Posts by CrazyOldCatMan

Re: Is this just an English thing ?

For a language which doesn't really use genders

Err.. it does - just not in the all-encompassing way that other languages do.. And for when the individual gender identification (he/she/his/hers) labels are not required we have a perfectly adequate gender-neutral 'they' to use.

Yes, it can be used in both a singular or plural manner but it's not *that* confusing!

Re: Engineering hindsight

I own a Zafira.

I have to admit I've never been tempted to own a Vauxhall (let alone buy one) since the spectre of BL seems to be well and thriving there..

(OldestBrother bought a brand new one a several years back and specified that it needed a tow bar to tow his caravan[1]. After he took it back for the second time so that they could put the driveshafts back into the diff [2] he asked for (and got) his money back. His caravan was well within the weight capacity of the car he had brought.. He then went and bought a 2nd-hand LR Disco for much the same money - which he's had ever since).

[1] Sad as I am to admit that I'm related to a road-louse owner..

[2] Apparently the strain of pulling the caravan flexed the suspension to such an extent that the driveshafs would pop out of the diff housing - which then required the car to be put on the back of a flat loader and taken back to the garage. Which meant that the car was officially 'not fit for purpose' and the garage obviously agreed since they refunded his money without a quibble).

Re: Good encapsulation, Dr S

I use and recommend Slackware

[Misty-eyed wibbly-wobbly moment]

The first linux distro I ever used was Slackware - back in 1995 or so..

Nowadays I use Devuan - all the advantages of Debian but without the taint of Systemd

The people of your country hate freedom

To misquote Tacitus: "They make a desert and call it freedom"

Re: My take

moron with no clue about this diplomacy thing

I think that was conclusively proved during his (thankfully short) tenure as Foreign Secretary..

Re: The law is proprietary.

Or is there somebody who is sometimes me?

Not me.. I spend my alternative time being a cat on the internet. Except when I'm being a dog. Or a duck-billed platypus. Phear my venomous claws!

Re: Remain MPs all broke the law and should all be in prison anyway.

"This is your decion. We will implement whatever you decide"

And he had precisely zero right to say that since the Act that was passed in order to enable the Referendum explicitly said that it was not a legally-binding referendum.

Re: Remain MPs all broke the law and should all be in prison anyway.

or are you on glue?

I'm leaning more to gas 'n air.. hmmm.. gas 'n air

(Yes - I'm old enough to remember when dentists used it - horrible-smellimg mask went over your face and you sat there, high as a kite while someone drilled your teeth. I also seem to recall that it didn't do too much to supress the pain..)

Despite what she says, she's a Remnant

And has every right (legal, moral and political) to defend her views. Or don't you think that she should have been allowed to take the Government to court? Because saying that she doesn't have that right is a pretty retrograde step into the bad old past..

and the Mog

My mogs are very happy being totalitarian. Especially when their cat food is involved..

Re: Wikipedia updated

Will this year be known as "The year of the three emperors PMs"? Boris should at least understand the classical allusion..

Bojo blew it, and now we'll get to see that all his brinkmanship was just showmanship

Unfortunately, he's been sucking at the Trumpian teat for a while now and demonstrates a similar level of organisation and ability as Trump..

His utter failure as Foreign Secretary should have been a warning - especially as his waffle helped get a dual-nationality British citizen get locked up by Iran for a much longer time.

Re: I have no idea who to vote for anymore.

Perhaps the Lib Dems can do better

And, come the next election I suspect that they will - remainers of all political credds will vote for them on the basis that they are the only major party that has clearly stated that they support remain. Labour *could* have had that support but Corbyn managed the hatchet job[1] in conference to ensure that they still have to sit on the fence and can only make a decision which side to support after an election.

[1] Count the votes? Can't do that, it might give the wrong result..

Re: Absolutely flabbergasted

embody the Law!

Somebody order a bulk set of Lawmasters..

Re: Just when you think UK politics can't get any weirder or messier.

You pushed the levers related to the price of the product

And (according to a serial documentary that I watched) is possessed by an evil spirit that likes to try to remove your fingers by closing rapidly and unexpectedly.

Re: Just when you think UK politics can't get any weirder or messier.

Next, the monster raving loony party will be in power.

And will probably do a better job. They certainly couldn't do any worse.

Re: #Sarcasm?

the freedom to cast any net you like, wherever you like, whenever you like, and from any boat you like, isn't coming back

For very good reasons - one of which is that unresticted fishing was driving the fish stocks off a cliff and depleting them to the extent that some of the species were pretty close to being extinct.

I personally quite like having a government that prevents poison being sold as food

Indeed. And that sort of habit started with the Victorians - that's when Parliament started legislating about food standards and safety. So it's not just an EU thing - it's something that we too were doing, long before the EU existed.

Re: Regardless of which side of the fence you are on.

Then why did John Major get away with it when he was PM?

Ah - whataboutism at its finest.

The circumstances were different, the times were different and the reasons were different.

Re: Regardless of which side of the fence you are on.

Regarding "Johnson prorogued Parliament in order to avoid scrutiny" there's not only no evidence for this

.. larely because Boris and his ministers did not submit any evidence to the Supreme Court - thus (in effect) enabling the court to find a default judgement against him.

The question is - why didn't he present any evidence? Is it (possibly) because he would have to lie under oath in order to say that it wasn't all about taking away Parliaments power at a critical time and that would have directly lead to a charge of perjury?

Their silence on the matter is (very probably) one of the reasons why the SC found as they did.

Re: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

The Irish reunification question is complex

And I suspect that Eire would like to wait until the current generation of 'loyalist' terrorists are dead before going for reunification - especially as the demographics of NI are gradually shifting to favour it.

I'm sure they have an iron-clad excuse.

Which they'll stick to with steely determination.

Re: "Libra is designed to be a better payment network"

It's like the old company store system*, except it's global

But hey - since this was during the bad old days of largely unregulated industry it must be good huh? BB certainly thinks so..

free marketers are really just wanna-be freebooters

What in the bad old days were called "robber barons". And I don't mean in the old English nobility sense - to quote T.J. Stiles:

"conjures up visions of titanic monopolists who crushed competitors, rigged markets, and corrupted government. In their greed and power, legend has it, they held sway over a helpless democracy."

American then I apologise as your grammar is already an aberration to the English language

One that's sadly infecting the mother-language with the same abberations..

Re: WC2E 9DD

thus rejected quite a few places that were still on 10-digit exchanges (Redditch being one ...)

I can understand rejecting Redditch - as a matter of principle :-)

Re: polluting the well.

every poor cashier had been told to ask customers for their postcodes and names

To which my answer usually is "I'll provide that data if you can give me a written reason for requiring it that clearly sets down how you will use, process and store that information as well as listing every organisation that will have access. I'm happy to wait[1]."

(The alternative answer is "no, I won't provide it" - usually given when my wife is with me as she gets embarrased by me being (her words" "bolshy").)

[1] Thus tying up a till..

Re: Re. Four times a week for about 25 years

Someone who knows about eye health could probably tell what is going on

Have you been tested for T2 diabetes? One of the symptoms of hyperglycaemia is blurred vision..

Re: I wonder if ...

A tea pot with a cosy is the best way for a consistent brew

We've got a metal mesh cylinder that sits in the top of the tea pot (the tea pot lid then sits over it) and the tea leaves go into the mesh cylinder.

Which means disposing of the tea leaves into the compost bin is a whole lot easier. And, as a bonus, said cylinder sits neatly into the top of my favourite tea mugs [1], thus making it easy to make a single mug of tea without having to resort to the bags of floor sweepings.

[1] Holds about 1/2 litre.

encouraging opium addiction in China in order to be able to pay for all the tea we were importing

And then going to war when the Chinese started running out of silver to pay for the opium (they didn't really do gold - their money was based on silver) and they started refusing to pay.

So we stole the tea plants and took them to various parts of the Empire (India, Sri Lanka, Cornwall) in order to grow our own.

Re: PEBKAC

Caffeine on both

Different forms though. Tea does also contain a small amount of various theobromines (as does chocolate) which has a similar effect.

Cats and dogs can't directly metabolise theobromine so you should limit their intake of tea or chocolate. It also helps moderate TNF [1] responses and so is good in helping to suppress the inflammatory response. So, if you fall over and hurt your knee, have a big mug of strong tea :-)

[1] One of the stages in how your body manages inflammation. Modern biological treatments for various sorts of arthritis depress production of TNF. And, trust me, it works even though using the self-injector once a week is a tad painful.

Re: a cup of tea fixes anything

Tea with a shot of whiskey in it?

Heathen. Whisky shouldn't be mixed with *anything* (except maybe a touch of water to bring out the volatiles).

Re: Smarts drink tea or Drink tea makes smarts

No wonder diabetes soared

I doubt whether that has had a significant impact. However, the amount of added sugar in everything from breakfast cereal[1] to bread and fast foods (and the vast increase in consumption of said fast or convenience foods) has a lot more to do with it.

As does the decrease in exercise.

[1] When some kids cerals are 40% suger you know you have a problem.