The Good News / Bad News Thread

[fimm]

Depends on the value of the thing, and the staff, I suspect.
My experience was I wandered in, said "hello I am Mrs <UnusualName> an my husband has ordered a <widget> and we wondered if I could pick it up seeing as I was passing" and they gave it to me (I may have shown my driving licence, I can't remember). But the widget was very small (something for repairing punctures in tubeless tyres. No, me neither). They did say they wouldn't have done that if it had been a bike!

[Beardy]

BN: The bar end mirror disappeared from David's bike after he parked it at Queensbury yesterday.
GN: Evans a couple of miles away can supply a replacement, which I have ordered on Click & Collect.
BN: I've ordered this on my account and the email they've sent states they'll only give these things to account holders with umpteen layers of ID.

Does anyone know how difficult they are?

Queensbury? As in up by Mountain^[1] where Cat's Eyes come from^[2]?

1. Bradford way
2. You must know this story, surely. Apparently a chap that liked a drink in Queensbury had to drive home via mountain where there were no street lights and it being in olden times^TM his car lights were crap. However, as he went around a corner his dim car lights shone on a cat and reflected back at him. so the following morning, hangover permitting, he invented 'cats eyes' for roads, and made his fortune.

[hellymedic]

Queensbury was the name for this area, favoured in an estate agent's competition in the 1930s, when estates were mushrooming after The Great War. Kingsbury nearby was an old settlement so the name Queensbury appealed.

Stanmore and Canons to the north had housed GF Händel and the Duke of Chandos.

[orienteer]

BN: The bar end mirror disappeared from David's bike after he parked it at Queensbury yesterday.
GN: Evans a couple of miles away can supply a replacement, which I have ordered on Click & Collect.
BN: I've ordered this on my account and the email they've sent states they'll only give these things to account holders with umpteen layers of ID.

Does anyone know how difficult they are?

Queensbury? As in up by Mountain^[1] where Cat's Eyes come from^[2]?

1. Bradford way
2. You must know this story, surely. Apparently a chap that liked a drink in Queensbury had to drive home via mountain where there were no street lights and it being in olden times^TM his car lights were crap. However, as he went around a corner his dim car lights shone on a cat and reflected back at him. so the following morning, hangover permitting, he invented 'cats eyes' for roads, and made his fortune.

That was the Queensbury in West Yorkshire, near Bradford. The inventor Percy Shaw lived nearby in Halifax.

Not on the Jubilee Line, which is the one Helly lives near.

[Beardy]

Which is probably why I mentioned BRADFORD 

I did work briefly in Queensbury telephone exchange when I was an apprentice technician, though that’s in Clayton, not Queensbury.

[hellymedic]

Not the big Strowger on the De Havilland site then?

[Beardy]

Not the big Strowger on the De Havilland site then?

Although I’m old enough to have been trained to maintain strowger, that was more because of the lack of ‘qualifying courses’¹ on any other exchange technology. My stint at Queensbury (Bradford) was on Telephone eXchange Electronic 2 (TXE2).

1. One of which was at Bletchley Park, because it happened to be a Post Office Telephones training centre at the time. The chap that actually designed, built (and paid for) the first electronic computer built there during the war was acutually a GPO research centre bod before and after the war. Tommy Flowers is considered a bit of an unsung hero at Martlesham Heath and role model for ‘Martleman’, the strange nerd type that existed before they were called nerds.

[Kim]

Tommy Flowers is considered a bit of an unsung hero full stop.

[Beardy]

Tommy Flowers is considered a bit of an unsung hero full stop.

we have a bust of him in the entrance to The Hub (staff restaurant) at work.

[Giraffe]

Depends on the value of the thing, and the staff, I suspect.
My experience was I wandered in, said "hello I am Mrs <UnusualName> an my husband has ordered a <widget> and we wondered if I could pick it up seeing as I was passing" and they gave it to me (I may have shown my driving licence, I can't remember). But the widget was very small (something for repairing punctures in tubeless tyres. No, me neither). They did say they wouldn't have done that if it had been a bike!

Ordered a pair of shoes from Cotwold, on sale at £86.
Needed to take ID and print-out of order.
Tried on the shoes, went to counter, no ID etc. required. Reason: they're 13s - if they fit you...
Mind, nobody checked that I actually took 13s, but if I'd been 5'FA there might have been queries.

[hellymedic]

My kid brother's a Size 12 but only 5'9"...

I phone up the shop.
Hung on and on. Phone cut out.
Redialled.
Eventually spoke to a chap, explained situation, gave him my postcode, order number, told him how I'd paid and what I'd ordered.
Told him David was coming by bike and would be at shop within ten minutes - it's two miles away.

David got his £13.49 mirror. He had the confirmation email on his phone.

[Mr Larrington]

Hurrah!  I have booked accommodation for the first half of this year's Leftpondian anabasis, so I won't need to sleep in my motor-car 

Bah!  No prospect of changing motor-car reservation for anything more interesting than some horrible people-carrying barge

[chrisbainbridge]

BN drove for an hour to do a clinic this morning
GN which saved 20 people 2 hours each of extra driving,
BN then drove 90 minutes to do a home visit followed by a 2 hour drive home. 
BN Shattered. 
BNNo quiet day this week so my little extrovert overload sign is in red zone. 
BN But now 3 weeks without being on the bike which is making me really depressed
BN Working this saturday
GN then ordination of friend on sunday
BN No cycling
GN finally put in formal notice of retirement as from 1 September
BN they want me back but I cannot decide what i want and no plan for succession in place!

[hellymedic]

GN: My next door neighbour gave me a bunch of flowers.
BN: He's 94 and struggled round to my place with the flowers and his shopping list because his carer had not materialised today. Phoning had been met by a dead phone line. He was running out of milk.
GN: I was able to give him some frozen milk. He has enough liquid milk for a cup of tea and I thought frozen milk in a plastic carton was safer than a glass milk bottle.
GN: He is *just* mobile enough to walk here.

I am unimpressed by the care and support neighbour is receiving, not to speak of its (un)reliability.

[barakta]

A lot of council websites will insist people have tried asking their neighbours to cook and shop for them before any council help is provided... Shocking and awful.

Glad you could help a little, it does sound really neglectful and horrible for neighbour. Especially now online delivery has a minimum amount of £25 or £40 which is more than many poorer old people can afford to spend on food or will eat.

[hellymedic]

Neighbour is pre-internet.

I order stuffs when I fancy and let him know in advance to give me a list. If I could hold a pen he could dictate over the phone but I can't.

[barakta]

*nods* you can only do what you can do and your own disabilities limit that.  And he shouldn't have to rely on unreliable carers, he should have proper reliable care that covers what he needs. And or a mobility aid like a scooter if he can use one safely.

[Kim]

I order stuffs when I fancy and let him know in advance to give me a list. If I could hold a pen he could dictate over the phone but I can't.

Record the phone call and play it back at your leisure?

[hellymedic]

I order stuffs when I fancy and let him know in advance to give me a list. If I could hold a pen he could dictate over the phone but I can't.

Record the phone call and play it back at your leisure?

I don't think I have enough hands to juggle two gadgets really.

[Kim]

I was envisioning something that didn't require juggling, like an automatic recording device or an app.

[Beardy]

Having spent 15 years providing ever increasing levels of support to our neighbours¹, it’s strange to have a younger couple² next door who are frequently knocking on the door to ask for their frisbee back!

1. Both sides were very well supported by their families, but I was closer in the event of emergencies. To be honest. I was always glad that they felt able to call on me rather than them struggle on until their families could get to them.

2. It is the couple and there mates as none of them have children that I’ve seen!

[mrcharly-YHT]

I order stuffs when I fancy and let him know in advance to give me a list. If I could hold a pen he could dictate over the phone but I can't.

Record the phone call and play it back at your leisure?

I don't think I have enough hands to juggle two gadgets really.

Hmm - I think you are someone who would benefit from owning an Echo.

[Torslanda]

GN: Going to BHPC meet at Betteshanger.
MGN: Taking Speedies (plural) and stuffs in a hire van. Loadsa room plus emergency sleeping quarters if inclement. 
BN: Photocard licence expired May 18 - See 'Div' thread. Arse!
GN: Renew online!!1! Only 14 quid. Easy peasy.
BN: Needed for rental van next Thursday.
MBN:'Delivered within 2 weeks'. How vague is that? Instant renewal, instant payment, everything checked, every question answered. Why?
GN: Call to rental co this AM. Not a problem. Bring your passport and we will confirm with DVLA while you wait.

[jsabine]

New photocards took less than a week for both my wife and I when we had to renew - something like 5 days I think. I'd be surprised if you didn't have it well before next Thursday.

[Torslanda]

Would be really good if that happened.