I want one of these - a boiler that knows when it's going to break down...

https://recombu.com/digital/article/british-gas-trials-hive-ready-connected-boiler-that-reports-faults-on-its-own#

British Gas is trialling broadband-connected boilers which can report faults automatically and connect to Hive smart heating.

The boiler from Worcester Bosch connects to your home broadband and reports to British Gas customer service to detect faults even before it breaks down.

Ah, so the gas man cometh ... good luck!

Stop cocks never work when required - apparently we should be doing tests on them at  intervals, turning  them off and on again or they seize up - bit like football managers' common sense .

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/russian-navy-fleet-ships-destroyer-flagship-sailing-towards-english-channel-syria-planes-nuclear-a7368911.html


A reminder of British sea power is needed.

Boaty McBoatface should be sent at once to challenge these insolent Russians - and if necessary escort them from our waters. How dare they swan about like this in our Channel?

Actually, to be deadly serious about this, BBC News has just had Paul Beaver, the naval historian, speaking about this show of naval/military strength from the Russians. Their extremely big boat is apparently in international waters and they have therefore a right to sail through the English Channel. One notes that they could be seen from Dover. It is, however, according to Beaver, a very unusual route for them to take - if they are, as everyone supposes, on their way to Syria to bomb some more hell out of innocent civilians there.

Just how worried should we be by this development? The French aren't best pleased either, by all accounts.

If their intention was to twist the lion's tail then that unusual route was necessary since it was deemed 'economical' to leave the UK without any marine surveillance aircraft since 2011, so if they hadn't been visible from the coast we might well not have noticed they were there.

The nine new (American) replacements for the scrapped Nimrods should be arrive around 2020 but if past experience is any guide that will really be 2030+ and at three times the £2.9 billion budget.

We've had over 240 years to get used to same. The first time a Russian fleet took such a journey was when the Baltic squadron of Catherine the Great's imperial navy sailed by on its way to the Eastern Mediterranean and subsequent victory over the Ottomans at the Battle of Chesma in 1770. That engagement was spearheaded by Captain Samuel Greig, a Scotsman in the service of the Russian empress.

Meanwhile Englishman Captain James Cook was on the other side of the globe in the Pacific Ocean, charting the coasts of New Zealand and Australia etc. Different times.

These days, alas, Great Britain is represented by this sort of pillock:

The British tizzy over the Russian ship was quite funny really, what a lot of fuss over nothing. The Russians were in international waters so have the right to sail where they please, just like everyone else.

Russia have a naval base in Syria so it is doubtful that the ship was sailing there, and if they were sending another ship to Syria then they'd use the Dardanelle route like they always do. Not the long way around through English Channel.

Although it is more than a bit rich to hear the UK press whinging about the Russian bombing of Syria I must say, considering they are there too ....er bombing in the grand and daft regime change scheme of certain nations. And we won't mention the poor civilians of Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya........

Well, that naval historian bloke said the Russians were definitely trying it on a bit, ID. Propaganda and all that. We were all duly appalled, outraged and thoroughly tizzed: we here in the Septic Isle do love a good tizz, as you well know. But the Russian big boat has disappeared into the Med now, so that's all right. Our dear little Boaty wasn't needed after all.

70 migrant "children" have arrived just up the road from me. Ructions here, I can tell you.

Outrage, Christian and othe, all around me all day. Torrington ( ) on the tele last night. Crikey - whatever next? They'll have me on BBC News tonight maybe! How should one respond? Save the Children, I say, but the very little ones actually stuck in Syria - and their parents. What an appalling mess all this is.

The BBC found an excellent local "peasant" type last night -  Shakespearean West Country accent and all - to put across people's "ignorant" yokel views. Not exactly fair, balanced, unbiased reporting. Hot topic in Lidl's in Torrington today - the muesli aisle was buzzing with it all.

Sent in error - deleted.

Theresa will have to change her website;

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cvm5MFwWAAAwh-Q.jpg


NB: Theresa May and Teresa May are two entirely different people.

Now I'm as big an admirer of the chcolatier's art as the next person but, a chocolate kilt? Why? Not to mention chocolate boots, socks, hat, feathers, broach, sporran, sword and shirt buttons. It's fortunate that our climate tends to the cool side but given the Scots' famously sweet tooth, what could possibly go wrong?

Dehydration? Taking a tiny  dram of anything might lead to a wee,wee-wee problem. Just thinking.

Temperance wrote:

Well, that naval historian bloke said the Russians were definitely trying it on a bit, ID. Propaganda and all that. We were all duly appalled, outraged and thoroughly tizzed: we here in the Septic Isle do love a good tizz, as you well know. But the Russian big boat has disappeared into the Med now, so that's all right. Our dear little Boaty wasn't needed after all.

70 migrant "children" have arrived just up the road from me. Ructions here, I can tell you.

Outrage, Christian and othe, all around me all day. Torrington ( ) on the tele last night. Crikey - whatever next? They'll have me on BBC News tonight maybe! How should one respond? Save the Children, I say, but the very little ones actually stuck in Syria - and their parents. What an appalling mess all this is.

The BBC found an excellent local "peasant" type last night -  Shakespearean West Country accent and all - to put across people's "ignorant" yokel views. Not exactly fair, balanced, unbiased reporting. Hot topic in Lidl's in Torrington today - the muesli aisle was buzzing with it all.

Ah propaganda, ain't it great? We've currently got 3 US war ships in harbour (2 on Crete and 1 in Pireaus) in a fine display of military hardware north and south, and last month it was the British (I bet your press/military forces didn't tell you about that) and a US (again) aircraft carrier, and Obama himself no less will descend from the heavens in 2 weeks. All a fine bit of propaganda aimed at Turkey (Erdogan has been a very naughty boy) and Russia (Putin is always a very naughty boy apparently) who often chugs past too and from Syria. I'm sure the Americans and Brits did/will do the two fingered salute when they sail by. Russia's little trip down the Channel could have something to do with the Brits and US also being a tad provocative themselves?

An appalling mess it all is indeed, we've currently housing 60,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees more than half of whom are women and children travelling alone. And more arrive daily still. These people are desperately in need of shelter until they can return home and we do what we can even though we're broke and have minimul assistance, so it is a little difficult to feel sympathy for the well fed, comfortable and safe having a nervous breakdown over a mere handful. Whatever happened to Christian charity?

But we're reaping what we've sown in the ME and Africa, what is so disgusting is that no-one will claim or face responsibility.

You've never understood my irony, have you, ID?

I am all for helping helpless women and children, as are most decent British people, of any faith or none. However, as one irritated person said - in reply to Paxo's, "Have you no compassion?" - "Of course we've got compassion, but we don't like p*ss-takers." Others have said the same, noting that the bleeding heart luvvies, who often have enormous wealth and several properties, are quick to prescribe to us our duty, while they actually do very little to feed and to offer shelter to these "children". How do we define a child? That is what has caused the fury here - young men - although no doubt angry and traumatised - are not helpless, terrified children.

Charity, Christian and secular, is doing very well in the UK. People on the whole try to be generous - and it's often folk who are not rich who do the most. My particular charity is Save the Children, an organisation which, despite the nightmarish dangers and difficulties in Syria, still has people on the ground there trying to help those (often the poorest - the middle classes have had the funds to get out) still trying to survive in that God-forsaken land. A political solution needs to be found, and no-fly zones that all the warring factions honour established, but that's not going to happen. The problems seem so complex and the politicians appear as useless as ever. Good will has disappeared everywhere, or so it would seem - but not towards the genuinely helpless and dispossessed.

It is indeed an appalling mess in the Middle East, but lots of reasons surely for the mess - some, I believe, tribal going back generations in those unhappy countries. Lawrence of Arabia, incidentally, warned that the Alawite branch of Islam could be the cause of enormous problems in the Middle East. The Sunnis hate the Alawites and the loathing is reciprocated. Not that I pretend to understand any of this - I wish I did.

But perhaps I was wrong to mention what has happened here in Devon. Unpleasantness all around at the moment: I certainly don't want to court it here. Robust and well-informed discussion of the migrant problem is one thing, but things so often turn nasty when this sensitive topic is raised. Mea culpa. I'm getting too old and weary for nastiness, I'm afraid. Advice to self: do what you can to support Save the Children and keep your mouth shut here and elsewhere.

Yes, I understood your irony Temp, and was actually partly agreeing with you. But one might also ask why you would think that comments are directed at yourself? I wasn't talking about you, it was a complaint against those who would deny these people help whether in the UK or not, but particularly the likes of Hungary.

Do not get me started on the classic dismissal of responsibility by claiming the problems in the ME are 'tribal'. The fact still remains that whatever infighting was going on was contained very well under Saddam, Gaddafi and Assad. It was their removal (and the ongoing attempted removal of Assad) by the west that allowed the power vacuum to be created in the first place and we are where we are today and the innocent suffer as always. And the surrounding states like us who had almost no part in any of it are left to cope with the consequences whilst the main instigators wash their hands. It was never anyone's place to interfere in that which they know nothing about. 

I don't think there can be a well informed discussion on migrants until the conflation of migrants and refugees ceases. Perhaps this is why any attempted debate so often turns nasty? They are not the same thing, even though the right wing press like to convey it as such, it is a false use of terminology and it is denying those refugees (not migrants) that are here and now asking for assistance the very help that they so desperately need.

Islanddawn wrote:

I don't think there can be a well informed discussion on migrants until the conflation of migrants and refugees ceases. Perhaps this is why any attempted debate so often turns nasty? They are not the same thing, even though the right wing press like to convey it as such, it is a false use of terminology and it is denying those refugees (not migrants) that are here and now asking for assistance the very help that they so desperately need.

Ah, we agree on that, ID.

I probably feel horribly guilty, that's why I thought you were having a go at me. (Kenneth Williams and I have a lot in common.) I was called a "passive Christian" a couple of days ago by someone who is accumulating lots of Brownie points in Heaven and at the Diocesan Synod over all this. The comment stung, but I suppose we should always examine why we react with outraged indignation when we are criticised. Perhaps I am guilty of passivity - always a possibility. But I was sorely tempted to thump the smug so-and-so. I can't stand Bono either. Saving the world is a tricky business and I admit I'm not much good at it. Who is?

Passive Christians are a huge step up from the impassive ones, I reckon. You should have hugged them and thanked them profusely - passively of course!

Guilt is a strange emotion, rarely applied where it should, and all too often assumed where there is no logical reason for its presence and therefore no logical way out of the feeling for those afflicted. The Catholic church famously plays on this human frailty, providing an infinity of a posteriori justifications for those who feel it but maybe lack the imagination to populate it with past crimes. However for me the best defence against falling into such false assumption of guilt is never to apply an adjective, ever. So no more "horribly guilty", or "collective guilt", or "secret guilt" etc. Just guilt to be acknowledged only when it's really there, addressed as if it were a synonym for responsibility (which of course it is) and still no remedial action to assuage it until the analysis of that responsibility is complete (or at least started).

Islanddawn wrote:

Do not get me started on the classic dismissal of responsibility by claiming the problems in the ME are 'tribal'. The fact still remains that whatever infighting was going on was contained very well under Saddam, Gaddafi and Assad. It was their removal (and the ongoing attempted removal of Assad) by the west that allowed the power vacuum to be created in the first place and we are where we are today and the innocent suffer as always. And the surrounding states like us who had almost no part in any of it are left to cope with the consequences whilst the main instigators wash their hands. It was never anyone's place to interfere in that which they know nothing about. 

Like it or not, the mysteries of  tribal problems underlies much conflict. However, I agree about the interference and knowing nothing about the circumstances. The closer I got to such stuff the more confusing I found it.
The problem is watching from the sidelines and seeing what appears to be brutality and hard fisted control. There is a clamour for 'doing something about it'......... no one did anything for the dreadful anti semitic behaviour of the Reich which started long before war began.

Interfering do-gooders in such circumstances always seem  to foment even worse happening. One reason for this is the daft advice that governments depend upon. In the good ol' days. envoys stayed long in their foreign posts and soon learned where the dangers were. Now they shift about and the newly arrived  often get the most ludicrous takes on a situation. And they don't thank the old timers for pointing it out, either. Gosh, I and friends could tell a tale or two here.

Thus people get caught up in horrendous situations and no one with a clear idea what to do about them. But I am with Temps on supporting to the hilt any reliable charity working in the field of conflict for the hapless lacking the wherewith all to get away. And Medecin sans Frontier like Save the Children they do just that. Great work by brave people who need our support.

I agree with every word, Priscilla (gasp, shock horror), and especially the last bit.

Donations to Medicins sans Frontieres/Doctors without Borders/Leger uten Grenser can be made here. No amount too little to donate, and no little portion of that donation guaranteed to save a life.

OK, perhaps time to change the subject completely, although above have all been read with interest, especially the link to  Medicins sans Frontieres/Doctors without Borders/Leger uten Grenser.

Largely agree P except for a couple of points. I don't think the default WWII analogy necessarily applicable but here we go for better or worse. No-one did anything about the Reichs anti-semetism because everyone was largely anti-semetic themsleves and didn't really want to know. Newspapers from the time were not that different to today's hysterics over refugees when it was suggested the Jewish refugees be accepted.

And the removal of the 3 badies, well 4 if you include Afghanistan, because they were not very nice people was/is merely the justification to garner public support, it was never the reason. Everyone was happy to tolerate and do good business with them all for decades before, and indeed still do with far worse around the world. I don't buy that argument at all.

Yes Save the Children and Doctors Without Borders (although they did cease providing care to refugees in Greece last year in protest against EU policies being implemented, so they are not without politics either and a lot of good that did for those needing care) do sterling work, and they are the only two that I'd really support. Other large NGO's I wouldn't touch with a barge pole after seeing first hand their operations here last year during the refugee crisis. Tents set up with their names writ large across the side and packed full of bits and pieces for distrubution and the staff.........sitting on their arses in coffee shops watching the crisis unfold whilst the locals and volunteers did the hard graft and begged for assistance which largely went unheard. Even charity is big business these days.

I have deleted much of my message above: it interrupts an interesting flow of posts on the subject of migrants/refugees/charities etc., all really important topics on which people perhaps have more to say. I hope they do anyway.

Temp wrote:

How do we define a child? That is what has caused the fury here - young men - although no doubt angry and traumatised - are not helpless, terrified children.


Of course our hearts are wrenched by the children but I think there is a very strong argument for giving these young men priority as well, if nothing else for self interest in that large numbers of rootless, damaged and disaffected lads being left to survive as best they can with neither help or support seems like a dangerous as well as uncaring thing to do. It scares me to think what must be going on in their heads - they are teenagers or not much older with all that that implies. Many will have left family and friends behind or lost them in the war, how must that affect them in terms of their testosterone-fuelled attempts to construct their masculine identity and how vulnerable they must be to crime and radicalisation as they drift, rebuffed and demonised by what they had seen as their salvation, without any structure to help them?

I have no answers to what's happening but I am certain that the repercussions of 'the West's' inability to address this mass migration from the start and the wilful blindness of those who just crossed there fingers and hoped it wouldn't go on and then could see no other solution beyond 'keep them out' will be biting our collective bum for many, many years.

My 2 pennethworth from 50 years in the East. Ophnages -  the ones I know and which are often grim, Spartan  places but not always, send young men out into the world at 16. They have had a basic education, get a change of clothes, bedding and a few bits and pieces. Jobs of  a menial kind are offered but not taken for long. They soon disappear into the crowd and make shift for themselves with a confidence to do so that impresses. We employed numerous young lads (not orphans but asked to by their families) from rural parts where the land could not support large families - and - or so they said, the lights were not bright enough. The lure of city life and the search for opportunity is surely age old. Few stayed long with us though the money was good and they had their own  quarters. They were also immensely resourceful, prepared to rough it and obsessed with bettering themselves. The young Afghanis were even more resilient and found ways to get abroad. We cannot quite equate their strength with our own lads here who have, in the last 100 years anyway for the most part had a cushier start in life...... but many didn't even then and yet  did  not end up as disaffected adults.

Of children - say younger than 13, then that is different again and are who  are what most people envisage as the ones in great need of care and protection, and would truly like to help. But they too can become pawns in the settlement game. Families will thrust youths into such situations so that  they might eventually sponsor the rest to join them. My take sounds harsh and boorish,  yet I do know how very difficult to handle it is in situ leave alone for people here to have a glimmering of understanding. It is London the young men want - and if I know at all the resourcefulness of the East then it is London they will get - one way or another. Much was done after WW2 to care for the children in set up villages etc. If similar was on offer today, I doubt many would stay long unless they were entered into them young and raised by caring hands. 
I don't know the answer but will support the on site outfits trying to protect the vulnerable who are unable to make the great escape. 
It is fascinating to hear migrants tell reporters where they want to live.......there's a house I fancy myself not far from here, that's where I want to live but I doubt the owners will shove over a bit to let me.
It is a very complex situation - and no one even quite understands how radicalisation takes hold among the settled and well educated, let alone the down trodden disaffected. So what is to be done? I have no idea but I do feel for those who are seeking the best solution.

I feel trepidatious posting this after anything as serious as the demolition of "the Jungle" and its ramifications.  The hard part of me thinks - well, the people at who flocked there ought to know from just common sense that there are no free lunches and the UK is no Eldorado though I will concede that some of the former inhabitants of the camp probably are genuine refugees fleeing war zones.  I saw a documentary (forget the name) some time ago.  It seemed that a lot of these young men while being marooned at Calais had written a different - and quite false - message home about the wonderful time they were having in the UK and of course that encouraged younger family members or friends to take the same route and so on and so forth. I can't understand why anyone would send young children unaccompanied across Europe. But as Ferval rightly says seeing young children is such desperate straits does tug at the heart strings.  I don't always remember what I have posted on other threads but I remember my mother (who was a teacher) telling me that some displaced children in the immediate aftermath of World War II had been billeted either in (or in the grounds of, I'm not sure which) of a country manor type house somewhere and some of the kids killed one of the swans on the (I suppose) ornamental lake and cooked it over an open fire.  They were so used to having to forage and just do the best they could to get by  that they didn't abandon their "minimalist survivalist" skills at once.

I actually logged in to post about something much more mundane.  There is a brave new shopping complex that has been opened in my hometown - actually if one can get past how ugly the buildings are from the outside the shops inside do have more floor space than their discontinued counterparts did.  But another result is that the main street (which isn't called the High Street though that's what it is - it's called going from north to south Gaolgate Street, Greengate Street and Bridge Street though they are actually all different parts of the same road) now consists of far fewer shops than previously, a few offices, loads of coffee shops, a liberal sprinkling of charity shops and LOADS of empty retail units (the old M&S one is quite large too - though to be fair the new M&S does have more floor space I think).  I don't like to think of so much former "prime retail" space going to waste.  Though with straitened economic times I guess everyone's ability to indulge in "retail therapy" is limited to only buying something they really need.

Perhaps people feel uncomfortable about this, but I think Priscilla is talking good sense? She at least is being honest.

At lunch today it was decided that migrants and refugees were subjects not to be discussed.

They were discussed. Eight of us all jabbering away. I'm none the wiser or happier or more comfortable. Just got a headache and I wasn't drinking.

Perhaps my take on all of this is coloured by living in one of the most multi-ethnic parts of a port city with a long history of accepting and (eventually) integrating wave after wave of immigrants - highlanders, Irish, Italians, European and Russian Jews, Poles for the last 70 odd years, Indians of all faiths, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Ugandan Asians, Chinese, and most recently thousands of Roma people. There's several mosques, synagogues, madrasas and a stonking new, golden-domed,  gurdwara  as well as the usual churches of a variety of denominations all within a few minutes walk. The Hindu temple is across the Clyde though. When I queue in Lidl round the corner it's like the United Nations and I'm constantly struck by how much healthier the non-Scottish born's trolleys are than those of the 'locals'.

Yes, there have been problems, housing is perennially difficult and not helped by exploitation by slum landlords, often I'm afraid from the earlier immigrant communities, and education and health care have been stretched but somehow we have managed and Glasgow is still, most assuredly, Glasgow but on the whole better for them all coming

Of course there must be rational discussion of how mass immigration should be managed (and should have taken place years ago when it was so obvious that this was a major issue) but much of what is being said now is just mean-minded and entirely unhelpful.

Temperance wrote:

I want one of these - a boiler that knows when it's going to break down...

https://recombu.com/digital/article/british-gas-trials-hive-ready-connected-boiler-that-reports-faults-on-its-own#

British Gas is trialling broadband-connected boilers which can report faults automatically and connect to Hive smart heating.

The boiler from Worcester Bosch connects to your home broadband and reports to British Gas customer service to detect faults even before it breaks down.

Well, I, for one, don't want one of these. I want a boiler which, unlike the Worcester Bosch ones of relatives and neighbours, does NOT break down but continues to function. Ours is 30 years old, and, apart from its regular annual service, has failed once (and that wasn't the boiler, it was the pump that malfunctioned).

A rant about   my aged failing understanding of stuff. What does Mr Trump mean by saying he wants to make 'America Win Again.' Does that mean, Football where the ball is not carried? Darts? Miss World? another World War? better Dunkin Doughnuts? Better anything, come to that. People cheer loudly whenever he says that. They understand, I don't.

As I see it, Trump, along with Farage, Putin, le Pen and others, is articulating and exploiting a scream of uncomprehending rage from those who had seen themselves as part of the superior states and races, despite having been but cannon fodder for the industrial and financial complexes, and now as the centre of gravity moves inexorably away south and east and those jobs which kept them more or less afloat go with it, are thrashing around to find someone or something to blame. By setting up a 'them', the immigrant, the liberal elite, whatever, these utterly opportunist politicians channel all that discontent away from any positive response to a changing world and offer instead the unachievable dream of 'being great again' or 'taking back control' and thus bring everything crashing down.

'Workers of the world unite' - if only.


If you can access this it should be worth watching. I'm a huge fan of Rich Hall's documentaries.

Rich Hall's Presidential Grudge Match:

An examination of the sordid machinations involved in becoming president of the United States. Rich Hall looks back at some of the dirtiest and nastiest presidential campaigns of the past, proving that the 2016 race to the White House is not the first time the contest has got personal.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0828lpl

Thanks for the heads up, Ferval.

Rant:
In M&S for lunchtime sandwich, Christmas items being promoted already. It's only the 7TH OF NOVEMBER!!!!.

Christmas sandwiches?????

Surely Trump and Clinton are the final proof (if such were needed) of Douglas Adams perspicacity.

"The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.” 


ps Originally wrote "Surly Trump". Tempted to leave it but decided to edit it.

Deleted.

Quick, before the Beeb have it deleted:

Triceratops wrote:

Thanks for the heads up, Ferval.

Rant:
In M&S for lunchtime sandwich, Christmas items being promoted already. It's only the 7TH OF NOVEMBER!!!!.

The 2016 John Lewis Christmas ad comes out on Thursday and will no doubt garner only slightly less media coverage than the US election and more than whatever is happening elsewhere in the world.

Trike, have you been listening to these? The final one is on tomorrow night.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b080z2zd/episodes/player

No, not Germany in the 1930s but Liverpool St. Station, London, November 2016 and produced by the British Transport Police.

It has been removed but, dear God, what have we become?

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/165774/transport-police-poster-withdrawn-after-nazi-propaganda-outcry

It is unbelievable in a country that is still banging on about WWII to be going down the 1939 nazi route ferval. I still can't get my head around it.

Not only the similarities to nazi propaganda but it is an incredibly stupid poster, any swarthish looking person wearing a coat in the middle of winter for heavens sake would be reported by the paranoid, panicked and ignorant out there. Not unlike the Italian physicist yanked off a plane not long ago for reading funny writing (equasions) thought to be Arabic by one dunderhead.

In the meantime it looks like we're all going to hell in a handcart

http://newsthump.com/2016/09/27/global-study-finds-us-and-uk-neck-and-neck-in-battle-for-worlds-stupidest-nation/

ferval wrote:

Trike, have you been listening to these? The final one is on tomorrow night.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b080z2zd/episodes/player

I wasn't aware of these, Ferval. Thanks.

Meantime:

I will wait for comments about the US elections...

No my rant today is about a book I am reading...and I stopped in the middle of it...
I thought it was an historical novel as I am used to...but:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/nov/04/citadel-kate-mosse-review
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/citadel-by-kate-mosse-8274166.html

From the latest link:
"At the heart of the series lies a long-running quest, not for a sacred chalice, but an ancient Christian Codex – an esoteric manuscript said to contain the power to raise a sleeping army. In Labyrinth it was the 13th-century Cathars who were in need of its help, but in this final instalment Mosse pursues a more ambitious time-line, switching between the story of Arinius – a fourth-century monk – and the tragic history of Sandrine Vidal, an unsung heroine of the French Resistance."
"Back in war-torn 342 AD, Arinius is also facing testing times. This beleaguered holy man has been entrusted to find a safe haven for a document more "significant that all the knowledge contained within the walls of the great libraries of Alexandria and Pergamum." The fortified castellum of of Carcaso is his final destination – a place of safety for Gnostics and Christians."


And Kate Mosse as I now found out seems not to be an unknown novelist:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Mosse

With what I at the end got fed up, was in her interesting and well narrated novel of the Resistance in the South of France in 1942 the mixing of some myths, alternating with the Resistance story...from its first appearance in the story I didn't read it...and skipped every time again to the partisan story...not wanting to read about myths in a serious historical book...

Am I that abnormal, if you see the huge readers quotes, that I stick in historical novels to reality...I mean fiction that could have been reality...as I was used to from my former historical novels from 50 years ago...?

And you can guess it: The Da Vinci Code is a horrendous phenomena for me ...

Kind regards, Paul.

People so attached to having guns are bound to shoot themselves in the foot from time to time - and at national level with a loose cannon,  other people's also  So now they must  sit with a foot up and see who is cherry picked for high office and  how the  bluster action plan pans out. Four years might seem a long time - and, dear God, let there be no tampering with the time for re-evaluation. 
The next uncomfortable part is watching the papering over by those who expressed adverse opinion and who now must reconcile. That is part of politics. On the other hand, will Trump will do likewise?

ferval wrote:

The 2016 John Lewis Christmas ad comes out on Thursday and will no doubt garner only slightly less media coverage than the US election and more than whatever is happening elsewhere in the world.

And here it is;

Buster the Boxer

Calexit?

Surely that should be on The Daily Rave thread. 

This is appalling. How can Toblerone get away with it? Is it to punish us for Brexit?

It was all Paul Merton could talk about last night.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/toblerone-new-shape-outrage-chocolate-scandal-a7404011.html

This beanie costs £190. And, although the main part of the beanie is wool, the bobble is 100% acrylic.



https://www.net-a-porter.com/gb/en/product/742328/eugenia_kim/rain-faux-fur-trimmed-wool-beanie


How on earth can a company justify such a price for a small, unelaborate, knitted, woolly hat? What would Priscilla charge for such headgear - even without our 10% Res His Loyalty discount?

P. would charge nothing  for the actual hat but knitting for Res Hist then expenses are steep; there's counselling costs,(mine) old age allowances - several of those - rose coloured glasses  and sets for longand short sighted attitudes, repair of warped humour and then replacing a wall after the head-banger's antics. £15900.20 should do it  - add on VAT. p&p also. Then you have beanie hatted. Acrylic/acerbic bobbles and blunders extra. Academic wool out of stock - due to rushed order to Norway. Caution, do not wash - nothing comes out in it but possible suitable for shrinks and small minded.

We could have a special Res Historica beanie which all posters would receive, compliments of the management, after sending in at least two posts.

Priscilla wrote:

Academic wool out of stock - due to rushed order to Norway.

Fibres don't have to be academic, just not synthetic. And if you've run out of good yarns there's all that lovely woolly stuff I've posted over the years on the religious threads. You could unravel the lot - shouldn't take too long and I honestly wouldn't mind.

   
The official RH beanie would ideally sport a suitable motif. Posters could choose their own design, as long as Res Historica was also emblazoned somewhere on the headpiece - if you would be prepared to knit individual ones to order that is. But I don't think you do anything to order, do you   ? No rude motifs, mottos or words allowed, though, not even show-offy Latin ones in Latin.

Reused/unused woolly threads - plenty of those here  but some NOT easy to unravel. and often a tad thorny. Suggestions for a Res Hist motif, yes.  Crossed something (not legs.) perhaps? Members must suggest their own designs - of course I could get creative for you. Good thinking, Temps. Let's go into business...... on the other hand did you not wear a pink bobbled one on a visit to Norway? No good came of that, I suggest.