I first chose MDD Hosting in 2011 after reading good reviews. I had been running a free hosted forum at the time and it was time to go it alone. It was a daunting task to find a host I feel I could trust for someone like me with no knowledge of hosting and to be honest I almost gave up. It was my first contact with MDD that gave me the confidence to go ahead as they answered my questions very quickly and made me feel at ease.

Since my time with them I have used the ticket system, sometimes for what ended up being simple questions but they have always responded in very helpful way that I can understand. On the odd occasion I have not been able to understand the answer they have stuck with me till my questions have been resolved, I particularly like the friendliness of the staff and Mike has built up a good team without loosing the personal touch.

I've recently purchased an additional year as I have no reason to look anywhere else. Yes I'm told there are cheaper options, but by what I have read and heard those cheaper options wouldn't give me the service I get from MDD. MDD always keep their customers in the loop with honesty about any problems that may arise and the ticket system is incredible, this give me peace of mind and I can sleep at night knowing they will always be there for me should I have a problem.

I'm just starting my sixth year with MDD and I have that much confidence in them that I have taken advantage of one of their recent existing customer offers that I have added enough funds for year 7

All my websites are hosted with MDD

*Affiliate link would go here, but I'm not doing this for money.

https://www.mddhosting.com/

As an oldie I'm often told my taste in music is limited and I never give chance to modern music. Well here I am telling you that you must go and listen to Bones. These two girls Rosie Bones and Carmen Vandenberg make their own music, videos, artwork and luck (Their words not mine) but they also make some damn good music.

I recently found out about them after listening to one of my old fogey types Jeff Beck and his new album "Loud Hailer" from there I looked a little further and found https://www.bonesuk.com/ and soon got my faith in modern music restored. Rosie and Carmen have a huge talent and you must go and give them a listen.

I'm not a music reviewer so I'm not going to come up with some fancy spiel to make you go and listen. I'm just an old bloke that likes Blues, 60s, 70s, Rock and now to use their words again "Future Rock"

The best way to find their stuff is to Google search for "BONESBANDBONES"

Girls Can play guitar.  

Here's an interesting website that can let you see how well you know the UK. It's also a good education tool and something you can take part in to add geographical photographs and information to represent every square kilometre of Great Britain and Ireland.

You play the game to earn Hamster Tokens by dragging a blue circle to the correct position on a map after looking at a photograph. There are 10 photographs in each round and you can set the difficulty level from 1 - 5.

#1 Enlarge the image and study it to get as many clues as possible.

#2 Drag the blue circle on the Ordnace Survey Map to where you think the image was taken.

#3 Win up to 5 Hamster Tokens, each try will cost you 1 Hamster Token so think before checking your grid reference.

Here's one for those of you concerned about your privacy. Google-owned artificial intelligence company DeepMind is getting access to 1.6 million NHS patient records to supposedly help it develop an app!

Quote:

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It’s no secret that Google has broad ambitions in healthcare. But a document obtained by New Scientist reveals that the tech giant’s collaboration with the UK’s National Health Service goes far beyond what has been publicly announced.

The document – a data-sharing agreement between Google-owned artificial intelligence company DeepMind and the Royal Free NHS Trust – gives the clearest picture yet of what the company is doing and what sensitive data it now has access to.

The agreement gives DeepMind access to a wide range of healthcare data on the 1.6 million patients who pass through three London hospitals run by the Royal Free NHS Trust – Barnet, Chase Farm and the Royal Free – each year. This will include information about people who are HIV-positive, for instance, as well as details of drug overdoses and abortions. The agreement also includes access to patient data from the last five years.

DeepMind announced in February that it was working with the NHS, saying it was building an app called Streams to help hospital staff monitor patients with kidney disease. But the agreement suggests that it has plans for a lot more.

This is the first we’ve heard of DeepMind getting access to historical medical records, says Sam Smith, who runs health data privacy group MedConfidential. “This is not just about kidney function. They’re getting the full data.”

Google says that since there is no separate dataset for people with kidney conditions, it needs access to all of the data in order to run Streams effectively. In a statement, the Royal Free NHS Trust says that it “provides DeepMind with NHS patient data in accordance with strict information governance rules and for the purpose of direct clinical care only.”

Still, some are likely to be concerned by the amount of information being made available to Google. It includes logs of day-to-day hospital activity, such as records of the location and status of patients – as well as who visits them and when. The hospitals will also share the results of certain pathology and radiology tests.

As well as receiving this continuous stream of new data, DeepMind has access to the historical data that the Royal Free trust submits to the Secondary User Service (SUS) database – the NHS’s centralised record of all hospital treatments in the UK. This includes data from critical care and accident and emergency departments.

Royal Free did not respond to New Scientist’s questions about what opt-out mechanisms are available to its patients. There is already a way for patients to opt out of SUS data collection, but it is not straightforward and involves writing to your GP. But this does not cover live data on admission, discharge and transfer of patients.

When we moved we lost our garden sieve. After looking around I thought €15 was a bit much for a new one and I never did like shaking it about to get some nice potting compost anyway. I thought there has to be another way of turning our own compost into a good quality potting compost with less effort.

Looking in the old shed I remembered we had a knackered bottled gas heater tucked up the back somewhere. The front of the heater looked like it could make a good sieve to me, and here it is.



Next I remembered I had a couple of old plastic box's, I put one in the wheelbarrow to bring it up to a comfortable working height and to make it easy moving it around once full.



Ok let's shove a couple of spadefuls of our own compost in, throw on an old pair of gloves and just move it around till you're left with the rough stuff which you throw back in your compost bin.





And there you have it nice fine potting compost made with your own fair hands and it didn't cost you anything.





Here is the whole set up, and we can now start filling the compost bin up again ready for the next lot. *Remember to add a bit of your old compost to your new batch to help it get going.

I've made a start on the next garden project.

Last years effort with the container gardening just didn't give us enough, and to be honest was just as much work to look after. So we thought we would go back to beds.

This was the old place and as you can see production was good. However it was a pain going between them with the strimmer, and I didn't leave enough space between them if you want to kneel down (which we both do now as we tend to struggle a bit bending).

Ever get that feeling you need something new to occupy your time? Maybe you need a new hobby! Drainspotting could be just what you are looking for.

But to be honest I've never seen any as good as these ones in Japan. Ours all tend to look the same and the only time you notice them is when you trip over one.

First I'm going to tell you that I'm not a vegetarian and I don't always agree with animal rights campaigners. I eat meat and I'm not bothered by it as I trust the abattoirs and governments to make sure that the animals I will be eating have been humanely treated, I don't however like the thought of animals being cruelly treated and I'm posting this in condemnation of a French organic abattoir in the hope that others will agree that even if we do eat meat we don't want the animals to suffer cruelty.  

This video is secret footage taken from an animal friendly organic abattoir in the South of France. The head of the abattoir in Vigan, Laurent Kauffman, told BFM TV that he was "particularly shocked" to see the footage.

"These are unacceptable acts, they are scandalous," he told the channel. "I am not always on site, but I have never seen this myself and I am disappointed."

The abattoir was closed down "provisionally" on Tuesday afternoon.

*Be warned this video shows some very upsetting scenes, but please do try to watch a little to understand what is going on. (The first few seconds have someone explaining what is going on before showing the cruelty)




I will still eat meat after watching this, but the French government must act to make sure that this rare occurrence doesn't happen again.

Our polytunnel has been one of the best things we have ever purchased and now we have moved we decided to see if we could rescue it and put it in our new garden.

It has been there for around 10 years and the last couple of years unfortunately we had neglected it a little, so it's now time to give it a new lease of life and start getting some nice fresh veg again.

The cover still looked good but as it was buried in the ground it was going to be a big job to dig it out, it also had a large bush pushing against it from the back so we decided to buy a new cover. We got the new cover from the company we first purchased the polytunnel from "First Tunnels" they gave excelent service 10 years ago and I'm pleased to say they still give excelent service and quality.

I can highly recommend First Tunnels you can find them here: https://www.firsttunnels.co.uk/ *Not an affiliation link, just a company I have used a few times that gives good customer service.

This is how she looked.



We cut the old cover off and set about rescuing the frame. (We kept the old cover as it's handy for making small cloches)



This is the frame removed and taken to it's new home.

India's state run railways decided to be a bit different and hire disabled people to work for them. This is a good thing as India doesn't tend to offer many jobs to disabled people or make access to buildings easy, and it's a success for those that campaigned their case to the Supreme Court to get vacancies in the disability quota filled.

So imagine you are disabled and how life changing this is going to be for you. You send of your application and get accepted to go and sit a test to show you are capable of working for the State Railway. You put your Sunday best on, give yourself a good old brush up, you strap on your second hand prosthetic leg or get out your home made crutches and haul yourself to the building for your important test that could change your life.  

You have struggled to get across town probably being ridiculed because your are disabled, and there it is the State Run Railways building in all it's glory looking at you. You straighten your tie and mop the sweat from your brow, you take a sharp intake of breath and............................................................

Spoiler

You find the examination room is on the third floor of the building that has no lifts or any form of disabled access.  

Wait there is more: Those that complained they couldn't get to exam room were told "Candidates who faced difficulties would be allowed to reapply for another exam"