A friend of mine is just back from the typhoon afflicted part of the USA and talks about alligators everywhere …
It is horrific. Glad your friend is safe. I visited beautiful Asheville only the once, and naively thought its elevation would render it immune to flooding.
Here in South Florida, we’re watching all this with increasing alarm. Hurricanes are certain to get more powerful and, possibly, more frequent. Anything requiring evacuation is a complete non-starter for us.
My grandfather was killed in one of these during ‘Operation Epsom’. About 10 years ago I met The Earl of Elgin who followed on with his tank regiment during ‘Operation Goodwood’. He was blown to smithereens and shipped back to a hospital in London, barely recognisable.
I talked to him about the Sherman and its weak armour. He told me that German high velocity bullets could pierce his tank walls with holes just the right size for the infantrymen running along-side to pass through a (strictly forbidden) cigarette.
The problem with that, he said, ‘…was that the holes were never big enough for my bloody cigars’.
G
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I’ll be interested in how you get on with Toob, Nigel. They’ve been installing fibre (and poles) in our local area and got so far as putting new chambers and ducting down our road last year.
A few months back when we were considering moving service provider, I registered interest with Toob but heard no more. In the end our long term provider, Virgin Media came back with a great offer so we stayed with them.
My friend’s husband work for a power company in Illinois and he’s helping out NC residence to restore power back working round the clock. I hope she’ll get the power back soon!
Ahh yes, sheep, the only animal to have a group meeting in the mornings to decide who is going to die for no apparent reason today.
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Toob were putting in the street level infrastructure about two months ago. I talked to them a lot about changing from VM. They were offering very good rates for more mbs than VM. We came up with two difficulties:
- Our hardware infrastructure was incompatible. We have VM; Toob would be using the BT ducting, which has been long gone because of modifications/extensions to the house - nothing against Toob, but they did seem unable/unwilling to work around our particular physical requirements.
- No email facility. VM serve our email (via Goggle I believe). Toob appear to be purely infrastructure and had no suggestions other than “use gmail”.
So in the end we haven’t switched. Shame really, as VM are now topping 50 quid a month. Whether we actually need the “900mbs” (from Toob) rather than the 137mbs we get from VM is open for discussion.
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That’ll put hairs on your chest Pete, or anywhere else they ‘re missing. Welcome back.
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Yet again I’ve managed to spend over £100 on a fairly basic shop at Aldi (some alcohol included).
I feel rather self-conscious when paying but surely I can’t be the only one. 
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We’ve got BT and VM ducting to the house so no issues there, but apart from the pricing lately, I can’t fault the service from VM over the 18years we’ve used them. They matched the Toob price for our TV/ Broadband/phone bundle so we’ll look again in 18 months when our contract is up.
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Yeah, over our 26 years at this house we had a seamless transition from Nynex cable->Ntlworld->VM.
And although VM prices may look steep, in these modern days, for “broadband only”, I would say that they “have delivered”.
And cheaper than Southerm Water or EdF! 
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Yes, good to see you back here; you’ve been in my thoughts and prayers, along with other friends battling the big C.
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Thanks Mark.
Bet it tastes twice as good as normal!
Great to see things going in the right direction for you.
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It actually did cause me a few issues and a caffeine rush I wasn’t ready for. I made the mistake of having on an empty stomach, won’t be doing that again.
But I certainly enjoyed it at first.
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A fun few hours spent in the excellent Wiltshire Museum, Devizes. This ‘Bush Barrow Chieftain’ from the Bronze Age, Stonehenge area, was buried with incredible gold bling. That gold lozenge was created to geometric precision based on sun alignment angles - amazing.
On a more negative note, why the heck is Devizes Castle barred off as private property and not accessible to the public? Big own goal for Devizes !
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The land has been in private hands for centuries, the current castle was built as a private residence in the 19th century, and I believe is currently two (rather huge) semi-detached properties.
Yes, I checked up afterwards what the situation was with the land ownership. A shame though, as it is such a natural focal point for the town.
Almost got my head bitten off by a couple of residents peering down a private road trying to even catch a glimpse of it !
My home insurance with Aviva is up for renewal. Decided to add legal cover after being reminded by Nigel of its usefulness in another thread. Well the chat bot was useless, finally found a phone number……automation on call put me through to pensions, despite giving our policy number. Nice lady on pensions put me through to home insurance renewals, new quote in seconds……
The human touch is so much easier. New quote with legal cover and no claims protection not really much more:+1:
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