The Minkey

Please, somebody shoot him - put him out of my misery

Finch

It's a real shame children are so 'protected' these days. We walked the 30 mins to school and back every day from the age of 7. These days it seems the stranger danger has consumed the collective imagination. Children are no longer allowed out to play, unless chaperoned by an adult, or in the confines of their back gardens, if they have one.. As child abuse is said to be commited largely by adults known to the child, surely this puts them at more risk than if they were off in the company of other kids. The creepy people in my life were an uncle and a primary school teacher - both of who would have been trusted by my parents, plus the occasional flasher hanging round the the park. Elsewhere, in the world, children are prepared for adulthood by being given responsibilities - they learn how to deal with the ups and downs of real life by living it. What a deeply wierd world the UK has become.

oh

I switched to Sky from BT Weds just gone. Unlimited Broadband & Talk Anytime, no TV, comes to ?26 a month and includes line rental. Calls to 01/02 & 03 numbers are free whenever you call. Calls to mobiles are 25% cheaper than BT. And you are only tied in for 12 months if you don't like what you're getting. I was tempted by Talk Talk but I heard too many bad stories about their customer service. They did have a handy comparison chart though, which lets you see their deals compared with similar competitor packages. The Sky package I've got came out better than what they were offering when costs over a year were taken into account - seemed a strange thing for Talk Talk to be publishing. For some reason, the Sky Talk & Broadband (no TV) package isn't on their website. I had to call Sales to verify it existed. I signed up over the phone. The switchover happened when they said it would and they took care of cancelling my account with BT. So far so good.

Same in my garden davidh - at times there are as many as 12 wobbling on the washing line - they seem equally at home hanging upside down. I have one of those not very attractive gardman type feeder poles which has hooks for feeders. The ends of the hooks are handy for impaling bits of apple - they do love a bit of fruit ;-) "I watched this happen a number of times all the same sequences of a fly past and the rising up of pigeons, if they do not pose a threat why do pigeons treat them with such respect?". Steve: My first thought would be that the speed of the fly past might remind the pigeon of a sparrowhawk - a flock of sparrowhawks would be a pigeon's worst nightmare ;-)

"Does anyone know if you can book double appointments at any surgeries, like at the dentist when you've been told to book in a double appointment? Just wondering." Yes, you can certainly book a double appointment at DMC. I had an appointment there last week and waited about 2 minutes, which made a nice change. I noticed a lot of different names on the doors and was told they've taken on more doctors. DMC are adequate as far as surgeries go, I guess. Pretty good in some ways, less so in others. For example, it's possible to pay for bloods to be drawn by their on-site phlembotomist for non-NHS type testing - something I've found extremely useful. I much preferred my old surgery back in Brixton which was more progressive, offering on-site osteopathy, counselling etc.

*checks passport* - me too..

I've had to wear earplugs every night for over a year due to noisy tenants next door. I recommend the wax plugs - get them really soft before inserting and you should be OK. I don't mind the foxes, yes they disturb me sometimes but at least they don't wake me up at 6am almost every morning. If people were more discerning when disposing of their food waste, there simply wouldn't be the food supply to support the number of foxes and numbers would quite naturally reduce.

I'm on the New Cross Exchange - I had BT Business up to yesterday when I switched over to Sky Unlimited. My BT link was fine for browsing etc. One was to determine whether the issue lies with your link or your computer is to connect another computer to your router and see whether it suffers similar performance issues or not. The Sky package I'm on is pretty good value ?26 pm for Unlimited Broadband and Talk Anytime - as well as free calls to 01, 02 & 03 numbers, it's 25% cheaper than BT to call mobiles. Line rental is included in the price. The switchover last night was seamless.

I haven't observed them attacking the other birds in my garden, though they will have a peck at anything trying to share a feeder, which is what they do to each other. When in competition for the fat feeder in the winter, the woodpecker soon sees them off. They can be a bit screechy when alarmed or when flying overhead but they also make quite nice burbling noises when they're just hanging out in calm mode. This is just my observation of course.

"Next time I take him to the vet I'll be pro-rating the bill and distributing around the neighbourhood." That's exactly how I felt about things, especially as the loopy lady used to feed him stupid things like Thai Fish Soup, which I can't help but suspect may have contributed to his subsequent renal issues.

It was a close brush then, Dennis.

The Lizzie Borden's

I can think of a lot of ways I'd rather spend my time than being at work, but needs must. I spent a few months living on a beach in Goa back in the 80's - it gets very sandy after a while ;-)

Auntie

Back in the day when my cat was still young and mobile, he spent most of his time outdoors tarting up to passers by - he got loads of free dinners. One of his friends got into conversation with me outside the house one day to ask when the kittens were due. I pointed out that she was looking at a he, that the pregnancy was in fact obesity due to the fact that everyone kept feeding him. He had another of his friends in such thrall, she used to drop strange love notes through the door. Cats can be such tarts. They will take it wherever it's offered.

It's quite possible it was a novel experience for you both ;-)

Jose

Maybe you could ask them to walk you to the cash point, you can't be too safe.

To me too - it's like everyone's speaking a language I don't understand.

It's not necessarily all the same girl, but it's a well-worn scam - they've just all got that heroin look. Used to see a girl doing this scam back in Brixton @ 10 years ago: yelling 'I've been attacked', absolutely distraught, tears streaming, some blood (she gets a scab to open up. Saw a similar looking woman near Brockley train station @ 4 years ago, same technique, then another woman same style, different colour, in my street @ 2 years ago. The tears soon transform into a torrent of abuse when you make it clear you know her.

Someone calling out of the blue asking for credit card details.. Thanks for the warning.

I'm just about to switch from BT to a Sky broadband and talk package - ?26 p.m. unlimited downloads and free anytime calls to 01/02/03 numbers, line rental included in the price. The sales guy was really laid back, not at all pushy - so far so good. Will report back once it's up and running.

My garden is full of baby birds - green and goldfinches, great and bluetits, sparrows & robins. True to form, a couple of adult starlings introduced a large posse of juveniles into the garden yesterday and left them there. I had to give up on fat feeders at this time of year last year cause they turned the garden into a warzone. Apart from that, everything is coming up roses ;-)