are telling the truth, it's Schroedinger's virus. We MUST assume that we are infected and so are they. Just watching BBC news in theatre recovery units turned into ICUs tonight was terrifying and I spent 6 years as a hospital equipment sales rep selling recovery room monitoring so I'm not generally concerned. I sure as hell am now. Be rude, be obnoxious, be safe.

The new Smartshop initiative is an evident success.1 person using, meanwhile Christmas-like pandemonium at all the other tills, massive queues, people barging into one another, total confusion. Bravo Sainsbury's.

Here's a recommendation for Dave who repaired my Dyson promptly, efficiently and inexpensively this week. He's definitely still around.

I'll add my voice to the chorus of approval for Steve. He was prompt, courteous, knowledgeable, professional and inexpensive.

We are going up. In penalties....

Back in the 80s I worked for Oddbins. At that point the most popular wines were Liebfraumilch and all German wines. Thereafter new world varietals were the flavour of the month, Chardonnay and Shiraz especially. In the noughties it was Sauvignon blanc and then Pinot Grigio and Zinfandel. Quite how Pinot Grigio and Prosecco have become so popular is beyond me as they were both second class Italian wines and yet they fly out of the door. Personally I'd rather a Cremant de la Loire or Cremant de Bourgogne. As for a cheaper alternative to Champagne I'd always go for a Lindauer Special Reserve Pinot Chardonnay.I think some wines just become modish and people just ask for the name, My favourite Champagne based on comparative tastings was Roederer Cristal and yet it got ruinously expensive and almost embarrassing to admit to it as it was all over Bling bling Rap videos by people who probably had no idea why is was so good. (High dosage to balance the acidity of the Pinot Noir). Picpoul seems to be appearing all over the place so is that the latest fad? You read it here first...

A friend of mine went to the Rugby sevens at Twickers some years ago. As was tradition they enjoyed the hospitality and each following year there was a prize for the stupidest/most drunken/forgetful behaviour at the previous event. One year it was won in perpetuity by an attendee who upon arriving back at his local railway station on the last train from Waterloo decided that it would take too long to call a taxi and would be a good idea to drive home as he felt the effects had worn off by then. He duly did and remembered to press the blipper which opened their fancy new garage doors that both they and their next door neighbours had had installed by the same supplier in their adjacent properties. Next morning his wife wants to take the Volvo to go to church. Goes into the garage where said Volvo is kept and discovers it is no longer there. Rouses slumbering husband who distinctly remembers parking the car as he had used the new remote control gizmo which was hung up on a hook in the hallway. Police called. Crime number obtained, insurance claim made. New Volvo duly arrives. Some months later, next door neighbour returns from their Summer holiday home in Spain or Florida or wherever it was, ask for the remote control that next door had retained for safe keeping, after a bit of rummaging original can't be found so they are presented with the back up key to open their garage. Which they do: to behold our Rugby loving friends' original Volvo. He?d taken the wrong blipper, opened the wrong garage door and parked his car in the wrong house, in his confused state simply shut the door and staggered to his own front door and gone to bed. Remote control to wrong house remained in his Rugby club blazer hung up in the wardrobe pending next year's visit to the home of Rugby Union. This may well be an apocryphal shaggy dog story but it?s a helluva tale nonetheless. I once spent a fruitless and annoying ten minutes becoming aggravated that my remote control would not open the doors of my fancy new Japanese Sports car. Guy comes out of clubhouse. Opens doors. Points out this is his identical Japanese Sports car and that he had been amused watching my lights going on and off at the other end of the car park for the last ten minutes....

B821SCG Vauxhall Cavalier 1600L in red. Company car leased through Swan National. Picked it up at the office on my first day as a Sales rep at company in Southend January 1987. I dented it in the first weekend I had it.In fairness I'd only driven a Nissan Cherry and an 1100 Escorts two door previously and I'd driven home to the Wirral in a blizzard.

The Crooked Well Camberwell. Not got a garden as far as I know, but they do have an upstairs room you can hire. We had our wedding reception there in January and the food, drink and service was exemplary. We had a starter of mixed meats, smoked salmon and mezze, superb Beef Wellington main and Chocolate and Marshmallows to follow. They let us taste various wines and Champagnes prior to the day to get a good match and couldn't have been more accommodating. Highly recommended.

Sent you a PM.

Signed. I use the service from Nunhead to City Thameslink or Blackfriars every day, over the last 8 years it has deteriorated dramatically, every train is overcrowded, ALWAYS late and often cancelled with no notification. I also notice that the South eastern service trains to Victoria seem to get priority, why? There may be extra passengers due to the work at London Bridge but that is no excuse.

Have to agree. Went a couple of Saturdays ago, not busy as England were being thrashed at Rugby. They position themselves as fine-dining but at reasonable prices. Less than ?100 for three courses and wine (very decent Chardonnay they source/grow themselves), equally as good as Roux at the Landau. Knowledgeable and friendly staff. Highly recommended.

It's run by Caxton commercial who take care of general maintenance etc. We have recently had the 10 year redecoration of the entire building inside and out. There's a monthly charge.

Just read this article. I wonder if it's statistically robust or just a headline grabber? I'm sure it will cause people to think. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/shopping-and-consumer-news/11512665/Living-near-a-Waitrose-puts-38k-on-value-of-your-home.html

Water pressure is a little low but you can sort that out with a pump. BT Broadband no problem, don't know about Sky or Virgin Internet.

OK folks, you are approaching this from the POV of computer literacy. My day job is in training people to use IT in a business environment, so I speak as someone with 18 years experience of showing people how to use technology. WOD your grandfather will have NO concept of computer terminology whatsoever. An icon will be Sir Winston Churchill or Cary Grant. A website will have a spider in it. A Homepage is some sort of domestic manservant. Don't bamboozle him with terminology. Also, expect to lose a LOT of time explaining and re-explaining things over and over. He may well disengage and be too proud to admit that he really has no clue what you are talking about. Here is my experience with an elderly relative and a tablet. My mother is 83, lives on the Wirral and two Christmases ago my brother bought her a Samsung galaxy tab 10:1 and had Virgin broadband installed along with a digital TV and a Tivo box. The idea was to allow her to Skype with him in Australia. He showed her how to use it, wrote copious instructions and screen shots with all the passwords etc. She was also shown how to record and view recorded tv programmes. After him calling me concerned that she wasn't replying to many emails and Facebook updates I phoned her up and asked her how she was doing. She admitted she didn't really understand any of it and asked me to help her to use it. As I didn't have any experience with a Galaxy I went out and bought one. After a couple of days working on it myself we decided I would talk her through the simple process of opening, reading and replying to an email. Cue a series of calls lasting 5, yes FIVE hours of conversation in which if I wasn't a professional trainer I would have shot myself, or her. After nearly two years and countless sessions with both me and him she is still unable to send an email with any real idea of what she is doing. She has Facebook, (Only used if my brother comes over from Australia or I visit). GMail, (same), her previous email account was disabled due to lack of use. Internet banking, (used once with me there). Getting things on the app store or ordering food via Sainsbury's online, forget it. She can Skype but only if you call her, if it disconnects you are sunk. We disconnected the Virgin TV as she couldn't work out how to change the inputs into the TV. If the router dies she has to ask the very patient next door neighbour. My advice to you would be that you ask him what he would want. He may not want to be bothered. If he does, then the following may save you a LOT of hassle: *Set up his home screen with a big photograph of the family or something he will recognise easily. Don't expect him to understand the home icon if it's an Android. * Maximum of five or six icons on the homescreen, perhaps the following: *Daily Telegraph. *Telegraph puzzles. *Email. *Skype. *Increase the icon size so he can clearly see them. *Make sure you have Teamviewer or something similar set up so you can remote control his screen for him. He will inadvertently touch the screen and end up completely lost, don't expect him to get the process of double tapping, expanding, swiping or expanding/collapsing things. He will definitely do all of the above without realising he has done so and be totally at a loss. He won't know what the refresh icon is or how to expand menus. Trying to explain over the phone will be very frustrating and tiring for you and for him. Don't forget that learning new skills will tire him very quickly. The distance/remote nature of things will make it very hard work (it's hard enough with PC literates in business in London over the phone,let alone him being in Cromer). Henry's suggestion of a keyboard may help BUT, if he can't type now he won't be able to in the future. You will need to show him how to use one. Most tablet keyboards are way too small for elderly folks to see the letters. My mum was a 100 words a minute touch typist, on the Galaxy she can maybe do ten words a minute IF she doesn't lose the on screen keyboard. If you can engage him in watching TV/radio, you may have a chance but don't expect him to embrace iplayer, on demand etc Also, as silly as it seems he will forget to recharge it and will struggle to find the on/off button. So you may have a call saying it's not working and he's forgotten to charge it up. It may be better to get him a laptop with a very large screen and a keyboard rather than a tablet. I wish you luck, but never forget that you are using a digital solution to an analog problem, you may be better just organising a delivery of the paper by a different method.

Why not talk to your IT department? They would be able to advise you rather than us guessing here as there may be specific settings in place in your office. You could investigate using .pst or .ost files. Some industries have compliance issues with storing emails, for example law firms or accountancy practices. They use specific Document Management Systems such as Autonomy FileSite or Hummingbird DM to store emails out of Outlook. Whatever you choose, be aware that if you have more than 3000 emails in a single folder in Outlook (Outlook deems your inbox as a single folder, and particularly keep an eye on your Sent Items) then Outlook starts to slow down and degrade. That's why it takes ages to load in the morning. I spend much of my work life showing professionals how to save emails into Document Management Systems folders and they are universally bad at so doing.

Can you get pickled eggs in a gastro pub? Pork scratchings? No? Disappointed.

Louisa Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > In a thread of such sensitivity, it seems a shame > that once again the EDF swings wildly off-topic, > with yet another self-indulgent game of cat and > mouse tactics regarding misunderstanding of use of > words. Just an observation. > > Louisa. Well said!

Robert Poste's Child Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I'd be on the Prozac in no time. Is it not Prosac? :-)

OK, so this has now morphed into a discussion of the relative merits of legal systems. The statement "best justice system in the world" is based on the fact that more people come to the UK to use our legal system rather than any other. It is certainly not perfect, Guildford 4 etc. But on balance I would rather be in court here than anywhere else. Had I thought it would have raised such a debate I would have chosen my words with greater care. The main point of my statement was that it is easy to forget the true victims of this. No doubt we will discover more cover ups etc. I used to have business dealings with a major hospital in the north of England that had a department that specialised in diagnosing child abuse cases. I was told confidentially that there was a massive and organised paedophile ring based in the county that included "many household names, 'the great and the good', politicians, entertainers, business people, even the most revered names in the country and abroad at the very highest echelons of society". "So many vested interests to ensure that it never gets out, and the poor victims will never have a voice." I have no evidence to support that statement and often unsavoury truths are hidden behind the statement "we investigated and found no evidence of wrongdoing", code for 'They are as guilty as sin, we know it, you know it, but we aren't going to do anything about it.' To quote Francis Urquhart: "You may very well think that, I couldn't possibly comment". This is a truly emotive subject, but should never lose sight of the fact that childhood is the most vulnerable time of our lives, it shapes us as human beings. If adults pervert that for their own gratification, then they should be punished.