Thanks for the responses so far folks.

Add on question, I’ve seen a Marshall MG30DFX for sale locally and the guy has listed it as a ‘Bass Amp’. Reading about it online I’ve seen different remarks about whether it is or isn’t suitable for bass guitar. What is the deal?

The pay issue would be much less of an issue if good will hadn’t been almost eroded and there weren’t so many gaps in service – my other half is one of 2 people on a 9 person rota – i.e. there are 7 vacant slots. Try delivering efficiency and high quality when you are missing over 75% of your staff….

Very much this.

I work on a 52 bed Acute Medical Unit (Emergency Admissions for those who don’t speak NHS!) which has a mix of Level 1 and 2 beds (42/10 split) split across two wards, within a large trust who have an Emergency Department that is one of the busiest in Europe for its size/design capacity.

In order to cope with an ED struggling to deal with a lack of capacity much of the pressure is put upon us AMU staff to “increase throughput” but, such is the pressure put upon staff within the department, we are hugely understaffed (most shifts see an agency/trust Band 5 split of 4/5). Even the decent agency nurses are now turning their noses up at working in the department due to caps on their pay. To counter this the trust have had (and extended since before Christmas) overtime bonus payments of £50 per shift to trust-employed nurses, even this is not enough, it’s a taxed payment and few can see the point of doing extra shifts for such little compensation.

So where does this leave us? Well we rarely have full staffing, with the nurses who are supposed to be coordinating the individual wards (whose purpose is to help with throughput and thus increase bed availability for ED admissions) often pulled to work a bay instead. This then leaves the bed managers/duty managers the ones trying to sort out which patients are suitable to move to base wards/discharge home, but as there is no need for such managers to have a nursing/medical background it often leads to conflict/frustration with the Band 5 nurses looking after said patients who are ultimately responsible for their care.

We are an area which, if we were better looked after (correct staffing levels for starters), would hugely assist the ability of the trust and ED Department to meet their targets and thus reduce the fines the trust often gets for failing, yet we are treated poorly, are regularly used as the blame hound with regards to backlogs caused by high demand and consequently staff morale is often incredibly low.

To end, it’s not about money (largely), it’s about treating staff better. When the message from the top is “the NHS needs to start working seven days a week” (hey Mr Hunt, we already do) and the Right Wing press is banging on about how bad we all are at our jobs it’s hard not to think “why bother” and go elsewhere.

Those who think privatisation is the answer, where do you think you’ll get the personnel to staff such an organisation? If people are going to be forced to work in a privatised organisation then why stay in the UK, where (if current per capita spending were worked to) they’d have to take a pay cut in order to fit in the private sector’s profit margin?

Must apologise though, given this has turned into a bit of a rant. Overall I love working for the NHS and love my job, you never know what you’re going to see next and the staff are very close knit and, despite the demands placed upon us, we try to keep our heads held high. It can be very difficult to stay positive though.

Makes you think, eh?

Yeah, makes me think “in spite of, not because of what the Tories have done”.

[Quote]”…no more top-down reorganisations of the NHS…” (Andrew Lansley, Conservative Party press release, 11 July 2007).[/quote]

Not long (relatively) before bringing about the biggest top-down restructure of the NHS it has ever seen. Costing billions, causing a duplication of many services rather than rationalisation and leaving the NHS in a far worst state. With the funding largely controlled by private contractors through CCGs, who often have the least knowledge on how to use it effectively or have ulterior motives that decide budget allocation.

Never trust a Tory.

I second the earlier comment regarding the application of a Marzocchi product, but hey, that’s the kinda guy I am.

[Quote]The NHS is providing a second rate overall service which is all we pay for, as such imho its a poor use of money – thats not efficient[/quote]

Saywhatnow?

Let’s break that down…

[Quote]The NHS is providing a second rate overall service…[/quote]

A) Compared to what and whom?

[Quote]…which is all we pay for…[/quote]

B) If you’ve given any examples to point (A) that feature higher per capita spending they can be considered null and void for comparison by your own remarks.

[Quote]…as such imho it’s a poor use of money…[/quote]

C) But if the NHS provides a better quality of service than those with higher per capita spending it is a more efficient service which, if economics are the main measure being used (you mention money a lot), means a ‘better’ service surely?

[Quote]…that’s not efficient.[/quote]

D) See point (C).

Rumoured to be the loudest aircraft ever made.

Or that they were both trying to solve similar problems, so ended up with similar solutions…

I’m sure espionage didn’t come into it at all. 😉

One from me

[Img]http://pop.h-cdn.co/assets/cm/15/05/54cb280927736_-_bizarre-aircraft-17-0114-lgn.jpg[/img]

‘Wayne Manor’ (Wollaton Hall), just down the road from us in Nottingham.

Oddly Gotham is just outside Nottingham too.

I love this picture,

Duffer – Great picture but slightly cheating. Nose door open and tail bump stop down mean they have only just taken off. The Bucc could get it’s wheels up really quick, even more so if you pre-select ‘up’ and rely upon the weight on wheels microswitch to keep them down until airborne.

Revs1972 – I see your Sea Vixen and raise you…

Absolutely no chance of any transonic jets like Lightnings or Buccs getting CAA approval to fly in the UK…

A Buccaneer has already been given CAA approval to be flown. It’s just that the business (Hawker Hunter Aviation) who own a Bucc and sought approval for it, never had the work appear that they envisioned for it.

As you say though, there is absolutely no chance of a Lightning flying again in the UK. From what the old and bold who I used to serve with in the RAF told me, it sounds like they were made mainly of leaky pipes and easily rounded bolts hidden deep behind tiny servicing panels.

COME ON PALACE!!

This year he hasn’t lost out due to rescources etc he’s just had poor luck / reliability

Perhaps is purely coincidental but five of the mechanics who previously worked on Hamilton’s car have been moved to Rosberg’s this season…

Jaguar – they say that if the earth wasn’t curved then they wouldn’t have been able to get airborne!

Norfolk’s loudest hairdryers.

(Having managed to get a flight in a T2 when I was an Air Cadet I can confirm that, on a hot day, the end of the runway loomed large quite late in the take-off roll!)

The pilots I’ve met loved the Jag as it was a single seater and lacked fly-by-wire.

Oh don’t get me wrong, most Jag pilots loved them as the strange noise coming from behind them in previous a/c c disappeared, but when they were new many of those on the Germany-based squadrons who gave up their Phantoms for Jag expressed feeling ‘short-changed’.

As new the Jag was a gutless beast compared to the Spey-equipped Phantoms.

Willard – I agree with you about the Chinny, I spent my last posting working with them and my last tour in Afghanistan pretty much living in them!

I was up there Monday and it was incredibly dry in most places, so I can’t imagine it’ll be too wet.

A few spots on the Red Route that do get a bit damp were closed off for forestry work with diversions along the fire roads, so if it’s just training you’re after it shouldn’t be too bad.

I would have thought that the result of the Junior Doctor’s contract negotiations will have a profound affect on other healthcare professionals and the NHS.
A significant defeat for Hunt rather than an easy victory is obviously going to make him recognise his limitations. It will also provide lessons to other healthcare professionals with regards to what can and can’t be achieved.
Much of the future of the NHS hinges on the junior doctor’s dispute. imo

Ernie – Whilst I understand what you’re saying, I’m not so sure what the Junior Doctors have managed and how they did it can be easily be used as a template for the rest of us, least of all us nurses.

Unfortunately, whilst many of my colleagues and I fully supported the Junior Doctors, when the topic of “would you go out on strike if/when they come for us” is raised many respond “oh no, I couldn’t strike, it’s not fair on the patients”.

No matter how much you explain how worsening conditions for staff, leading to staff leaving and struggles to recruit replacements, will have a far graver impact on patients in the long-term I still often hear “I still couldn’t strike”.

Part of the problem is likely staff being split among two very different unions and one of them in particular seemingly more interested in doing the government’s bidding for them than truly standing up for its members (the RCN).

Mr Hunt likely knows that many nurses have no stomach for strike action, given the amount who make very public statements of this on various forums etc that nurses use. I’m sick of seeing nurses beat down their colleagues with comments such as “well you obviously don’t care for your patients if you can contemplate striking”, but these types of remarks are not unusual.

RAF F4 pilots generally preferred the small number of F4J jets we imported in the 1980s, complete with American engines, guns and avionics compared with the Spey engined jets.

A bit of a generalisation that. Those who flew the Phantom in the Air Defence role generally preferred the F-4J(UK) because it’s engines were better optimised for higher altitudes. Those in the RAF though who originally operated the F-4M (FGR2 in UK parlance) very much liked them, more so than the gutless eventual replacement (the Jaguar). This is because they operated at low-level, carrying both conventional and nuclear ground attack weapons, which the Spey-equipped Phantoms were actually designed for. At low-level they had a 10-15% longer range than a similarly loaded F-4E or F-4J. The Spey-equipped Phantoms were also far less ‘smokey’ than the J79-equipped ones, a not insignificant fact when you’re trying to sneak in under a Warsaw Pact CAP in the days before reliable doppler radars.

When the FGR2s were moved to AD duties they undoubtedly came out badly, but this was always a very secondary consideration when they were first re-designed for British service.

Of course compared to the Mighty Bucc the Phantom was second best in the ground attack role, but that is another story.

I was aware of the Apache, a good aircraft with an eye watering unit cost compared to the US export price. The Phantom was a similar story, unit cost meant we got a third of the number.

The problem is (generally) without UK work share, things don’t get brought.

It’s not what the military are overly concerned about, they just want kit that works, but The Right Honourable Gentleman for Little Aircraft Works on The Wold may be, so to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Buying the Apache (for instance) from the US at export price might mean more individual a/c, but those millions spent are all disappearing Stateside.

Drac – Moderator
I’ll take a read as this is going to have a knock on effect for the rest of the NHS.

Whatever the result of the Junior Doctor’s contract negotiations, Hunt was always going to come after someone else next.

Fully supportive of my Junior Doctor colleagues in their fight against our clueless ‘leader’, standing by for us nurses to be targeted next.

Hopefully if “we” are getting some for “them” they’ll be standard US rather than customised at great expense to be less capable (see Phantom onwards).

Well the WAH-64D (the UK-built AH-64D Apache) is thought of as better than the original US-built version (due to the superior engines fitted to the WAH-64D), and the much-maligned ‘Speyed’ Phantoms were actually supposedly pretty decent at low level, for which they were designed/purchased.

I will agree with your overall sentiment though, given my last posting was Odiham, when the debacle of the Chinook Mk.3 was still far from being sorted.

Also, the one a/c that had the easiest entry into service was the one, that due to it being initially on hire rather than purchased, the MoD wasn’t allowed to faff about with; the C17.

There are rumours going around that ‘THEM’ (the SAS etc) are looking to aquire some, and a number of US aircraft may or may not be currently operating out of an RAF station in Hampshire, giving the UK experience using them before their own are delivered.

I say rumours because it’s UK policy not to speak about special forces, err, stuff.

To add, the last few cars I’ve had in the US have been;

– 2015 Ford Mustang GT – 5.0L, lovely.
– 2015 Dodge Challenger R/T – A bit hard on the back but great fun if you like brutal power over finesse.
– 2015 Chevy Suburban – An absolute beast and as it was black I felt like a member of the Secret Service.
– 2015 Ford Taurus – Munched up the miles between Chicago, Detroit, Toronto and back again.
– 2014 Chevy Impala – Another very comfortable car, decent sized boot, nice engine.

I’d recommend going with a ‘Full Size’ car because, depending upon rental agency, it’s likely you’ll end up with a Ford product, either a Fusion or a Taurus.

Personally I prefer the Taurus as they are very comfortable to drive, have a decent sized engine, come well-equipped and have a boot you can put many bodies…or whatever…in.

The advantage of going with a full-size is also that, in these days of companies watching their travel budgets, smaller cars are used far more, meaning they’re like more ‘tired’. Full-sized cars, on the other hand, are often plentiful, low-mileage and new, due to manufacturers giving large discounts to rental companies to take them, driving sales figures up.

Last time I passed through Chicago O’Hare the rental lots were a sea of Ford Taurus’/Tauri (?).

Top and bottom, in my experience, if you go for something ‘Full-Size’ or larger it’ll be generally good, go smaller and you’re risking getting a smaller car ‘inflated’ to the next size band. For instance a Ford Focus as a ‘Standard’.

If you guys get all het up about 2/3rd measures you’d hate US Pints.

Pb2 – Odd you mention fishing. I regularly use mine when standing in my waders trotting the Trent at Gunthorpe Weir.

pb2 – Member
Buffalo owners — do they really keep you dry and do you have to wash them every single time you wear them ala poly tops ?

They keep you pretty much dry in anything but absolutely hammering it down rain, and even then, whilst slightly damp, you stay pretty warm.

The time mine was pushed most to the limit was when I went to Norway to do my Arctic Survival Training. I was wearing mine during the ‘jumping into the water drill‘ (simulating the ice giving way and recovering yourself). Once out, and after a quick roll in the snow to get rid of any surplus water, the Special 6 warmed up in no time.

As for washing them, mine has gone weeks without but they do appreciate a wash and brush to lift the pile every now and then.

Up at ‘The Pines’ again today and whilst it’s very dry just about everywhere, there are a fair few areas shut off for forestry work.

More seriously though, the serving hatch at the café is out of use due to the decking being replaced or something on that side.

only if you wear them at the wrong time of year

Or if you wear them in the wrong way. They’re a shirt, they’re not supposed to be worn over multiple layers, but that is usually how those complaining of being sweaty are wearing them.

DrJ – I wouldn’t still have one after 20 years if it just made one “horrendously sweaty” especially not given the physical nature of the work I’ve done whilst wearing it.

My (NATO green) Buffalo Special 6.

It was the first bit of ‘Gucci’ kit I brought when I was in the military, got it from a place near Euston railway station back in 1996. It has quite literally been all over the world with me, from hill top surveillance sites in South Armagh through to outposts in Northern Helmand. My goto comfy top for a variety purposes, it’s now enjoying a rather more sedate life as my pre/post-ride top.

Is it not racist to suggest Jewish people are stupid?

Only if you believe ‘Jewish’ is a race rather than a faith.

Jennie Gow noted that ROS was in the wrong engine mode at the time…

Which as good as confirms it was Rosberg’s fault!

Too slow/under-powered/wrong gear, he was in no position to defend and took Hamilton out.

…to me that was Hamilton going for a gap that was already closing or certainly about to close…

That is two very different things. The former requires Hamilton to see it, the latter requires Hamilton to have ESP!

You can’t just close the door after the fact because you’ve left a car-sized amount of room and now there is a car in it, that is called “causing a collision”. Rosberg got away lightly, the racing line was his but Hamilton chose another route and Rosberg ran him onto the grass in a last ditch attempt to keep his position.

“Too aggressive” (regarding Hamilton)? It’s called racing, not following!

I was up there this morning and, aside from a little bit near marker 16 on the red route, it was bone dry.

Woke up at 4:50 (damn coming off a run of long days!) so thought I’d do something other than watching rubbish TV whilst waiting for OC Home Front to awake. Got up there for 0730 and battered around it on my newly-built, singlespeed Dialled Bike Love/Hate. Got away just as the masses started to arrive and still had lots of day to do ‘family things’ in.

Rosberg’s fault. Nowhere near the racing line (which you are allowed to defend), Rosberg was purely trying to put Hamilton on the grass.

Ahh, moonlander. I remember when it was a swear word edit on the Chocolatefoot forum.

Its has a severe impact on learning for the entire class..

This may be so (yet to see evidence of this produced) but your attitude seems to echo the issues within formal state-provided education with regards to the education needs of the individual.

The rush to meet targets/levels is all well and good, and all manner of efforts are thrown at those who struggle to meet their’s, but what about those who exceed them by some margin?

My daughter is often bored in her lessons because, even with the anchor of my genetics, she is an outstanding pupil, being very intelligent and self-motivated (she is learning Japanese and Sociology outside of school).

Whilst I understand the ‘herd teaching’ theory you appear to be espousing, does it mean that my daughter (who is rapidly becoming tired of state-provided education due to its lack of challenges) is merely a teaching tool under your theory? That her mere presence, regardless of her individual learning needs, assists the teaching of the less able? If this is so, what happens when she becomes weary of lack of challenge and becomes disruptive? How will that affect the learning of others within her class?

As it is, my wife (who is a teacher) and I have no qualms with removing her from school during term-time for holidays (most recently to the US for a family wedding), because I know her education needs are met more by our’s and her efforts beyond what the school can provide. Also we’re not so keen for her to remain in school purely to make up the numbers, whilst perhaps building up resentment towards the system.

As an aside, the school she is at is an excellent school. We just understand the limitations of the current education system and, given they’ve agreed to all our in-term holiday requests, so must they.

It was Radioheads difficult second album

If so, could the postie’s actions be considered a humanitarian act?

Dialled Bikes Holeshot or Alpine.