SpuffMonkey

I was 40 - had a cracking party - last wild party we had at our house. Managing an IT team and data collation team running mixed network of Novell (with Groupwise etc), Lotus Smartsuite (remember that anyone??) and Ingres running on Unix. I think the cabling was still the old coax with BNC connectors...

Shopping in Lidl, I was drawn to this Polish delicacy...for a moment...

Do bear in mind that values can go down and interest rates up - as I know from bitter experience! Although it seems like this will never happen - I don't think it would take much to flip.

Thanks - any others to look at?

Hi - as per title - can anyone recommend some decent free mixer/sequencer type software (to run on windows)? Thanks

Oh - and if you fancy homemade bread, but like me are on the lazy side of kneading - I found this works well No Knead Crusty Bread 3 cups unbleached all purpose flour (375g) 1 3/4 teaspoons salt 1/2 teaspoon Instant or Rapid-rise yeast 1 1/2 cups water (350ml) In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, salt and yeast. Add water and mix until a shaggy mixture forms. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for 12 - 18 hours. Overnight works great. Heat oven to 450 degrees (Mk 8). When the oven has reached 450 degrees place a cast iron pot with a lid in the oven and heat the pot for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, pour dough onto a heavily floured surface and shape into a ball. Cover with plastic wrap and let set while the pot is heating. Remove hot pot from the oven and drop in the dough. Cover and return to oven for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes remove the lid and bake an additional 15 minutes. Remove bread from oven and place on a cooling rack to cool.

Use mine 3 or 4 times a week - trusty Panasonic - can't eat supermarket bread anymore and there are no decent bakeries round here. My basic recipe is 500g bread flour (usually white) 1 tsp dried yeast 1 tsp salt 1 glug of oil 300 ml water In my experience - most problems of bread dipping or failing to rise are to do with hydration - pick your flour (I use Lidl's - 75p for 1.5kg) and keep fiddling around with the water amount until you get the desired effect. I like the Spicy Fruit bread out of the Panasonic book - toasted and heavily buttered! Yum! It makes a cracking bread & butter pudding too! Been making Marmalade today though with the last of the Seville oranges

I suppose it depends on what features you really want and why the WD isn't doing it for you.

To be fair - I have no complaints about my stay in NGH - this time round everyone was very helpful, though in the past I have been on wards that were not so good.

Had a bizarre phone call tonight. As some of you may know - I've had another spell in hospital recently - and this was Northampton General calling with an automated customer service survey! The only question was "Would you recommend the ward you stayed on to family and friends?" Maybe its just me, but that seems wrong on so many levels - I mean they could've just asked if I was happy with the care I received - but would I recommend it! - well better than a week at Butlins I suppose - but on the whole I'd rather my family and friends didn't need to go there at all...

Its hard to goosestep with udders!

Definitely don't speed on the peage as your time between entry and exit is known - your average speed is easy to work out - thats why you often see motorbikes and cars having a picnic near the end of a motorway stretch - they've driven fast and need to bring the average speed down. Oh - I'd recommend the chunnel over the ferry - its a lot less fuss and they are usually very relaxed about you taking an earlier or later train

Now you're talking!

It certainly reminds me of how much better off we are now - the car radios are marked up at £30-40 - I was earning under £25 for a 40 hour week in a factory - admittedly poorly paid - but that would mean the radio being around £600-700 nowadays! Sheesh! And what ever happened to freestanding hair driers?

Automatic all the way - I used to drive zillions of miles for work - and after the first automatic, I'd never go back to manual.

Hah! Though that's exactly the same keyboard I'm using at the moment!

No, they've not offered it and I've not asked (after reading about the after effects - as far as I can tell - if they cut, pretty much you can't lie down flat to go to sleep, as your stomach contents just flow back up your throat, though maybe its improved since I was looking) - hopefully I can put it off. As I say - I did have to reorganise my approach to eating - but it works for me - about 15 years since diagnosis now. All the best for Monday - let me know how it goes.

I've had it stretched a few times - but the risk of a tear increases with each time they do that (and a tear is REALLY bad news) - and the effects didn't last long. As I can live with it - I don't want to have the cut done as it leaves you with bad permanent reflux. I've cut out the more fibrous veg and fruit and the harder to swallow meat (shame!) and find I can mostly get along if I'm sensible - eating little and often and regurging if necessary ~(ugh). I found that fizzy drinks help things along, so I drink a lot of diet coke. I had been misdiagnosed for years and only found out when I was admitted for a different problem and they nearly drowned me with a nasal feed tube - deep joy! The endoscopies are a laugh (not!), and I guess my throat is pretty knackered now, but we stagger on... Oh - for the reflux meds - insist on the oro-disp lansoprazole which dissolves on the tongue - I could never swallow those capsules - they don't seem keen to prescribe the dissolvable tabs (sweet strawberry type flavour) - they must cost more - but I was given some in hospital and they were a revelation! Good luck with yours

I've got achalasia too - you don't hear a lot about it do you? Its a bit of a pain though, isn't it!

Or go to the end of the pier and see if you can see the sea... tbh I'm off there myself next week - to visit my folks - looking forward to an exciting week...

Could go and see the Egyptian exhibition - it got good reviews - thats as exciting as it gets http://www.theatkinson.co.uk/whats-on/museum/egyptology/ edited - wrong url

OK - at home I run a W7 (Home Premium) PC which stores all my music & videos - using it alongside a WD Live and various android tablets and phones. It has shares that "Everyone" has read access to and has been happily working away for the last 3 years...until this Tuesday...when all the shares have vanished from view to the other equipment?? I've rebooted (hah!), checked all the share permissions, disabled the firewall (Comodo), reset and checked the router (Draytek Vigor) and still nothing. I can see the files as media streaming - but not the folders - which is OK up to a point, but I share comics out to the tablets and other docs too Any ideas on what to check next before I enter the Google circle of hell by trying to shift the know nothings from the clever guys?? Cheers

As I recall - its Define what you've got Prioritise the order you're going to get it back and how State who is responsible for what Useful contact details And then TEST IT WORKS - I found that last bit the hardest of all in a school context - getting the budget and time to really do a full test was a real pita! I guess it should be a bit easier in these days of VMs to do the initial server restores - it used to be a real pain when the server models had changed a little bit and drivers didn't work - but the test highlights the bits you've missed - either from a backing up view, or from your plan for restoring access. When I used to do this in the commercial world, we would do it in a sealed room to make sure we had copies of all the requisite software and drivers, but now with the internet so ubiquitous, it should be a lot easier Good luck with it mate

Hi @speckytecky - I'd be happy to post up a new one - but I've been retired for 3 years - so I'm not feeling a burning need to update! :-) Always worth an ask though - its only a structure - you need to fill your own bits in anyway - all the best mate!

I guess it'll be OK for a while... My brother in law is pretty high up in Sefton - they've done serious cutting all round and it really upsets him that he's having to destroy all the good stuff he did before the cuts - and the cuts are nowhere near done yet. In his opinion - all that will be left of council services in another 5 years is what he calls "Chins and bins" - ie mandatory care of the old and rubbish collections. I suppose what you think of that depends on your outlook - but personally I rather like libraries, parks, youth clubs and activities, etc etc