Nice people thread part 4 - sugar and spice and all things

GDB2222

Can you imagine them trying to fire their guns, with their legs crossed? Of course they lost!

Couldn't run so fast, either.

GDB2222

One of the most inspiring articles on the www that I have read for ages. Guys, it's okay to be a geek with hobbies. Listen here : http://uk.match.yahoo.net/edito/index.php?mtcmk=080405&name=5/118/2498-surprising-things-that-make-you-sexy.html

vivatifosi

LydiaJ wrote: »

Today DS is 11. We are off out to collect a takeaway. DD chose to eat out when she turned 8 last month, but DS has decided not to. I expect he will want to watch either Star Trek or the Simpsons while eating it. A boy who knows what he likes and likes what he knows.

Happy Birthday Lydia's DS!!

In the words of Star Trek, Live Long and Prosper!

And in the words of the Simpsons, Aye Carumba!

silvercar

misskool wrote: »

went to optician, sight test and contact lens appointment, £50 lighter.

And contact lenses will be approx £200 mark.

I have learnt a very important lesson in my eye care this week. Don't blink else you'll end up £250 lighter.

misskool wrote: »

I have gone down the cheap route. And today, the woman in expensive local shop told me they had my prescription wrong.

I am practically blind with astigmatism so it's not easy to get it right.

Toric contact lenses? On a contract, should be about £25 a month max. If you get on one of the schemes from the big chains, you should also get discounts on the glasses.

zagubov

lostinrates wrote: »

At the time I didn't think to wonder what was different about the other eye:eek:)

I saw a video years ago about a woman walking around a brightly coloured room twice.

The colour of the furnishings were different between the two bits of film and the narrator pointed out that the first version showed the colours seen by someone with colour vision and the second showed what it was like to be colour blind.

The woman had made the film herself and arranged the colour schemes so that each colour in the first film changed into what the colour-blind person saw, in the second film.

She was colour-blind in one eye so she was like a human rosetta stone who could translate the colours for us.

Have tried in vain to track the film down ever since!

silvercar

LydiaJ wrote:

Today DS is 11. We are off out to collect a takeaway. DD chose to eat out when she turned 8 last month, but DS has decided not to. I expect he will want to watch either Star Trek or the Simpsons while eating it. A boy who knows what he likes and likes what he knows

Aah, that age where it is embarrassing to be seen out with a parent. It passes, the next stage is when they'll be happy to be seen with you, provided you are paying.

LydiaJ

Thanks for all the kind wishes for DS.

OK, I have a couple of questions for the NP.

1) I have a friend, single mother of twins aged 10, has been on benefits for a while but now looking for work. She feels her boys need her to be there at least some of the time, so she's looking to work part time, but of course she needs the magic 16 hours a week for tax credit purposes. She's happy to work more than 16 hours, but not full time. She saw a possible job advertised, but it was only 14 hours. She thought perhaps she could apply for it, and then if she got it she could look around for another part time job to make her hours up over that all-important 16. She went to the job centre, put forward her suggestion, and asked what would happen to her benefits in the meantime, while she was working 14 hours but looking for more work. If the job's hours don't fit nicely with school hours then she'll have to pay for after school club, and if she doesn't get help with that from TCs then she could end up worse off than she is on benefits. The job centre people said they didn't know. They said they'd get back to her but they haven't. I thought I might ask on the benefits forum, but before I do that I thought I'd just check if any of the NP have any advice, please?

2) My parents live in a house with a rather small front garden. There is a thick laurel hedge between their front garden and their neighbours' one. Recently it's been getting overgrown, so my dad went out to cut back his side of it. Once Mum comes home, he won't have time for cutting it again for ages, so he cut it back much further than he normally would. Near the centre of the hedge, he found an axe. I gather from what he said that it's the kind of axe you use for chopping wood, although I didn't actually ask him that. He says it's a really good quality one - better than his own, in fact. He didn't recognise it, so he assumed it belonged to the neighbours and went to return it. They've never seen it before either. Neither family has had any gardeners or similar working on their front gardens. My parents have been there more than 50 years, and the neighbours have been there at least 25 years. The axe looks obviously a whole lot newer than that. My dad's going to check with my brother that he didn't do any hedge chopping that my dad's forgotten about, although he thinks that's rather a long shot.

So, how could an axe suddenly appear in somebody's front garden hedge, and what if anything should you do if you find one?

neverdespairgirl

I'm sure this is a consequence of my job. But my first reaction is, "murder weapon".

LydiaJ

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

I'm sure this is a consequence of my job. But my first reaction is, "murder weapon".

Thank you NDG. So I am not the only one with a nasty suspicious mind, then. But then Friday is my afternoon off, and when I ended up on the phone to my dad this evening, it did come straight after an afternoon of watching crime drama, so I thought that might have unduly influenced my reaction.

Should he go to the police?

Davesnave

LydiaJ wrote: »

Should he go to the police?

Bearing in mind that a very good quality axe might cost well over £25, I would say so.

...And it's not the sort of thing that would be accidentally lost by people walking down the street, is it?