I lost my watch at Leeds festival. It was a gift from my aunt after my uncle died and it meant a lot to me. I was gutted. Went and had a few beers, accepted it was just material goods etc.

Later that day went to see another band (less than jake) at one point they got the whole crowd to sit down, just before i sat i checked to se if there was anything i didn’t want to sit on, and there was my watch. Happy days!

Fast forward a few years, I’m at uni, I go to see a band at the union (Less than jake) I lose my watch again. This time i never find my watch, but as I’m kicking around the rubbish at the end i find £20, a bag of weed, a crap baseball cap and then went home with a pretty girl.

mints like Smint etc are a laxative.

if you don’t want a Ford, remember that the Sharan/Alhambra is also the Galaxy?

Nice enough motors, comfy, big, usual big car problems. I went for a touran in the end, 7 seat if i need them, huge boot when using 5 seats, built on a golf chassis so car like to drive.

Ford Ka is a simple beast, think the streetka et al had a 1.6CVH engine? Red simple things. Just rusty and electrical problems of any car that age.

Southampton boy. I was wearing my saints shirt to be fair.

red wire looks like earth, so will go to the jack. new jack is an easy install. Where abouts in the country are you? any one with a soldering iron can fix it, for peanuts.

have a go on etoro or similar. I aim to make $10 a day. pretty solid profit if i manage it!

having to tell the nursing staff that the lady in bed 17 was dead, and had been so for quite some time…

I’ll invest it in forex for you. I guarantee to give you 95% of all profits.

For what it is worth, I would suggest selling it as normal and then signing the V5 as the executer of estate. no need to add another owner. chances of the DVLA checking anything? Nil. new owner fills in their part, you’ll get a letter to confirm and send off V5. All good.

Sorry for your loss by the way, its these little things that cause the problems and no one ever knows the answers to. Try cancelling a mobile contract, thats a laugh a minute!

leeds has a pretty god salsa scene. full of foreign students, rum and decent music. Enough of a scene that there is club nights and stuff. keep meaning to go with the wife, but it never quite happens as she’s always ill/tired/can’t be bothered etc.

ok, my opinion, for what it is worth.

Chiropracters are good, in that you get immediate relief (usually) and then some ongoing treatment.
Physio is good in that it teaches you to manage your body to prevent symptoms coming back.
massage is good in that it helps to heal the damage to muscles etc.

I like the idea of chiropractic in combining all three, and when I’ve been to the chiropractor I’ve been satisfied, but as above, the further on the “course” you get, the less you seem to get for your money. There’s also all the hippy nonsense underlining it all…

editing my first report,all 23000 words of it. contacting an nhs trust to ask them if they realise they have an eye clinic as they don’t mention it in any of their literature.

I think you’re looking for a clown bike if you need a 44inch head tube?

Steel is real though, I’d be tempted to get something vintage and lush and build it up with modern components. I have a couple of old peugeot frames that i planned to do this with but never got round to

Feeling lucky that I was woken up by eldest screaming the house down at 4am, only to tell me he wanted some juice. This gave me the opportunity to get up and work on that report that is due tomorrow so i can spend the rest of the day playing in the snow with my boys!

I have always had nationally set salary, so anyone who wants to know what i can earn can google it.

with so many variables in fitness measures as measures of performance, all the numbers are of limited use when compared. Its like the fat measure scales. Don’t see it as an accurate figure, as it is only accurate to you and those scales, but it shows a trend if you drop/go up. VO2 Max, means nothing really, unless you want to see how you compare from before and after a training regime, in which case, so long as you use the same measuring technique, the number doesn’t matter.

my Marks and Spencers Brogues have lasted well being my main shoes for 2 years. Getting a bit tired now though.

Parker Flighter 45 GT all the way. I have a spare in the garden somewhere that my eldest took outside to play with and immediately lost. Fortunately brushed aluminium and gold plate means when I find it, it should be ok!

Can I be the first to say, 750 miles a week? Like 107 miles a day? 7 days a week? Buy an old steel tourer, and spend the rest of the money on massages and shorts!

Not Bradford.

Is that Harry Enfield?

you gonna poop! You’ll also be fine. c/o ex 111 clinical Advisor.

expensive watches are like cufflinks. entirely superseded by a superior product, yet still suggests a certain degree of style. A watch like that is a fairly sound investment. classic watches tend to creep up in value, where as property/hedge funds/white powder is a more volatile market.

start with some contact cleaner. Open her up, and blast a load into every pot whilst twiddling them (might as well do the lot!). Give it a visual inspection and see if any obvious cracked/broken solder/wires etc. Give this a try. If that hasn’t fixed it then it is probably the wiper in the pot. They tend not to be user serviceable and are cheap to replace, so either learn to solder for the new year or take it to any electrical repair place.

given the volume changes the pot seems the most likely candidate, but stereo/mono issues can also relate to in/outputs. so worth giving them a good check over too.

Bought the wife an iPad pro, an I pencil, a selection of gifts from LoveHoney, a nice scarf and also got the gifts for her family. I got some novelty cufflinks, to go with the other novelty cufflinks I got last year that I don’t wear.

I love Maplin for my silly electrical projects, but the shop is full of tat. I loved it when it was staffed by geeks who could answer questions, and was basically a trade counter with knowledgable staff. Last time i went in i wanted a double stack 250/500k pot for a volume in my early 70’s hifi. The assistant arrived on one of those hover board things, asked a few questions and then showed me to the push on knobs.

I hope they don’t shut because i’m in there at least twice a month, but they need to sell less tat and more weird specialist stuff from smaller shops.

Interestingly, this was posted on Facebook this AM by a friend:

Today a paramedic called REDACTED is leaving Yorkshire Ambulance Service. Sure, sure…he can be a bit of a cock (or ball), but he is also one of the smartest clinicians I know who was willing to put so much into his job. He trained hard in his own time and was invested. It’s a shame that this investment wasn’t mirrored by his employer because now they lose someone great. I hope one day soon, the realisation that good paramedics are leaving in droves due to a lack of support and a lack of progress make Yorkshire and other ambulance services sit up, take notice and do something. Things can absolutely get better. I hope they will.
Good luck REDACTED. Will miss you, pal. Our loss. Their gain.

speaks volumes

I was talking about this with my wife last night. I’ve always likened it to the Army. I joined when I was young and idealistic. I wanted to save the world, be a hero, make a difference to peoples lives, make things better. I saw it as an opportunity to be kind to people who rarely see kindness, bring hope where there is little and where nothing good could come form a situation, to try and at least do that bit right (That makes me sound a bit Jesus like doesn’t it? What can I say, i was young?).

I knew I’d see bad things, witness the worst of humanity. Some of that stays with you and some of it changes you. There are good moments too, and they stay with you and bring you a bit of quite, smug satisfaction when they come up (the guy who got all aggressive when he saw his girlfriend hugging me in a bar “who do you think you are? I’m jim, I’m a paramedic, i was there when you fell down the stairs.”). After a while it starts to grate though, you become a bit numb to it and forget that behind the pain and suffering and whining and moaning about tiny things are real people, real, frightened, possibly a bit thick, people.

Controvertially, the money is pretty good actually. Sure its not banker level, but I earn more than a Police officer or a fire fighter (or a soldier). I find £32k a year plenty and its a lot more than most people round here earn.

Progression exists, and is getting easier. I was a band 6 when I left (pay band above Paramedic.) In the past I have interviewed for (and sometimes got) Supervisor jobs, Helicopter Paramedic jobs, HART (hazardous area response team/go to the gym and polish your kit team), senior Advisor, training, advanced practitioner roles etc etc. Then the obvious step to management etc. ITs not as easy as it is to get promoted in Nursing, but that is due to sheer numbers. If there were as many Paras as nurses there would be more senior roles.

Back to the Army analogy, some join young and idealistic, some join for a specific reason, feel its their calling or for a total change of life. In the past few left. I left after 13 years and from my small ambulance station, I know of 12 other staff that have left in the last 12 months. Its too busy, there is little staff support, moral is low, public respect is low and crucially, there are now bette opportunities outside of the NHS. I’m not willy waiving, but I got a band 8a job. that was un heard of a few years ago, pure madness. but a new employer recognised the skills we had, offered great money and attracted hundreds of applicants. I got lucky.

I’d go back, I’ve applied for bank work in a different county, just to keep my hand in, i guess a bit like joining the reserves after being a regular.

I loved being a Paramedic but the time was right and I had to go. I have physical injuries and scars and mental health issues that I’ll not address here. I don’t regret what I did, Im proud of what I’ve been, but I am so glad to be out if it now.

TL;DR over dramatic ex paramedic says “it used to be great, its a bit rubbish now. glad i did it, wouldn’t do it again.

Reel is literally just a reel to keep line on, special reels make little to no difference. Rods are quite personal, I have an Orvis clearwater which is a cheapie rod, quite nice, middle of the road type rod (9ft, 6wt). Next rod will probably be a much lighter rod, maybe a short 3wt for small streams (since i never catch anything heavy anyway).

I’d maybe get him a days guiding or fishing on another lake/strectch of water. Maybe go with him, fly fishing is the single speed of the fishing world!

Qbic. It’s well placed, cheap, has parking and is “quirky” but nicer than you’d expect for the money. When I’m working down there I always stay there. restaurant is good too!

i guess its possible, I burn 100 or so in 10 mins of running on a treadmill quite slowly, and I’m quite heavy. In theory if i ran 3 and a bit times faster (than level eight) then i’d manage it? Level 25 maybe? So full on olympic sprint for 5 mins?

I expect the article will involve doing a HIT workout having eaten some metabolism boosting food and following a heavy lifting regime so your body is still burning calories, and as such the 180 is an average rather than a measured reality. Save £4, Do hard lifting session in the morning, eat chillis for lunch then do sprints interspersed with burpees for 5 mins. Now buy an expensive watch.

go second hand. Get something light with thin neck. I like Telecasters for this. Cheap guitars can be heavy and crap and hard to play. Where about’s are you? I’ve got a nice vintage Yamaha you can have for £80…

Amp wise, don’t bother. Has he got a phone/ipad? Download an amp sim app, for about £12 you get all the amps/FX he could ever need and that way if he doesn’t stick to it you’re not stuck with a rubbish amp!

If you are buying from a shop, go to a good, small, independent shop. A well set up guitar makes all the difference. Think of it like a bike with gears that aren’t set up. It’ll work, but its no fun. Now think of perfect crisp shifting, and how good that feels… (unless you’re single speed, in which case you’re getting into the jazz world!)

Livid! As a saints fan, i normally put a couple of quid on each game as I have some money in my billy hill account after TDF. didn’t bother today as “no point”. I’d have won nicely if I’d been brave!

I once drove from Leeds city centre to guisley on the A65. Set off 5 cameras. Did 3 on the way back in, felt like a criminal boss.

Got detention for being late to assembly. I was late as I was having the poo kicked out of me by three older lads. They didn’t get in trouble as they were “good lads” (I.e sporty).

Mr leonard who lost my homework and then claimed i never handed it in, then sent me to the deputy head for demanding a receipt overtime i handed my homework in after that.

Yeah they’ve changed quite a bit. Some also, I think, play a very loud recording of a siren, it sounds sort of lofi if you see what i mean! The last ambulance I worked on had a wail (weeeeeeeeeeewooooooooooo) a yelp (weeweeweeweeweewee) a ray gun (daggadaggadaggadgaadaggadaggadagga) and a sexy continental tone (baarbaarbaarbaar). We also have an air horn.

General use is:
Wail = Im coming
Yelp = I’m here
Ray gun = I’m really here, why don’t you notice me!
Air horm = IMABIGYELLOWVANCOVEREDINGREENANDYELLOWREFLECTIVESTICKERSLOOKATME!
Continental= only for summer use with the windows down to pretend we work somewhere nice.

did my Seiko 5 myself. wasn’t too complex. Cheap toolkit from china for £7, opened up the back, tightened the main screw for the pendulum type thing (as mine was loose) then changed the seals (can’t remember how much they were but not much. capacitor probably a bit more complex but not too bad!

I used to be bad for stupid lies… just little things to make my life seem more interesting when i was a kid. Looking bak, things were pretty interesting, it just didn’t seem that way.

We get all the Walts in the ambulance service. The most common is “I’m basically a Paramedic in the private sector, but the NHS won’t recognise my qualifications”. So why demean yourself by working 2 pay grades lower? Also the made up jobs, shootings/fatal RTC’s/funny ones, I sit in control all day, I know what goes on and who goes where, so why lie to me?

When i was in the TA i trained with a guy who was adamant he’d killed a terrorist on holiday in turkey and the TA asked him to join up and a girl who was related to the singer from linking park (Uncle chester).

My mum bought my son a balance bike. I was quite upset, because it was a E30 spiderman POS. no bearings, just plastic flanges, solid tyres,bad welding the lot. I wanted to buy him his first bike, it was quite a big deal for me, but he loves it, rode it until it broke and now wont give it up for a proper bike (that I bought!)

kids eh!