peds

Jesus, that's a spicy enough event to be dealing with, glad you got sorted nice and quick. I drop the occasional pint for others to enjoy, but I wouldn't want to be losing anything like that amount under duress. Good thing it wasn't at sea... "Sometimes that shark he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark is he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be livin’… until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then… ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin’. The ocean turns red, in spite of all the poundin’ and the hollerin’ they all come in and… they rip you to pieces."

Haha, wow. Lots to unpack, but I think we'll keep it brief to be honest. Just earlier today, chatting with our course provider about fun things like coagulapathy and periorbital ecchymosis and green whistles, I couldn't help but think good golly gosh, I'm glad I lead a more sheltered life than this man. Nice fella, he delivers all of our medical CPD because you name it, pick a body part and stick a hole in it, he's patched it up at some point or another. From flying out into international waters so he becomes legal to slice open some poor guy's scrotum and untangle his torsioned testicles (survived), to amputating another lad's arm underwater in high seas as it was wrapped around the trawler's propeller shaft (survived), to swimming around grabbing chunks of the recently-exploded Mountbatten and popping them in a mesh bag off Mulllaghmore Head (did not survive), this fella lives an interesting life, and has seen and prevented more death than anyone else I've ever shared a room with. Coming out of the room from that conversation, to this arbitrary and non-sensical drivel, your comment just strikes a fairly funny cord with me today. I'm not going to try and justify my relatively sheltered existence, I'm not even going to mention the various metrics by which I think you'd go about measuring it, certainly not to you... because what's the point? You're an angry little man, and you have my pity.

European farmed, or foraged wild snails are fine, and delicious.

That isn't a newspaper. Reading comprehension: failed.

Morning all. Sounds unpleasantly exciting, Ted! REC3 first aid refresher at the mountain rescue base today, cups of tea and PowerPoint presentations about hypothermia and the like.

It's all discussed in the Guttmacher link, there. Feel free to educate yourself. Home Page WWW.GUTTMACHER.ORG Good reproductive health policy starts with credible research

Will they only be slightly dead?

You'll be grand, likely be a heavy enough bit of wood, just be careful.

Yes, and it shouldn't be, because it is genuinely abhorrent. Oh, it's only women in Texas and a few other states who are dying on the ground outside hospitals? That's okay with you? What have you got against Texans?

Well, not for me personally, no... where's my foetus going to gestate, in a cardboard box? But it is, I'm afraid, quite literally a death sentence for entire swathes of the woman population across America, and a failure to even register their sense of abandonment at their upcoming doom really does display a startling lack of empathy. Honestly, I'm fine, I'll get over it, though thank you once again for the delicious tissues; but the desperation is very real for a significant portion of the population, across every point of the political spectrum.

Tell you what, fellas... I'm not so sure this Project 2025 is a good idea after all... we should tell someone, quick! 10 Reasons a Second Trump Presidency Will Decimate Sexual and Reproductive Health WWW.GUTTMACHER.ORG Home Page WWW.GUTTMACHER.ORG Good reproductive health policy starts with credible research

Scary to read to be honest, I've been stung in the past with no problems but not for years now. A bee 4 years ago, no idea before that. I hope that increasing sting allergy thing isn't contagious! I'm allergic to imported Chinese farmed snails, closes my throat and eyes. The first time we found out it was quite scary, the second time it happened was pretty damn funny.

Could there have been a concept of a plan?

Are you using loppers or a saw? Make sure it's nice and sharp! For taking a branch off, identify where the finished cut will be as others have outlined above, at the branch collar, but make your removal cuts a little bit higher up the branch... just a few inches, not much. Make a slit from below, about 20-30% through the branch, taking care not to pinch the saw in the gap with the weight of the branch. Then start cutting again from above, about half an inch away from your first cut, either closer to the tree or further away, it doesn't really matter for you at this stage (they do actually behave slightly differently, but we'll save that for the next episode). The branch will snap off cleanly when you have cut 70-80% of the way through. You now have a tiny little stub with no weight on it next to the branch collar, which you can easily snip off with minimal damage to the rest of the tree. As for taking a stem... how many stems does this yew have, and how big? If they aren't huge, you can cut it in a similar way to the branch you've just removed, but cut about 60% of the way through from each side, and leave a bigger height gap between the two cuts... maybe a couple of inches. You can then grasp the stem and snap it off easily. But, again... how big is the stem you want to take? Finally, make your finishing cut a little bit below where you took the stem off, angled about 15° off horizontal, and facing the outside of the tree, to help shed rainwater and prevent any opportunities for rot. But yeah... pictures would help.

Righto. Interesting history, thanks. Next question then... how will @kram be making his budget alternative to a hook device? I've got a few shed hooks from Lidl waiting for a purpose, they are rated to at least 15kg... one of those'll do, on a bit of blue polyprop, right?

I don't think that makes the difference you think it'll make. Anyway. It'll be an interesting situation to watch develop.

Haha, takes up less space on the back of a harness I suppose...

Care to give a vague description for anyone who hasn't seen it, or would it be lost in translation?

I don't do enough fencing to make a dedicated aluminium tool worthwhile (I did tap in half a dozen ad-hoc sycamore stakes yesterday, cut from the tree just felled, and stapled the existing wire to them, to replace the blocking effect the two dearly departed trees provided behind a long-rotted barbed wire fence) but I wonder if you could add a little aluminium block, either to the head of the sledge or the top of the post, to win the same effect. It is annoying how a steel sledge can chew the top of a post a little bit, despite careful aim.

Obviously, the video is done in jest... but has anyone tried covering the inner spokes with the same fabric, to prevent the line from snarling up in the exposed metal? As an idea, it has potential.

Aw jeez, that told me. Got any more of those tissues, bud? Anyway, moving on... Fingers crossed Europe can get their collective sh*t together and step up, seeing as the US cannot be relied upon at any point in the near future. After Trump win, French President Macron asks if EU is 'ready to defend' European interests WWW.FOXNEWS.COM French President Macron, one of the first world leaders to publicly congratulate President-elect Trump...

Keeping in mind that as we progress through even the most optimistic models of climate change, we are going to see millions, then tens of millions, then hundreds of millions of people move around the planet... climate change is the biggest immigration issue we will ever face, which should put it right at the top of Dave's agenda. If he really cared about keeping all the brown people with the best food off his doorstep, he'd be voting green at every available opportunity. But shortsighteness and an inability to consider the future consequences of his actions prevents that. I am of course using Dave as an allegory for the goosestepping populace at large. And what a perfect allegory he is! With regards to MTG... kind of hope so, at this point... in for a penny, in for a pound! Might as well make things entertaining, eh?

Buddy, that joke was pretty funny the first time, slightly less funny the next. Shall we just assume the tissues-as-a-response from now on? While you are here, quick question... is Trump your favourite rapist? Are there any other rapists you hold in higher esteem? He must be in your list of top ten best rapists of all time, surely...