AMLinington

Certainly not in 'Artist's own frame', that's for sure! Although that being said, Banksy is all about the subversion, so really, him shredding his own artwork only adds to it's statement - he's making a statement about the art world, and so that statement and the shredded painting becomes almost a kind of 'performance art' or 'interactive installation'. Yes, on the face of it shredding something someone has paid so much money for seems like he's destroying it, but it's more like a phased development of the work. So to speak.

Not to worry - I was deeply appreciative of the Lanyards and Badge. It was my own fault for also not considering how pedantic Royal Fail are about sizes of letter these days. I think the new rule is 'if in doubt, stick 2 large letter stamps on and hope for the best'.

I received mine (Thank you!) but sadly it turns out a single stamp was not enough - I got collared for an extra £1.50 in postage. So I'd suggest sticking a large letter stamp on if you haven't already sent yours.

Probably because they've had it for years and it's super-classified....

I think a lot of people who don't have a close relationship to their pets underestimate the relationship and the depth of feeling. I had a very strong bond to one of my cats growing up and I was devastated when she died - I still cry. A pet is not just a 'dumb animal', they are a companion, a confidant, and often there is unconditional love - this is often especially poignant for someone who might be non-neurotypical (such as an autistic person) or someone who suffers from bullying, loneliness or abuse. I was very lonely growing up, and am only just now beginning the journey to an autism diagnosis - for me, Truffie (the cat) was more than just a pet, so I completely understand your feelings towards your dog. I know a lot of people struggle to 'move on' from the death of a pet, or feel they can't get another pet - for me, I will always have a beloved pet in my heart, but there is room to give a home and love to another unloved or unwanted animal, and often I find that giving another animal a home gives me a sense of purpose.

Post Surgery Update: Well. I'm a week post-surgery and whilst the surgery itself went okay, the pain management post-op was.... not great. Despite the pushy day nurse (who was incredibly lazy and CBA to look after the post-surgical patients on her ward) who kept trying to make me 'mobilise' and go home, I ended up staying the night once the night staff came in and the nice night nurse saw my chart.... Healing was going okay, but the last couple of days something has gone horribly wrong. The pain is increasing and I cannot take a deep breath without having to push on my side like I have broken ribs otherwise I get a pinchy pain under the rib cage on the right hand side. I should be able to be reducing the painkillers by now but I'm still taking the max doses - I was in tears with the pain earlier until I caved and took 2 Tramadol. I phoned the post-op helpline number and the doctor I spoke to told me I should go to A&E. Yeah, right, I can't even sit on the sofa in my house, let alone sit on hard plastic chairs for 6 hours only to be told 'we can't do anything for you'. A&E is a joke. So we've agreed that they are going to try to arrange an appointment with the surgeon tomorrow - it's possible that because my stones were small, I have a couple of 'strays' in the bile duct - which will mean a follow up procedure. My other fear is a hernia of some sort - which is a possibility and might account for why the 'popping' and 'pinching' pain is eased by me holding my ribs and pressing firmly on my side when I breathe in. But they'll need to give me an ultrasound to find out. Either way, I'm not at all as 'up and about' or 'completely okay' as all the other stories in this thread, so clearly there is something wrong. I shouldn't be in this much discomfort. Post-op wasn't fun, not gonna lie. Until they gave me the 'good stuff' I couldn't even breathe in properly, so I'm not thrilled about the idea of follow-up surgery, but at least I know what to expect - it wasn't exactly unbearable - the 'episodes' were, in fact, much MUCH worse. As for the little wounds - a couple of them had epic bruising that is still sickly-yellow now, but they've mostly been pretty good - not at all as sore as I thought they might be. The only one that is really annoying me and actively hurting is the belly-button one where they actually extract the gallbladder - that one has a massive bruise and is pretty sore all the time. I've had a couple of people tell me that they were 'back to work after a week' - I don't know how - I can't even bend properly at the waist, let alone drive, and every time I try to venture out of the house (LeHusband took me up to the local ASDA to return something and buy another pair of these lovely PJ's they have in their Tickled Pink range) I get all fainty and woozy and the pain starts to amp up again. Although I'm not 100% certain that doesn't have something to do with the Tramadol - every time I take it I feel a bit dizzy and go all sweaty and clammy. But 'sweaty and clammy' is about a million times less horrible than the Codeine-related side effects so I'll cheerfully live with it. The other meds are Naproxyn and Paracetamol - both of which have no ill effects (well apart from the gastric irritation of the NSAID, but I'm considering downgrading it to Ibuprofen because it seems to be the Tramadol that is really doing all the heavy lifting where my pain is concerned. So all in all, not as bad as I was expecting by a long shot, but I could really do without whatever these complications are.

Spoiler free opinions on the new series of GBBO: Sandi and Noel still aren't quite meshing. Prue needs to be a bit more brutal. The producers seem to have bent over backwards and stuck their heads up their own posteriors to make this series aggressively diverse. It's not even like naturally diverse, it's verging on positive discrimination. The diversity is being thrust in our faces at every opportunity and I'm already vaguely annoyed at how obvious Paul Hollywood is being at favouring certain contestants. I feel sorry for perpetually worried Steampunk Moustache man. I get the feeling he's only there to tick the 'older quirky white male' box. I really hope he knocks it out of the park in the next episode otherwise it's just painful. Irish woman looks like she's about to dissolve into a trembling pile of tears at every second - I get that it's nerve wracking, but I think the judges went easy on her because they were scared she might collapse or faint. Ruby is clearly the 'eye candy' of the season - she isn't without skill, but she's ambitious and time is not her friend. I expect she'll continue to perform erratically - with excellent performances or terrible performances and not a lot in between until the point comes where she just doesn't do enough to scrape through. Handsome beardy bollywood dancing guy is fun - he doesn't take himself too seriously so I hope he stays in for a while. His flavour ideas are interesting but whether they work out will remain to be seen. Nuclear science guy is all the tropes, but his flavours interest me. French girl will probably win. Bryony has talent but they're trying too hard to be gentle to her. She achieves more than some of the others combined, she doesn't need the kid gloves - she's a strong contender. Glasses woman is a bit cocky - I think her arrogance is already making her unpopular with viewers if the seething hate on Facebook is anything to go by. She comes across as a bit smug, and Crisp-gate is already a thing. But we've only seen one episode, and we all know how producers love to edit shows to show people's bad sides. Whatsherface-Joy is a bit of a wild card - she could go either way. The other 3 guys just kind of blend into the background, but then I didn't like how the editing was done - we didn't really get to see an even amount of everyone. I can't even remember their names. I wish it was still on the BBC - I think Channel 4 are trying to make it all edgy and dramatic and are trying to create drama where there isn't any - like Crisp-gate. Also, is it just me or does this series seem a bit more... invasive? We see and hear slightly embarrassing or borderline inappropriate details about the contestants - like how Nuclear Science guy talks to his parents in India every day and they tell him to shave his beard and he says he won't because he looks fat. Do we need to see that? There will be another Baked-Alaska-gate - guaranteed - and I suspect the culprit will be Glasses woman (not Hyphenated-Joy, the other one). She seems to be getting on California Dad's nerves so either him or Steampunk Moustache man will likely be the victims.

When I was a kid there was a Gateway in the village - they used to offer cardboard boxes, then when Netto was a thing, they ONLY offered cardboard boxes for a long time. I don't understand why UK supermarkets don't use paper grocery bags like they have in America - surely it can't be a cost thing if a country as huge and populous as America pretty much have them as standard? Primark use paper bags too - PRIMARK of all places. I've said it before and I'll say it again - if shops as diverse as Primark and Monsoon can offer paper bags, then why is it such an issue for all the other high street chains - M&S and John Lewis should be ashamed of themselves - I remember a time when John Lewis (back when it was Tyrrell & Greens) used to have small paper bags. WHSmith used to as well. Paper bags are excellent and could be sustainably sourced and made using a high % of recycled cardboard - I've seen the cardboard compactors in the warehouses of major supermarkets *cough*looking at you ASDA*cough* - I kid you not - those things are monstrous and absolutely stacked out with cardboard - how hard would it be for supermarkets to send their waste cardboard to be recycled into their carrier bags? Obviously I support the reusable-bag movement, but even the most popular and readily available ones in supermarkets are still made of some form of plastic - they will eventually end up in the Ocean too. Jute ones are okay, but they are small, expensive, and usually lined with plastic too. I have some lovely cotton and canvas ones - but again they are usually pretty small. I have boot-full of those Blue and Green ASDA bags because inevitably we never take enough bags in with us. We have a rule in our household - however many bags LeHusband thinks we need, always add one. Even so, Plastic Bags are the tip of the iceberg - I was looking around the supermarket the other day and the amount of stuff that actually requires plastic is astronomical - as a society we've moved away from the 'local shops and markets' model of buying food - we live busy lives so we don't have the time (or inclination) to go food shopping daily. My mother vividly remembers walking to the shops with my grandmother every other day or so and going to the butcher, the bakery, the greengrocer, the haberdashery, the hardware store, etc. She recounts tales of first learning about the Rabbit meat in her mother's Rabbit Pie by seeing rows of Rabbits hanging in the butcher's window. When I was a child, my mum was a 'stay at home mum' - even then it was getting to the point of almost not being affordable - my father used to work two jobs - he'd come home from working on a construction site, have something to eat, then go out and work as a shop fitter until 1 or 2am, come home, get a couple of hours sleep, then be up at 5 for his 'day job'. In the end, it was killing him so Mum had to go back to work and started out working Night shifts (she was a Neonatal midwife). We used to buy bread from a local bakery that closed years ago, and there was a 'corner shop' that we went to all the time for fresh ham, cheese, and some greengrocery produce. But now as a society we need our food to last longer - we need it to be packaged to last - if bread wasn't wrapped in plastic, it would go stale within a day. Milk deliveries became unreliable and prohibitively expensive. If you're out at work all day, the milk sits on the doorstep getting all warm and gross - assuming it doesn't get nicked. So we buy our milk at the supermarket in plastic bottles. It might be nice if you could buy it in glass bottles and return the bottles for a deposit refund, but can you imagine how much of a PITA that would be? Supermarkets wouldn't be able to handle it. We buy other dairy produce in plastic too - Yoghurt, cream, cheese - years ago, Brian of 'Brian's Corner Shop' would wrap the chunk of cheese my Mum bought in wax paper. How would we store yoghurts if not in plastic? Glass? Again with the recycling. Cream is no longer something you pick up from a local shop in your own jug like my Nan used to. Or even siphon off the top of your milk delivery. And what about meat? We don't buy our meat from a butcher any more - we need it wrapped properly to prevent contamination. It needs to be sealed because multiple people will pick up a package and handle it. Anything that goes off or goes stale if exposed to air needs air-tight packaging - what can do that other than plastic, rubber/silicone and glass (which would still need a foil or plastic top seal). Anything 'fresh' needs to be protected from the bacteria-ridden paws of the unwashed masses (seriously, Hazmat ought to quarantine half the people that come into our local ASDA). Glass is costly and impractical. All the while our society continues in this direction, we will not be able to rid ourselves of our reliance on plastic. It seems to me that we should focus less on trying to eradicate it, and more on making the recycling and collection of it more robust and resilient - how many loads of recycle bin collection have been dumped in landfill because local authorities don't have the infrastructure to deal with parts of it?

Update - apparently that receptionist is 'no longer employed by us'.... XD I clearly wasn't the only one to object to her approach.

I am irrationally enraged by this. A poor workman always blames his tools. Printers are just machines - they spit out what you put in. If you don't proof-read your template letter it's obviously going to be printed as-is. It's ridiculous to blame a new 'printing system' for human error. I'm also irrationally enraged by the levying of fines to parents that take their kids out of school during term time - child attendance is becoming a rod to beat people with. It makes me so angry that people are getting fined for taking their kids out of school for a week - the government is poking it's nose in to yet another thing it should mind it's own business over.

If we want to be technical, plastic is a natural product - especially the stuff derived from crude oil.

Playing Devil's advocate, Haemorrhoid cream is basically an anti-inflammatory that reduces vascular swelling, combined with some effective local anaesthetic. It actually has many non-haemorrhoid uses including, but not limited to, reducing bruising - it's apparently very effective when applied to a black eye. Or so I'm told. Roll up cash and store it in a tampon tube ;-) Or fold it into some 'lady products' or a nappy. A bottle of lube? A tub of nipple cream? A bottle of prune juice or 'industrial laxatives'?

Seriously, humanity missed a trick with Big Cats. We domesticated Wolves to help us hunt, but honestly Cats are much more effective hunters. The itty bitty ones domesticated themselves because it was a symbiotically beneficial arrangement - we attract rodents, they eat rodents, we let them live near us, they kill rodents. Win. But we ought to have domesticated Big Cats really - can you imagine how awesome it would be to have a pet Panther? Or a Jaguar? Or a Leopard?

Have fun today all. Sorry I can't make it :-(. Unforts working for a Uni means we actually work all year 'round. The students get a summer break, but we don't.

I've been desperate for a lanyard for years - I never get to go to BETT because I can't justify it for my job role (and I'd probably freak out at the crowds), but one of my colleagues in a different team got to go this year and I strong-armed her into bringing me back a Lanyard so now I have one and will likely wear it until it falls apart - it's already looking a bit dye-stained around the neck from where it's rubbing against my dark clothes. There was talk of an online shop but I don't think it really went anywhere. Maybe Edugeek ought to have an etsy listing or something?

Reading all the accounts of others who've had Gall bladder surgery has really helped - thanks all :-) I've had GA before - Wisdom Teeth and a minor corrective procedure to fix a tiny deformity - so I'm okay about the anaesthetic side of things, I think it's just the first time I've had something 'internal' so to speak - Wisdom teeth were.... unpleasant, but you can SEE the mouth - when it's inside you, you can't tell if the pain is normal or an infection or what. The episodes of pain I've had have been brutal at times - 'passing out and vomiting' brutal. I can't imagine it'll be worse than that. I just think that unprofessional receptionist got in my head - the variety of experiences from you guys seems to indicate her experience is the exception rather than the rule.

I can't take codeine at all - the side effects cause me more pain than the pain they treat. I have a pile of Naproxyn left from when my back went so I reckon I'll be fine. Failing that I have the old 'Rock in a sock' method XD

LOL yes - my mother said the same thing. We're going to wait until I actually have a confirmed booking before we make trouble for the booking team though lol When my mum rang them on my behalf (I was busy at work) she got the same horror story. Mum was appalled at her unprofessionalism.

I did reply - unfortunately I can't make it because I don't have leave.

She DOES sound interesting! I feel much happier knowing my surgeon is someone else. I realise it sounds unkind to judge someone on a past mistake - we don't know the circumstances, and we don't know what the outcome of the hearing was - he's clearly still practising. But he's been bumped down from 'Hepatic Specialist' to 'General Surgeon' which I suppose is the equivalent of a Cisco engineer being bumped down to a Service Desk role. But as the patient, I need to feel confident in the ability of the surgeon that is going to be rummaging around in my guts, and I did not feel comfortable about him at all. I learned long ago I should trust my instincts about these things because I'm rarely wrong. I feel much better now, and that's the important thing - it's a huge trust thing to put your literal life in the hands of others - the anaesthetist, the theatre nurses, the surgeon/surgeons - so I should listen to the nagging voice - even if it sounds irrational.

Update - They've put me on the list of a Frances Howse who is both a trainer and a registered specialist because I said I wasn't comfortable with the situation and that because I have an anxiety disorder, it wasn't going to be helpful for me. It's pushed the surgery back to the beginning of September but I feel a lot calmer about it.

Both excellent points. The rational side of my brain is saying 'If he has question marks over his surgical practice, they're going to be monitoring him vigilently, more so than if he did not' which my rational brain says is a good thing. The irrational, anxiety-ridden, depression-riddled side of my brain is yelling "YOU'RE DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMEEEEEED YOU'RE GONNA DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"

Well now I'm bricking it even more - turns out my surgeon is this guy: https://www.nhs.uk/profiles/consultant/3247059 Known for: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-34508108 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-30235084 Family of grandfather who died from operation by liver surgeon win compensationbattle | Daily Mail Online Duck. That. Ship.

I've had surgery before - I've had all my wisdom teeth done under GA. The GA is not the thing I'm worrying about tbh. It's more the post-surgery pain.

We're a University and we use 'Turnitin'. If that helps. I can't give you any idea of whether it's good or not, but it can't be terrible if a University use it.