The Minkey

"I was walking around a park one day on my own just me and my machette in one hand and a smallish assagai in the other when this policeman approached me. I lifted the assagai like you would any old spear, and the machette as high as my shoulder and shouted "come and get me copper" and "top of the world mar"." ROTFLMA..

I just reread your post, SteveT. ?220 a month - wow! He must be on some kind of deluxe package. The last time I looked, I pay in the region of ?700 per annum. It comes direct out of my pay so I'm not entirely sure of the exact amount. Since starting to utilize the insurance, 18 months ago, where I've had a choice of getting expensive investigative work done on the NHS or private, I've gone private. Like Marmora ManI figured it freed up NHS resources.

Perky

Sufi

Finding litter in my garden, thrown out of the bedroom window by my neighbours kids.

With you there, SteveT :-) I checked the nicotiana this morning and it's finally started sprouting, 3 weeks after being sown.

My dad's wife spent 2 years being dicked around by her GP getting progressively more and more unwell. By the time her armpit glands had swollen to the size of golfballs, and her GP could no longer blame it on the stress of looking after an autistic child, she was sent for a biopsy. It finally occurred to my dad to get her seen by a private consultant on the medical insurance he had with work. Blood tests were ordered and within just a week she was confirmed as having Lupus, an auto-immune disease. Unfortunately, by this time, her condition had deteriorated so badly, she found climbing the stairs a huge ordeal, let alone looking after two boys under five. So I went back up to help out. Once diagnosis had been achieved, her treatment was in the hands of the NHS and we can't really fault them from there on in. Shortly after this, she reached a critical point, facing the collapse of her kidneys, and had to be put on dialysis which gave her kidneys chance to unclog. This was the turning point after which she finally began to improve. Point being, had the medical insurance not enabled them to see someone who was able to reach a correct diagnosis, she'd probably be dead. If she's been taken seriously sooner, instead of her twat of a GP putting it down to the stress of looking after an autistic child, she'd never have become so critically ill. Speedy diagnosis is no small thing.

Aaah - the Bull Ring, I remember it well. You're right, they both have the same sort of depressing vibe. The red is marginally better than the pink was though, only marginally, mind..

For a while, in the 90'sd, Lambeth residents were able to recycle textiles. If there's a use that can be made of old clothes, pillows, duvets etc, stuff that isn't good enough for the charity shop, then perhaps this could be considered? A household in my street have two wheelie bins into which everything goes, apart from their paperwork which they burn in the garden. So how do we encourage those people, who are already able to recycle but don't, to participate?

sublime

"Oh Minkey. You don't ask some questions because you don't want to hear the answer." You might not, but I do ;-)

I've been wondering how a piece of sweetcorn could possibly end up under someone's foreskin..

Aubergine, sliced thinly and cooked on a lightly oiled griddle, is a tasty addition to a salad.

Saturnine

"squatters are, in fact, fascists." Really? fascism [ f?shizəm ] or Fascism [ f?shizəm ] noun Definition: dictatorial movement: any movement, ideology, or attitude that favours dictatorial government, centralized control of private enterprise, repression of all opposition, and extreme nationalism fascist [ f?shist ] noun, adjective fascistic [ fə sh?stik ] adjective Encarta? World English Dictionary [World English Edition] ? & (P)2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

"I bet the cogs in the heads of lots of clever people who work for insurance companies have been whirring non-stop for the last coupe of days." Wouldn't this be classed as an act of god - no payouts?

The only truly awful neighbours I've ever had have been legitimate paying tenants. So, while we're on the subject of morality, I feel there's a certain immorality involved in renting out a property to tenants who blight the lives of those around them.

(Reuters) - The Icelandic volcano currently making northern Europe a no-fly zone could potentially affect international travel for months with the key questions how long the eruption lasts and whether it continues to spew ash: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63E4B420100415 Looks like it's very much a case of wait and see. So sorry for you all planning to fly over the next couple of days :-(

"Apparently, the slightest trace of volcanic ash will rapidly degrade a jet engine. Jet aircraft that fly anywhere near an ash plume must have their engines overhauled according to an FAA directive following an incident during the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991." Is that incident the one where the dust caused all 4 engines to cut out? I wouldn't want to be up in the air with that kind of dust in my flight path - no, no, no.

"People who wear their trousers half way down their a*se showing their Kalvin Cleen undercrackers." I second that emotion. Long, long, ago - when this was still the new thing - a young lad passed me on an escalator displaying a long brown skiddy. Never caught on.. I've had over 5 hours of windy-grindy music thumping through my walls today - so I'm not feeling friendly about loud music either.

Sorry to hear about your flights, folks. There's no messing with Mother Nature, once she's on the war path.

Jokers

Years ago, I squatted a disused railway station, near Stroud, along with several other people. The grounds gave us parking space for our caravans and trucks. Everyone was working away at something, low-paid but enough to live on without having to supplement by claiming benefits. So while it may seem people are free-loading, it may be the case that they are less of a drain on the system than someone claiming housing benefit, for example. After all, the property is empty, I'm assuming it's been so for some time - long enough for the squatters to have noticed the lack of activity anyway - providing no damage is done and the people involved aren't anti-social, I just can't see it as a terrible thing. The squatting laws changed back in the late 80's/early 90's, I think, so it is much easier for the owner of the property to serve an eviction notice, after which they've got 4 weeks before they're out. I'm going from memory so happy to be corrected on this.

I haven't noticed the parakeets attacking the other birds on the feeders, though they can sometimes be cantankerous and will try a little nip if they're not in the mood to share. They do this with each other much more frequently. On the fat feeder, if it's a question of whether the GSW or parakeet wins out, it's the GSW everytime - sword against pliers!

unrequited