Jerry_Atrick

That was taken from my kitchen window.. we look down on the pheasants... er... peas....ants 😉 We shoot one of them.. just can't remember which 😜

*cough* *cough* .. Hold trhead resurrection, Batman... Anyway, I read today that SFM was honoured in the Kings Honours today for his leadership during the COVID crisis. I didn't realise that the honours system in Australia rewarded ineptness.. Maybe ints an upside down/downunder thing? Let's see... I can't recall him doing any leadership at all.. In fact, he tried to throw a spanner in every works aimed at managing the pandemic. Firstly, it was the states that bore most of the responsibility. Secondly, he was trying to open things up when closing them down was largely working. Thirdly, to ge the vaccines, it apparently wasn't a race even though he wanted to open everything up. And finally, when there was not much happening with respect to getting Australia prioritised, it was ex-ex-PM, Kevin Rudd that made the calls, not SF-Boody-M: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/rudd-claim-reveals-the-call-morrison-never-made-20210713-p58969.html This article, although not critical enough is SMF's lack of management of the COVID crisis, sums up the debacle: https://www.theage.com.au/topic/king-s-birthday-honours-1lvw

Onto another positive. A Buzzard has taken up residence at our place. He seems to like a big old tree of some wort we have (under a tree protection order, so we can't even prune it without permission and I think a tree surgeon has to do it). Here are a coupl of photos of it perched on outr cottage on site. Sorry about the grainy results. It is an el cheapo phone:

Self Service: I am not sure which was fuirst, but in early days it was supermarkets, nixknamed self-serves. Then petrol stations or garages, as they are called here. And I get it.. improved efficiency gets customers through their experience quicker, drops the prices, and makes money. Good. Of course now we have self0serve checkouts, and these are a little problematic it turns out, but technology will catch up to make it harder to get away with, literally, daylight robbery. But we also have self service for business functions, where it has to be said, is not necessarily the best way forward. I am converting contractors to permanent employees and I gave one of my contractors an extended period to stay as a contractor an account of quirks in our holiday policy. I came under pressure from more senior management to rein the notice back, so I popped a quick email to HR to let me know the implications. The response - all of our policies are self-service now, here is a link, pls read it. I responded by asking if she didn't know their policy and her response was of course she did. So I responded, "Don't you think it would be a lot cheaper for you to spend 5 or even 10 minutes emailing me the answer, than for me to spend an hour reading the policy, and if I didn't quite understand it, having this exchange, anyway?" Not had a response, yet. But, this form of self service speeds nothing up - slows stuff down, doesn't reduce the number of staff we need, and costs more.

No worries.. The mount is a cheapie from Amazon and the camera wobbles like crazy, which is a testament to the camer's image stability despite its flakey software: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01EF3Q8SU?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title It is a GoPro - Hero 8 Black. Not sure where you got the idea it was a front and rear dash cam from, though I am thinking of getting one for the car my daughter drives as it is the beginning of tourist season here, and they tear aroudn these country lanes.

Not sure if this link will work, but the signs are ominous: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/los-angeles-dress-rehearsal-trump/683078/?utm_source=feed&utm_source=upday&utm_medium=referral

I did tell you to let me know.. would have been good to catch up! Another reason.. can share some interesting places.. The vid below starts in my village (the New Inn, which is the community pub is the white building on the right just before I make a sharpish right hand turn). Th vid gets a bit boring after the two joggers (well the one at the rear), but goes to Penn Elm, after which I cut to Waitrose in Wellington, after which we leave Wellington, through Milverton (sadly, their local pub, the Globe, has closed down), and back to Halse.

It's too late to edit the above, so to add, at the times I drive, the soouthern route is always faster (roadworks and closures excepted).

I normally am off between 3am and 3:30am to get me into the office between 6:30am and 7am. I stay overnight at The Dukes Head Inn on the (aptly named) Vineyard, in Richmond which is a leafy part of the world. That used to be my local when I lived in Richmond, and I have known the landlord for c. 25 years now. He charges me £75/night regardless of season, even when Wimbledon is on (Richmond is not too far from Wimbledon and accomodation gets hard to find). I head back the next day. Door to door, it is normally 3.5 hours in and 4 hours back - give or take. I am used to the early morning runs and late return home. The early moorning drive has always been great - very few cars and a smattering of trucks.. Services open 24 hours, so if I need a comfort stop or just to take a break (like last Wednesday), it is easy. There are two routes I take: The norther route is the M5/M4 to London (and vice versa heading back). Both are 3 lane motorways all the way to where I merged into two lanes in the video I posted. The police are very liberal with enforcing the speed limit when there is little traffic. I set cruise control to 79 miles an hour and have been gunned many times, but never heard anything from them. During winter, unless there is a road closure, which I check online before departing, I always take this route, as one never sees dead animals on the side of the road. When I rode my motorbike in, I also exclusively took this route, The southern route is 20 miles shorter. Taunton, one takes the A358 south to Chard, then left on the A303, which is the main alternate trunk road to the South West from London. Whereas the A303 is mostly dual lane carriageway - proibably about 10 miles in total is single lane each way, the A358 is about 10 miles of single lane carriageway. Although the latter is mostly windy, at 3:30am, there isn't too much traffic and you can see the headlights easily, so the few times I am stuck behind a truck, it is not hard to overtake. The terminates onto the M3, a triple lane motorway from Southampton, I think. In all of the dual lane carriageways and the motorway, I set my cruise control to 79 (speed limit is 70), and 69 for the single lane bits (speed limit 60). Again, police are liberal in their enforcement at that time of the day. I will usually take the southern route in the late spring/summr/early autumn months as the sun starts glowing at about 3:30 and visibility is great.. Coming home will depend of whether I am tired or not - if I am tired, I will go the M4/M5, because the motorway services are much better and there are many more of them (occasionally I have stayed at a motel at a motorway services if I was really tired). Before Covid, it was a pain as the traffic was a lot worse - often took me 4.5 hours to get home door to door.. Now, the traffic thins nicely after 7pm - previously it could be stop start to 9pm. Driving home takes a little longer as there is more trafficand I stop for dinner at one of the services. Door to door is home to the office. I park at North Sheen or Mortlake station (same line; one station apart) and get a train in. Usually takes between .75 and 1.25 hours depending on when I rock up and what mode I take (Can take train to Waterloo, get the tube or bus; or a bus to Hammersmith and the tube).

I have already used one to prove an accident on a country lane into my village, where there were no witnesses other than the other driver, was not my fault. With a £750 excess if fault could not be determined, it paid itself back

I use a gopro mounted on my windshield for a dashcam... Here is a vid of the last part of m drive from the South West to London early Wednesday morning - was about 5:50am from the start, but I took off around 3:15am. Didn't get much sleep so stopped at almost every services on the way and was still falling asleep between the Reading services and Heston Services, the London side of Heathrow on the M4, whic is where this vedeo starts. My stop at Heston, which are very ordinary services, was about 15 minutes or so where I did exercises, which did the trick to revitalise myself.

My theory is as one ages, a unit of time (say a minute) represents an ever decreasing percentage of ones life time, which results in the perception of time moving so quickly as one gets older. How's that for a random thought?

Well, she swaped out two instructors - the first two having what could be best described as personality traits not reallu suited to teaching people, but daughter passed her driving test yesterday. First attempt with whom her current instructor thinks is the toughest examiner and no deductions - i.e. a perfect score! As I welcomed her to eternal poverty, I realised it is our cost of living going up! As she starts university in September and over here many universities, including the one she is going to, require first year students to live in on-site accomodation, it doesn't make sense for her to get a car, yet. But at the moment, she works 16 miles away. To date, parents have been driving her to work and picking her up 4 days a week, which is 256 miles a week. She will now driver herself to and from work using the mini (she won't drive the Volvo), so that should reduce the mileage to 128 miles a week. Happy daze, right! Well,, er.. no... So, we have to get her insured. Insurance here is more of a scam than Australia. As my partner doesn't drive much except to take daughter to work, we legally cannot put my daughter as a nominated but not main driver of the car. Our insurer doesn't insure higher risk drivers (i.e. youn-uns). so we had to cancel the policy we just renewed (with a cancellation fee) and take out a new one, where my daughter is the main driver and both partner and I are named drivers. Previous insurance bill: £380. New one (after significant time shopping around), £1800. TThe average quote was £4,000, and we had one come in at a reasonable £10,000 (the car is valued at £9,000). With this, my daughter has to drive with an app on her phone and paired to a tracker that makes sure she complies with all the rules (which no one normally does). But, because my daughter will need to drive to work and partner doesn't want to give her a lift when I am in London, I now have to take the Volvo. The fuel usage is only marginally more than the Mini as the former is diesel and the latter petrol and both have the aerodynamics of the side of a garage, but, the Volvo is not ULEZ compliant - which means add £25 pre week for the privilege of driving to the train station and back, of a little over £100/month.. or £1,200/year. Not only that, but to preserve my partner's no claims bonus, I have to make my partner the main driver on the Volvo insurance! Which means, unless I get another vehicle, I will lose my no claims history after three months - one month before my daughter hands us back the keys and heads off to to uni. So far, I am about £300/month worse off.. At least my daughter may pick up the tab for the petrool she uses now.. and she will also buy her own lunch (when muggins here drover her to work, we woiud stop and the local supermarket so she could buy her lunch - except I would pay for it). Still, wouldn't want it any other way!

Still considered the best grand final ever, look at what happens to "Dermie" on the first bounce:

Here's the article: https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/i-just-can-t-put-on-shoes-and-socks-dermott-brereton-s-crippling-legacy-20250606-p5m5ig.html And he says we would do it again, but go harder.. Definitely one in a million that attracted a lot of heat

Must have been a javascript error.. I closed the browser down as the submit button didn't seem to be working after a few clicks

How? The world is crying for leaders that lead.. not follow

Not only te USA for some of this:

BODMAS (something like it)...

Sadly, it is an expensive undertaking and if you lose, you pay the other person's costs (depending on any contributory factors of the other person).

I read or saw a TV/YT segment that in the Truth Social comments, most, if not all of the MAGA mob were backing usk, especially over the debt levels. However, I think Musk may be playing the issue poorly, because he is coming across as whiney, and also has as much as had his investment in political donations isn't paying off (used words like Chump has shown ingratitude when considering how I [Musk] had donated). For the day/swing trader in Tesla.. if he couldn't see the writing on the wall and got out or at least went short of TSLA the day, or shortly after Chump did his Tesla promotion stunt, or at least when the spat started by Musk (rightly) criticising the bill... as there was only one wau thay was goign to end, and it was pretty predictable what short term inpact it woud have in TSLA share prices. I am guessing he bought and drank the Kool-Aid on TSLA - maybe himself a MAGA maniac. Re the claim of Epstien files.. well, everyone is saying without proof, as if Chump has normally proffered proof for almost every claim he has made. In anycase, I may be missing something, but as far as I can see, the only proof would be to present the documents. And as they are as yet under wraps, he would be putting himself in a precarious position if he released them. My guess is the justice department wouldn't be as tiptoey to prosecute Musk as they were Chump especially as the senior court system is more or less captive to Chump.

My take on it is that a 2015 Telsa is likely to give you issues with build quality more than the battery itself. But, yes, battery technology has moved forward from 10 years ago. But, like any other car, you can check it yourself, or get a pre-purchase inspection of the battery.. though it would be at a dealer: https://www.racv.com.au/royalauto/transport/electric-vehicles/buying-a-second-hand-electric-car.html The good think about a high mileage EV is that they suffer less vibration than an ICE car, so other biths that tend to fall off don't, and of course, there is simply less to go wrong with an EV anyway. A nice last car can be an EV... a lemon of a last car can be an ICE. There are still cars that have faults in their engine design and build leading to recalls.. Buy a second hand one of those where the dealer no longer supports the recall/warranty, and you're as SOL as if a BEV battery dies.. And the costs to fix/replace can be the same as a new battery. When you consider how mature the ICE engine technology is, and the body of knowledge built up over more than 100 years, it is a little damning on how bad that technology really is that there are still basic design and build flaws. (SOL is 'Merican speak for ship out of luck).