Nice People Thread No. 14, all Nice and Proper

michaels

Yorkie1 wrote: »

However, for some reason water got into the Foss barrier pumping station so the barrier had to be lowered before the electricity was affected and the pumps failed

Wasn't that it had to be raised and left up?

And then we are into the politics as it seems the Tories are talking about increased spending on new flood defences whereas Labour are highlighting reduced spending on maintenance of existing defences.....

Yorkie1

kabayiri wrote: »

Les Mis is on Film 4.

A visual treat...but I'm not allowed to put the sound system on louder than half way . When I see a cannon firing, I expect to hear and *feel* a cannon explosion!!

DS is singing away to all the songs.

Seeing the show in New York was possibly our most expensive treat, but worth it IMO.

Fave shows/musicals NPs? [esoteric answers are allowed!]

I love Les Mis and Miss Saigon.

Joseph has a very special place in my heart, and I also enjoy Oklahoma!

There are also some vague memories from probably 30 years ago of 'Salad Days' - probably a show at a school my Dad was involved in!

michaels wrote: »

Wasn't that it had to be raised and left up?

And then we are into the politics as it seems the Tories are talking about increased spending on new flood defences whereas Labour are highlighting reduced spending on maintenance of existing defences.....

I suppose it depends on how you describe its operation.

When there's no flood risk, the main barrier is horizontally above the river:

Like this

When there's a flood, it is moved downwards so it is vertically against the river:

Like this (seen from the Foss side)

It was brought into operation when the rivers started rising, but then had to be taken out of operation when the water threatened the electrics.

Yes, flood defence funding is a very hot potato politically. I saw a graph which showed the amount spent since 2009. It went up significantly in 2010 & 2011, then dropped dramatically for the next couple of years and is only starting to go up a little again now.

Even when funding is granted, it's then a very difficult task to get the right schemes in place. It takes years to find the right combination that will provide the best available defences for the money available - and that will get through local planning without objections!

A friend of mine has previously worked on schemes where tree planting in catchment-areas slowed the run-off so much that flooding was successfully reduced / prevented. There was a recent article about one such scheme.

There are constant demands for rivers to be dredged, but that is now almost universally condemned by scientists who know about these things.

In other news, why can't laptop / tablet etc keyboards have the Insert, Delete, Home, End, Page Up, Page Down keys in the same sequence as each other. I've just spent 3 weeks on one machine, and keep pressing the wrong keys back on my usual laptop (and will have further problems on my work laptop tomorrow) :mad: [/end rant]?

silvercar

They are going to have to do something about the flooding in relation to HS2.

LydiaJ

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

It appears that "a couple of hours a day" throughout the holidays may have fallen victim to procrastination/hangovers.

Ooops...

Me too. Well, not the hangovers. But the procrastination, definitely. Glad I'm not the only one.

Tried to log into school's computer to make sure I'm ready for inset tomorrow. Can't remember my password. They make us change them too often, and then over the school holidays I forget what my most recent one was. Oh well. I should be in before 8am, and I doubt the meetings start until 8:30, or more probably 9am, so I should have time to go to IT support and get them to reset it.

Yorkie1 wrote: »

There are also some vague memories from probably 30 years ago of 'Salad Days' - probably a show at a school my Dad was involved in!

We had the record of that when I was a kid. Unusually for a recording of a musical, it includes a fair amount of dialogue rather than just the songs. I listened to it so many times I knew all the words. Probably just as well that I didn't understand most of the "Cleopatra" song.

Generali

We do c.$200 on a family of four. That's not a lot considering food prices in Aus.

Generali

Ooops, I promised PN I'd translate funny money etc into £ and LBs.

AU$200 is a bit under £100.

Oh I also lost about 2-3kg (5-7lb) over Xmas which is nice. . I didn't really have time to make much in the way of puddings and I'm not a massive fan of bought ones. Forgot to buy cheese. Stuck to mostly veggies when I had big meals.

michaels

Remembered to buy my train ticket online (I forget a ridiculously large number of times considering what a pain it is to queue up in the morning and tomorrow's will probably be a biggie - although funnily enough there are a couple of machines on the 'other side' of the station and if there is a queue it is much quicker to go round to the back than wait at the front).

I have just bought unemployment insurance and am buying my tickets a week at a time - I have lots of confidence in what the new year holds.

Procrastination has won on the tax return - back in July I actually did all the calcs, all I actually need to do is find the invoices and then run everything past an 'accountant' just to check I have done it right as it is 20k owing. I guess one evening this week.

On a scale of 1-10 my not wanting to go back to work tomorrow is an 11

Spirit_2

The flash flood we were caught up in whilst in Sicily in October was very scary, torrential rain on the motorway and a feeling of relief when we left to take the smaller roads up to our hotel. We were engulfed within minutes. Watching tyres float by and raging torrentsabove the crash barriers was not to be repeated experience.

To NP suffering from current floods, my sympathy

CKhalvashi

PasturesNew wrote: »

I don't know if I lost any; I didn't gain any, probably.
Good thing really, if I lost much more my jeans would need to be labelled "age 10".

My jeans are far too tight, so I've put some on.

After a week of stuffing my face and drinking an average of about 10 units of alcohol a day, I'm not surprised, though.

Probably will be back where I was in about March, and won't touch booze again until the summer, as seems to happen every year.

silvercar

I have just bought unemployment insurance and am buying my tickets a week at a time - I have lots of confidence in what the new year holds.

Assume the insurance came with cashback bigger than the payment?

You are missing a trick with the season ticket, if you find circumstances change you are allowed to cash in the unused portion of a season ticket; so you could hedge your bets and buy the longer ticket for the savings.