The Good News Thread

[Cudzoziemiec]

work out how many tea bags I can fit in a 23KG luggage allowance and if that's enough for a week in the colonies.

At 2g per tea bag and allowing a modest 2kg for the luggage itself that's 10,500 tea bags. So no, it's not enough. 

[ian]

I'd start the ESTA now, it takes a while, and the way it's going, completing it will soon be akin to writing a lengthy autobiography. I still don't know if having sex with a Canadian qualifies as moral turpitude in the US.

Americans have perfectly fine tea (entire foo-foo tea shops, but you can buy Twinings and similar in the more civilised coastal regions), plus it's California, no shortage of expat shops filled with Tetley's tea and HP sauce at vastly inflated prices.

[Mr Larrington]

I'd start the ESTA now, it takes a while, and the way it's going, completing it will soon be akin to writing a lengthy autobiography. I still don't know if having sex with a Canadian qualifies as moral turpitude in the US.

Have they changed it in the past two years, then?  Mine's just run out and last time filling in the form took all of five minutes, four and a half of which were spent trying to remember where I put my passport.

[Mrs Pingu]

The tea in the US is not the problem, it's the lack of hot water, I find.

[Mr Larrington]

The tea in the US is not the problem, it's the lack of hot water, I find.

This has come up before.

[Mrs Pingu]

Did anyone else read the article this week that says that hot drinks may cause cancer?
Balls

[hellymedic]

Did anyone else read the article this week that says that hot drinks may cause cancer?
Balls

Over 65C, it seems, which is much hotter than I personally would touch.

Most of my 'hot' drinks are 50C or less (if I can't hold the mug, I put it down) and I nurse my big mug all day, when contents are around probably 25C.

Repeated burning of delicate mucosa might cause cancer - SHOCK HORROR!
This isn't really news.

[spesh]

Did anyone else read the article this week that says that hot drinks may cause cancer?
Balls

Saw that in the Telegraph yesterday - once you get past the headline, it's more of a storm in a teacup...

Experts said that most Britons should not be overly alarmed by the findings.  Recent research published in the journal Burns found that a cup of tea with 10ml of milk cooled to less than 65C in under five minutes.

The Royal Society of Chemistry also recommends drinking tea at 60-65 degrees while Northumbria University found that the perfect drinking temperature of tea – 60C – is achieved six minutes after brewing begins. Most coffee experts recommend that the drink be served between 40 and 60C (120 – 140F).

Casey Dunlop, health information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: "Most people in the UK don't consume drinks at the temperatures considered in this research.

“So as long as you let your drink cool down a bit before you drink it, you're unlikely to be much at risk."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/06/15/hot-drinks-probably-cause-cancer-warns-world-health-organisation/

[Mrs Pingu]

Hmm, will have to get my probe out and measure my cuppa tomorrow...

[hellymedic]

Anyway, as I understand it, those getting the cancers mostly drank beverages without cold milk, through metal straws, so delivering very hot liquids to the gullet.

'White' drinks, sipped through the mouth, with its excellent blood supply (and therefore ability to sink heat) are rather less likely to frazzle the gullet.

[Kim]

Repeated burning of delicate mucosa might cause cancer - SHOCK HORROR!
This isn't really news.

More's the point, it reduces your sense of taste to levels akin to that of a smoker.  I don't understand how people tolerate it, unless trying to get a caffeine fix from USAnian coffee, I suppose.

[davelodwig]

I'd start the ESTA now, it takes a while, and the way it's going, completing it will soon be akin to writing a lengthy autobiography. I still don't know if having sex with a Canadian qualifies as moral turpitude in the US.

Americans have perfectly fine tea (entire foo-foo tea shops, but you can buy Twinings and similar in the more civilised coastal regions), plus it's California, no shortage of expat shops filled with Tetley's tea and HP sauce at vastly inflated prices.

ESTA now done and approved, I was half expecting to be asked my shoe size and fried egg preferences.

Now I have to submit to fingerprinting and photographing on arrival at immigration.

At this rate I'll spend half the holiday getting in.

D.

[fuzzy]

That'll prolly be one finger on an electronic scanning pad and a take off glasses and hat, look at the camera type job at the passport control point. Adds about a minute to the process pre 9/11

[Mrs Pingu]

It's the standing in the queue waiting to be processed that is the interminable bit.

[Mr Larrington]

USAnian Immigration is rolling out machines to do a lot of the stuff that used to require queueueueueing until forever.  Last year in Seattle it took me approximately no time at all to get through to the baggage reclaim.

And then I ended up waiting for about 3/4 of an hour at the car hire desk instead chiz.

[woollypigs]

Oh yes it looks like well spend money too, even I could program that app. http://www.geek.com/apps/tsa-paid-1-4-million-for-randomizer-app-that-chooses-left-or-right-1651337/

[TimC]

USAnian Immigration is rolling out machines to do a lot of the stuff that used to require queueueueueing until forever.  Last year in Seattle it took me approximately no time at all to get through to the baggage reclaim.

And then I ended up waiting for about 3/4 of an hour at the car hire desk instead chiz.

Works great as long as you don't share a name with anyone wanted by the US law massive. Sadly, I do, so the machines always give me a very large 'X' across the receipt, which means going to the back of the normal queueueueue, doubling (or worse) the time to enter. And no, I don't get the choice to bypass the machine.

[Feanor]

The big X from the machine just means the dude at the desk has to sit up and pay attention, because something tripped the automatic gubbins.

2 of our lot got X's on our last ski trip to the US, and I asked what it means.
He said it was just a flag that something needed checking, but it was not always clear what the something was.
Typically, it might be that the person had not previously entered the US under the same passport and ESTA.
So if you have got a new pp or new ESTA since your last entry, you will likely get flagged.

Or it could be something worse, involving bridge trolls, of course.

[Mr Larrington]

So if you have got a new pp or new ESTA since your last entry, you will likely get flagged.

Arsicles!

<=== New ESTA required for this year chiz.

[tiermat]

I fully expect to have to wait forever when we get to Denver, as a) I need (and have) a visa due to nortiness and b) Mrs T and TLD have never been to the US before, so are on new ESTAs.

[Andrij]

Finally got a ticket for a recording of Dead Ringers. 

[Torslanda]

This morning a courier delivered a big box. I didn't remember ordering anything, at least, not something major. Sent from a bike shop in Edinburgh, marked for the attention of a customer whose name I didn't recognise.

About 20 minutes later I got a call from my best mate in Limoges asking if I had received a box. It was at this point that the "customer's" initials meant something although the surname was wrong! Cue much ripping of cardboard and swearing at brown tape to reveal a wheeled bike box.

At that point Phil and his missus sang "Happy Birthday To You".

Gobsmacked! So nice to have friends and it's suddenly very dusty in here . . . !

[fuzzy]

Yay for friends John

[woollypigs]

Pictures! Not of you crying but of bike

[barakta]

Aww! Yay!