AMLinington

Yes, his older brother (surprisingly) is taking it reasonably well. BIL has always been the least strong of the two brothers. LeBoyfriend has always been the one that has been there for his mum and dad when they needed him. It was such a harrowing experience though - I was with them all at the hospital and we watched FIL die - it was horrible but I don't feel as though I have any right to be upset or affected. My own family have been very supportive and my parents and sister came round and stayed with me while LeBoyfriend was staying with his mum for the first couple of days. I've spoken to BIL and MIL and they are both as helpless as I am to help LeBoyfriend. MIL is bearing up well under the circumstances but even she can't reach him. The situation with the coroner REALLY hasn't helped at all - it's just made him worse because now he's angry at the doctors on top of all that grief. His company employ a cognitive behavioural therapist and he's reached out to him for support and has been referred to a company-funded counselling service (which is brilliant - I was so relieved to hear that he'd asked for help when I got home yesterday), I guess I just feel a bit useless when he'd rather see someone else than share the burden with his life partner because I can't do anything for him. It's very hard to watch from my position at arms length.

No things were fine. We were trying for a baby. Funnily enough I just got a text from him apologizing for snapping at me this morning and for being so grumpy. I don't think it helps that the Coroner decided he wasn't happy with the circumstances of FIL's death so did an autopsy and discovered that he was riddled with tumors so he wants to hold an inquest to find out why it was missed when FIL was having regular X-rays and blood tests because of his asbestosis. It's all turning into a bit of a nightmare because I really think there is some negligence involved - FIL was having trouble eating back in November - he couldn't swallow, and the doctors just kept giving him antibiotics but nothing was helping and he wasn't eating. When he died he made concentration camp survivors look well fed - he was literally a walking Skeleton it was horrifying. I think they should have admitted him last year and put a nasogastric tube down so he could have been fed through the tube. What killed him was that the infections overwhelmed his system because he was too malnourished to fight it and it turned into pneumonia. Although the coroner has said COD was inconclusive. I keep thinking it's all been a big misunderstanding and they'll discover that he didn't die at all (which of course is ridiculous I know). The whole thing is so stressful. LeBoyfriend has taken it very very badly and I'm doing my best to support him and his family through this difficult time but he is actively pushing us all away. I know he needs space to grieve but it feels like a self-perpetuating cycle in that he pushes us all away to magnify his own feelings of grief and loneliness and guilt, then because he feels so terrible he pushes us further away. He needs to break the cycle on his own but he won't - it's almost like he's deliberately destroying himself. Sorry for unloading on here. I didn't mean to. It's just nice to be able to say some of the things I'm having to keep to myself.

LeBoyfriend and I were discussing our V-day plans and mutually agreed that going out for dinner was an expense (and calories) we couldn't afford so resolved to stay in and cook something nice then on Friday his father was rushed to hospital. By Saturday lunchtime he was dead. So I'm pretty sure my shell shocked Boyfriend won't even remember what day it is. Not that I mind over much. I just feel very very lonely - it's like my boyfriend isn't even here. Sharing a bed with me seems to irritate him and he keeps telling me to go and be elsewhere in the house - I have to get dressed in another room and creep about the house like I'm not even there. So V-day for us this year is going to be worse than usual. He's taken his fathers death extraordinarily badly and he's isolating himself from everyone. I'm one annoyed huff from moving into the guest room.

Yep. Same here. @ibpalle and I had a giggle over it.

I always think having skin options on a forum is quite fun. Personally I like the Blue because I find it easier on the eyes. Individually I think the RM colours are fine, it is the high contrast of the bright and dark that I think makes people's eyes go squiffy - if the theme replaced the blue with the mint green it'd be like the cool purple Bett one. Personally I find any high contrast themes difficult to look at and that is not limited to forums but to websites and even windows itself. On the flip side, there are people out there that really need the high contrast and find bright text on dark backgrounds easier to read (IIRC some dyslexics prefer this?). Having the option to change this and select a theme of your choice gives most people an option that works for them. Forums like this can only continue to run and to be the resource that they are through donations, subscriptions or sponsorship. Clicking a little button to change the theme is a small price to pay for free access to such an extensive resource.

I think they are all as bad as each other. FWIW I also have accounts with Halifax and at least whenever I phone them the person on the end of the line usually has a scottish accent. The Halifax online banking site is not as feature-rich as the Natwest one, so if I were judging my bank based on online provision I'd choose Natwest over Halifax simply because the online site allows me to interact as little as possible with the bank itself.

Funny. I'm with Natwest and had this exact issue. Never did find out what they wanted.

Irregardless - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia It is not a 'proper' word per se. Am surprised at the Oxford English Dictionary even listing it as it is usually referred to as a colloquialism or nonstandard. So I stand corrected. It IS a word, just not a 'proper' one.

With enough effort it already is... @witch brings up a valid point - when you go to hospital they should already know your history, allergies, currently prescribed medication but they don't and you end up having to go through it so many times with 3 or 4 different people - I'm sure it would help waiting times you know.

This. I wonder if it would be possible to project onto existing lenses instead of that little glass block...

Irregardless isn't a word btw. Just FYI. Having been subject to a referral to a privately run hospital (Care24) via the NHS and having received better care and treatment from them, in principle I have no problem with the NHS sharing my medical details for these purposes. When you take out life insurance policies they ask for everything anyway and having a mortgage without a life insurance policy is probably not wise unless you're rolling in it. So your medical details are already floating about in the insurance world anyway. I don't see a problem with having a central database - at least I know it is all correct rather than 2 or 3 different 'versions' of data out there that may or may not be accurate or up to date. I think selling the details are wrong if it is for promotional purposes but for the purposes of administrating care across providers I can't see an issue.

This article horrified me. I actually feel sick now.

I tried telling them I was an IT professional, I tried telling him I didn't even HAVE a computer in the house - nothing stopped the tirade of abuse. The only way I could get it to stop was to have my number changed. I'm envious of those of you that got off so lightly.

Yeah Virgin said the same thing. I did report it to the police but they said there was little they could do as it was an overseas number and they don't have the ability to stop them calling. Thankfully Virgin changed our number FOC and all has been well since. I feel sorry for whoever they recycle that number to though...

Similarly: Pinterest.com - this is a black hole that will suck away your time.

I have received one and it turned into a nightmare that resulted in me having to have my number changed. I answered the phone and got the usual 'I'm calling from Microsoft, a computer on your network is infected'. I called him on it and told him we HAD no computers in the house (we didn't at the time as we'd only just moved in). Then he said they'd been alerted by BT our supposed line provider (Our line provider was Virgin media). I told him I wasn't falling for the scam and hung up. So he kept phoning back and getting more and more abusive. I tried to ignore the call but our answering machine picked up and he was saying foul things. He asked me horrible personal questions and said he would get people to come around my house and rape me because I was a 'dirty wh*re infidel'. It was really bad. I kept hanging up but he wouldn't terminate the call his end so the line stayed open and he kept taunting me. In the end I pulled the plug on the phone line and rang Virgin from my mobile. I was in a mess. I was going through a really bad time as it was and suffering with depression and anxiety attacks and I was in a complete mess because he wouldn't stop calling. He said he had my number and would call us whenever he felt like it - at 2am, 3am, 4am. I was on the phone to Virgin in tears so they waived the number change fee and expedited my number change - it was done by the following morning (I left the phone unplugged until the next day). So far (touch wood) I've not had any problems with the new number. Hanging up on them doesn't work and nor does ignoring them - I used to come home to 3 or 4 missed calls every day from 'Out of area' and even though I asked Virgin to block all out of area calls they said they couldn't. It was only because I happened to be in early that day that I even answered the phone. It was a horrible experience that has left me wary to answer the phone. I keep begging my partner to disconnect the landline and stop paying for it but he won't - despite the fact that we both have mobiles.

I nearly died laughing. I should promote them to other Slimming World Members as a weight loss aid. I wish I knew if it was real though :-(

Yep, pretty much. The topless dancing girl popup made me shut the window REAL fast and we have a legitimate reason to have nudie rudies on the screen.

Just reading this thread is making my chest feel tight and the panic is looming. I really ought to stop looking at this forum.

You raise an interesting point and I agree that the internet as a resource is extremely valuable - PROVIDED that pupils are taught to properly evaluate the quality of the data. Everyone moans about essays written using Wikipedia - this is the same argument on a HUGE scale. If we robustly taught children how to evaluate the reliability of a source and how to navigate the data sources they find on the internet and how not to rely on one viewpoint but seek a balanced study or at least present both sides of an argument then by all means, the internet becomes the most comprehensive textbook in the world and I completely agree that the value of the internet in education is staggering. So yes, it IS 'close minded' to think that giving pupils access to the internet won't have an impact on learning, but it is also close minded to think that this would be effective without changes in the way pupils are taught to think. My concern is that we are NOT teaching kids how to evaluate sources robustly enough. Example: I do a Google search for 'Stem Cells'. Firstly, why Google? Are the Google search results unbiased? No, they aren't, because people with enough motivation and funds can afford to 'bump' their page up the list. So already, even at the SEARCH stage we have to bear in mind that the 'most relevant' resource may be there because someone paid for it to be. Should I run the same search across multiple search engines to 'normalise' my results? So then we move onto looking at the results themselves. Top result that isn't a sponsored ad? Wikipedia. Which we ALL know is peer-moderated so the validity of the information in the article is subject to significant uncertainty. Then we have government websites followed by news articles. News articles are written by journalists. Journalists have an agenda. So already, having just done a simple web search, I have to consider that the top results for the topic in question may not be the WHOLE story and I should seek multiple sources from multiple viewpoints - ethical, scientific, religious etc in order to build a more complete picture of the Stem Cell concept. If we are teaching kids this then yeah, go for it. But we're not. Sure, they learn a bit about it in GCSE History and Science teachers briefly touch on the subject here and there but if we want to implement a 1:1 internet-enabled device and actually use it appropriately and constructively then pupils are going to HAVE to learn that they can't take the internet at face value. A Mixed approach is a good plan, although more economically challenged cohorts will struggle and bullying will be rife if the 'top set' is full of kids with iPadX's and the 'bottom set' is full of kids with a patched up netbook running a hooky copy of windows XP. BYOD is great until you factor in theft and mugging - would you want the world to know your child was catching a public bus with an iPad in his bag? You can't expect pupils to want to store their own devices at school overnight - it defeats the purpose of the pupil having the resource in the first place. I can't help but think that at the moment we are swinging from one extreme to another - on the one hand we are looking at 1:1 provision in-house with everyone having the same, and on the other we are looking at BYOD with a vast array of devices and no guarantee that all pupils will have a device to bring. What is our middle ground? Laptop trolleys? A cursory glance at these forums shows countless posts complaining that teachers don't return them, they aren't charged properly, the trolleys are vandalised and damaged etc etc. I wonder if perhaps the classroom of the future will be 1:1 computers/tablets embedded into desks with cloud storage. Even then there will be challenges to address - issues with vandalism and theft. I don't think there will ever be an ideal solution until we can address other fundamental issues in the classroom such as behaviour but this is not a simple matter - this would mean addressing the degradation of society and we all know that won't happen. Kids don't respect their education and take it for granted. Perhaps if they had to earn it by working and paying for it themselves then they might...

It has rained solidly for weeks, but now people WANT a good heavy downpour the skies will stay clear and bright...

As someone who will eventually have children and will be hard pressed financially, if I found out that this £10 a month I'm paying per child, per device DIDN'T result in my child getting to keep said device, I'd be chucking the letter in the bin and buying something more sensible with the money. Like Lottery tickets or shares in Minidiscs...

This was my first thought too with the added bonus of an 'advanced' type of class where the pupils can build a virtual network. We have a training exercise here that involves setting up a bunch of Smoothies in various different networking configurations with VPNs and Hardware Failover and it always goes down well and gets great feedback.

This. With bells on. The whole scheme is poorly thought out and rationalised and I think @Garacesh is right in that the choice of device isn't based at all on any usability or feature comparison (in which case an Android or Windows Surface tablet might come out on top - particularly Windows Surface where domain integration is concerned) but purely on 'oooh shiny' and those magic catchphrases and photos they can put in the prospectus to dupe people into believing they are progressive and 'cutting edge'. I was the same as @Garacesh at school - we didn't have a lot of money and I never had the fashionable stationary brands or the latest shoe fad (Kickers for example) and I vividly remember spending my life on the outside because I just wasn't cool enough and whilst I wouldn't want my child to suffer the same fate, I can't afford to indulge these whims. The school should be funding this 100%.

Me too.... The main problem with the iPad and other devices of its ilk is that it is designed as a personal entertainment device. The OS doesn't support rigorous security lockdowns, it doesn't support integration into a domain environment and it doesn't play nice with proxies - 3 things that make them poorly suited as business or educational tools. The iPad in particular is unlikely to be of extensive educational use without additional costly applications. There are many wonderful applications available in the store for learning languages, experimental analysis, books and literature, but they all COST MONEY for the good features - will parents be expected to fork out for the applications too? Is it compulsory? Surely not? If my child brought home a form for a school supplied iPad at £10 a month over 3 years it'd go straight into the bin. Too many shortcuts are taken in education already and we're fast churning out a generation of people who have very few formal communication skills - most can't write a letter or tell the difference between the use of 'Yours Sincerely' and 'Yours Faithfully'. If the school want children to use expensive tech then they need to find the budget for it, not expect already hard pressed parents to fund their castle in the sky... When I did my PGCE I wrote one of my masters level essays on the topic of IT in education and my overwhelming feeling as a result of the work I did was that until a unequivocal benefit can be identified in using IT over other teaching methods, with empirical data to back it up, then we're simply using it for the sake of it. It's like NASA spending a fortune developing a 'Space pen' that works in 0 gravity when a pencil would do the same job.