What Do You Think Today?

[sgt.null]

Well I can counter the argument for socialism with the real world examples.

I've joked with avatar thst I lean towards benevolent facism.

[peter]

The fuck are you talking about? I'm a fucking socialist. I just don't like this weird, reactionary, conspiracy-minded hole you've been falling down for months now.

If someone dies of Covid-19, say they died of Covid-19. If someone dies of something else, say that. Be honest.

This would be just as misleading, and probably more dangerous than the alternative.

Well, whatever you are Murrin (and from your subsequent post it seems that you have no clear idea on this yourself) you are certainly reading my posts again! Would that you would take as much trouble in going out and actually examining the arguments you have so taken to pouring out your vitriol against, you might find some profit thereby - but I suspect this is too much to ask.

Still, at least you recognise that the manipulation of the death figures in respect of Covid-19 has been both misleading and dangerous. This, I suppose, is something.

[peter]

Shortly before 3 pm yesterday afternoon (the time at which Prince Phillip's funeral service began and we held a minute's silence in the shop) a gentleman came in who was known to my work colleague. She enquired after the customers elderly mother (the man was himself in his sixties) and he said that he'd been "allowed" to see her for the first time the previous day (presumably as a consequence of the easing lockdown restrictions).

I learned from my colleague that the woman had been in the local hospital for some weeks during which the family had not seen her the once due to the proscription of visitors due to the pandemic. My heart went out to both the individuals and families thereof who have been denied the comfort of spending their last hours together - people who have died alone or at best in the company of strangers and their families told of this devastating event in their lives via the impersonal medium of a telephone line.

Nothing but nothing will ever convince me that this was acceptable, right or proper no matter what the risks of the pandemic; that this situation should ever.....ever.....have been allowed - forced upon people - at that moment when they should have been surrounded by their loved ones, when families should have held each other close in the extremity of their need. Shame on the Government's that legislated for it and the people who supported it.

[peter]

Interesting to note the two gatherings of people of late that have not attracted a police crackdown with riot shields and rubber truncheons. Despite being told not to attend the funeral of Prince Phillip, numbers of people gathered outside Windsor Castle in the time honoured manner in order to pay their respects. No pictures were shown of this on the media, either televised or printed, but a single line mentioning it did make the evening news on the day.

The second can be seen on the front page of the Guardian today as Chelsea fans in high spirits gather outside their football ground at Stamford Bridge. In this case, I suspect that the police decided that discretion was the better part of valour; thousands of football fans represent a significantly bigger obstacle to their own chances of walking away from a confrontation unscathed than a group of women on Clapham Common and I doubt that the boys in blue were up for that scale of rumble.

They had no such reservations however when it came to the suppression of the anti-lockdown protest in Trafalgar Square a few weeks ago. On that occasion they were perfectly happy to wade into the peaceful protest that was occurring with sufficient zealousness such that twenty people were left bleeding on the pavement and needing hospitalisation. Well, you've got to pick your battle lines carefully in these situations haven't you!

[peter]

Sad to hear that the Boomtown Festival has been cancelled for the second year running, not because the Government roadmap is likely to falter before the time scheduled for its happening, but for the more prosaic reason that they are unable to secure insurance against the event being cancelled due to a turn around in circumstances, and simply cannot take the risk that the eight figure stake they must invest to put on the festival would be lost in such a case.

A small thing to many people no doubt, but a huge blow to the thousands of youngsters who have been looking forward to the event in the face of the bleak period of lockdowns and curtailments they (along with the rest of us) have endured.

This is the generation who will bear the brunt of the Covid debacle, and it will stretch down through their lives in ways that are unpredictable and (I have not the slightest doubt even so) undesirable in the extreme. Loss of freedoms and liberties, an economy raised to the ground, life chances blighted and futures made more precarious and less inviting than anything their parents or grandparents could ever have foreseen in their worst nightmare.

We have mortgaged the future of our own children for the dubious advantage of our own safety - made them carry the cost of a danger which was never one they had to worry about. Their lives are irrevocably changed by virtue of the decisions that we have made for protection purely of our own benefit. I fervently hope that those who have supported this disastrous response to an over exaggerated threat are comfortable with this. For my part I consider it an abomination.

[peter]

Prominent on our screens yesterday were the distressing scenes of patients lying on trollies and even dying as they did so, outside hospitals in Delhi, which is now in the grip of a Covid outbreak and where yet another new strain (we were told) is running rife.

This is serious. Of course it is serious. For the victims and their families it is a tragedy. That it is occurring on shores far away does not make it less so.

But I confess to having become much more cynical in my watching of the news since this business started and cannot but see ulterior motives behind virtually everything I see. In this case, I ask myself, "Are we being shown this out of true human interest, because we should share the pain of what is happening - or is it that things are beginning to ease off in the UK and the need is felt to inject a further bit of worry back into the system; a bit of, "Here's what could happen to you if you don't tow the line and be careful!". Useful perhaps as well to show scenes like this occuring as predicted could happen here (but didn't), to demonstrate that all that was done was not done for nothing; that "It could have been us!".

Always a good thing as well to keep the fear level up in the red if you can; keeps a people nice and compliant - ready to take on board stuff that would normally have them howling in the streets.

But no. Our Government, our propoganda machine doesn't stoop to that level of tactics does it? Must be that the stories are there out of pure altruistic concern. Forget all of that nonsense.

[peter]

Contrary to what is now probably popular belief in this place I am not a conspiracy minded person; that there is a problem with Government presentation of the data in respect to Covid infection rates etc is not simply a pet theory of mine, as evidenced by the recent YouTube posting by Professor Norman Fenton (Professor of Risk Information Management at QMC, London) on this very subject.

I do not believe that the Covid Pandemic is a smokescreen for the introduction of measures to tackle global climate change, and think that it is entirely coincidental that the very same policies of limiting people's use of their cars and taking flights both international and domestic serves both as a means of controling the spread of infection and reducing global carbon emissions. But I do think it would be naive to believe that Governments, having discovered that they can "get away" with the policies in respect of the former, will not be at least thinking in terms of their use in respect of the latter.

Earlier today I saw former Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney, now a United Nations special envoy for climate action speaking to Andrew Marr, and he was unequivocal in his belief that in short order it would be the case that the cost of rectification of climate damage due to carbon emissions would have to be built in to the activity in question in the form of 'carbon taxes' payable at the time of purchase. Asked by Marr whether flying would become a "rare luxury", his response was telling. "Not a rare luxury," he said, "But certainly more expensive."

What he means by this is that it won't be a rare luxury for those higher up the food chain (in terms of income) than those at the bottom for whom many of which it is a rare luxury already, because the former
will be able to absorb the additional cost. For millions however it will become a rare luxury, and for millions more it will cease to be possible at all.

And this is the crux of it, as it always is. With climate change, as with the pandemic before it, (my comments in the post above notwithstanding), it will be the poorest who will pay the lions share of the cost of putting it right. With the pandemic, it will be the poorest who are disproportionately affected by the disastrous economic carnage that lockdown has precipitated (in terms of health care no longer available, shortened life expectancy etc, reduced life chances). With the tackling of climate change it will be the poorest who will have to give up their cars, cease to take their annual holiday to the Costa del Sol, give up eating meat. Still, there should be no suprise in this - when was it anything other?


(As an interesting little sub-note, at the outset of the program, Marr outlined the various guests and subjects he would be addressing in the program and then said, "And if all of that makes you feel like chucking yourself into the nearest canal - don't. Because my final guest is celebrated British artist David Hockney, speaking from his villa in Tuscany telling us that life is wonderful and that spring is on the way!"

Great, David, if you happen to be in a villa in Tuscany; perhaps not so wonderful if you've been stuck in a flat in Dagenham for the past fourteen months. But then, I don't suppose that Andrew Marr expects too many of that type of people to be watching his show.

[peter]

Last week Mrs P got a nasty suprise when she opened up a letter from our local council telling her she was behind with our council tax payment and if it wasn't sorted out we would be subject to prosecution.

Knowing that she had made the payment on time and in full, she was somewhat put out by this and immediately went to telephone the ratings department to issue a complaint and get the matter rectified. Greeted by an answering service she was offered a series of options, none of which covered the above situation. At the end of the list, rather than being offered the option to hold for an operator to speak to in person, the call was summarily discontinued leaving her hanging out to dry with the mistake unresolved. She decided (as the call had recommended) to go to the council website and see if resolution could be obtained thereby. Here she found exactly the same problem in that an option to dispute a non-payment claim was simply not available; the site was designed simply to take your money, not to tell them that you had already paid.

Getting somewhat exasperated, she decided to call into the council offices on her next visit to town, but doing so was met by locked doors and a notice saying that due to the pandemic, no staff were manning the offices since they were all working from home for the duration. Pushing on a bell she finally got to speak to a person via intercom who took her details and said that the requisite office would call her mobile within the next five days. Thus was the mistake sorted out, which they blamed on a technical issue with the outsourcing service they used to collect rates payments.

There are two kinds of workers in the UK and have been for many years; those who go into the public sector workforce and enjoy all of the benefits thereof - earnings related pensions, payments, sick pay, flexible working hours, early retirement possibilities, guaranteed promotion and wage increase with length of service......... and the private sector workforce who pay for it. It is estimated that those who work in the private sector receive on average fifteen percent less remuneration for equivalent work and work ten years longer for the privilege. Now it seems that the state employees of the various offices will not even be required to show up for work. Instead they will sign in at home, spend the day mooching around between their terminals, the kitchen and their mobile phones and being paid a good cut above minimum wage for doing so. On the rare occasions I have been inside state service offices I have always been aware of the significantly less frenetic atmosphere of the workplaces, the atmosphere of calm and unhurried pace of the places, in comparison to their private sector counterparts. A friend of mine who worked in the county council offices told me that on sunny days in summer the offices were virtually empty as a result of people taking advantage of the flexitime working arrangements. Now it seems likely that they won't even need these anymore, if reports in today's press are correct that they are unlikely to have to return to their offices at all.

This disparity in the working conditions of state versus private sector workers was interestingly highlighted in the seven eleven store I worked in that was close to a local golf course. First thing in the morning you would get the building workers and early workers of the private sector. Often they were old men and women, broken down by a life of hard physical graft, but still nevertheless dragging themselves out to complete the last few years of backbreaking work required of them before the state deemed they were ready for retirement. Then shortly after nine you would get the retired state workers, mainly men, off to the golf-course with a spring in their step. Having retired after a not too demanding life of work in the office, in their late fifties and early sixties, they could look forward to a good number of years on earnings related pensions enjoying golf and holidays. Compare this to the broken down old individuals who are eventually thrown out by the private sector and you'll see what I mean. On holiday in Vietnam with a group tour I told this story around the lunch table and was greeted with a tense silence in which the conversation suddenly died. Looking around the table I saw the fish-eyed stares of the people I was with looking back at me and I knew............. And so did they.

So here's a message to any state workers sitting at their terminals at home today (or more likely sitting on their phones looking at this or in the kitchen making coffee); remember - for every one of you grumbling through your unhurried day at home earning fifty percent above minimum plus benefits, there's some old sod, broken down and ruined by years of hard toil, out there paying for it

[StevieG]

In general, there are similarities in this country too. The superannuation and whole package in a government job far outweighs a private job. The flexi time and general ways to use the system to not work are far more prevalent in the public system.

On the other note, here is an old "song" on the trials of using a phone system to get anything done - Tool - LA Municipal Court - it takes things a tad far, but you get the idea. I link this in sympathy to Mrs P and trying to get to the bottom of an issue...

[peter]

Hahaha! That about summed it up StevieG.

[peter]

Entertaining to see Nadhim Zahawi wheeled out to support Boris Johnson's case in respect of the furore over the redecoration of his Downing Street flat and where he (Johnson) scourced the money from to do so. I mean Zahawi was the guy who straight faced, gave us an absolute and categoric assurance that the Government had no plans to introduce a vaccination passport, knowing full well that the idea was already being investigated by several companies under instruction to do just that. You wouldn't buy a carpet from this guy if he was hustling you in a street bazar in Cairo for fricks sake, let alone take his assurances that there's "nothing to see here" in respect of Johnson's integrity and above boardness. If you wanted to cast the villain in the next Bond movie, yes; as a giver of a character reference....... give us a break!

And thanks to Johnathan Pie (aka comedian Tom Walker) for his Johnson related observations on YouTube on the subject; "I mean fuck!", he said, "This is a guy who can't even decorate his front room without there being a stench of corruption rising up from the floorboards. Think what's going on when the multi-billion pound contracts are being handed out!"

And who (he asked) would ever make a 'charitable donation' to Boris Johnson! Think UNICEF, Save the Children, Cancer research........ but Boris fucking Johnson! Who the fuck are these guys!

No - nothing to see here!

[peter]

ONS figures released yesterday show that about one in a thousand people has the Covid virus. The Government we campaign tells us that one in three of these will show no symptoms. This means that the chances of any individual you encounter having the virus, but showing no symptoms, is about one in three thousand. In areas like mine where the incidence is lower, the chances fall to around one in five thousand.

The ad campaign trades on fear - on people's inability to see that because all horses have four legs it doesn't follow that anything with four legs is a horse; the way it is worded is such that people immediately suppose that one in every three people they encounter will have the virus but be showing no symptoms. By smoke and mirrors tricks such as this, the pandemic that would have passed the huge majority of us by without so much as our even noticing it has been blown into a massive alter upon which our lives, present and future, have been sacrificed.

It was appalling to see Professor Sunetra Gupta being interviewed on the BBC news yesterday afternoon and witness the disrespect with which the female newsreader conducting the interview treated her. Every time Professor Gupta attempted to put her point forward, that acquired immunity has played a significant role in the current reduction we are seeing in case numbers, she was steam-rollered over and denied the opportunity to put her case across. This has been the method by which any form of dissenting opinion has been crushed (where it has been presented at all), how anything that constitutes reasoned debate has been trampled down, denying an understandably uneducated public a chance to hear different viewpoints from which they may form their own judgements on what has been done.

Images of corpses being burned in the streets in India, of people queueing outside hospitals continue to feature top of the list on virtually every broadcaster major news bulletin. By this method, the Government propoganda machine (with the aid of their buddy media mogul bosses in the non-state media outlets) continues to grind out the message of fear that allows them to persist with the lockdown policy way beyond the point where it might be doing any good (the emphasis on the word might), to shift attention from the carnage they have wreaked on our lives, our livelihoods, our society.

Business as usual. Nothing to see here.

[peter]

Thanks indeed to Doctor John Ashton who, in respect of Boris Johnson's premiership, recently reminded us that "the higher the baboon climbs the tree, the better you can see his arse."

This has certainly been true in respect of the PM who, as he has risen up the greasy pole, has been more prone to running to the end of an ever longer leash in respect of the more shady aspects of his life and dealings. I shudder to think about what all of the old Tory voters think of the PM they have voted into Number 10 and can only say, " don't tell us you weren't warned." In respect of the actual MPs of the parliamentary party, they must bear an even bigger responsibility for the shower of boarder-line crooks they have foisted on us as a Government. They knew to a man that Johnson was entirely morally bankrupt and without an honest bone in his body, but were still happy for him to lead the Party on the basis that he was more likely to bring them victory at the polls than any of the other candidates who stood for the leadership at the time. Hell, Michael Gove even stabbed him in the back in the previous leadership contest, saying he was unfit to be Party leader (and that was as he announced his own candidacy having up to this point, been Johnson's campaigner in chief). After Johnson had won and was PM, Gove of course changed his mind and said on the Andrew Marr show that he had been wrong; well, hey - a man's got to be pragmatic about these things hasn't he? Interestingly, in recent days it seems his chameleon like nature may be coming to the fore again, because when asked to corroborate Johnson's claim that he (Johnson) had not said anything about "bodies piling up in the thousands before I'd introduce another lockdown", he declined saying it was "hard to remember." Yeah - right Michael! Sharpening up the old knife again are we? Rest assured my duplicitous old friend - Johnson may be bad - but you will never, never, never replace him. I'll eat my week old underpants if that ever happens!

[peter]

I'll shove this in here because I'm not sure where else to put it, but this is an unimportant little thing that I include just for the interest and quirkiness it offers.

Months, if not a year ago I was watching a YouTube video, or rather had clicked to watch it, and one of those pre-vid adverts came on that you usually ignore. For some reason I ran with it - probably just couldn't be bothered to skip it on the basis that it was no less interesting than the particular vid I was waiting for in my slightly uninspired vid-sifting mode - and a Chinese guy came on.

He told how his life had been on the skids, but he'd been given a present, a black lacquer bracelet with gold dragons along it's length, which was said to bring good fortune to the wearer. Sceptical, he had nevertheless slipped it onto his wrist, and lo and behold, his life from that point had suddenly seemed to turn around and everything had he touched seemed to turn up roses. His sick father recovered, he was given promotion at work, won the lottery, blah blah blah...... and now he would sell me a copy of the bracelet so that I could experience it's good-luck effects for myself.

Amused, I waited out the advert and watched my video. Later, I happened to be on eBay buying a book or something and (God knows why) I remembered the ad and thought, for amusement sake, I'd see if a similar thing was available on the site? Sure enough, for a dollar or there abouts, I too could own one of the magical bracelets. "What the hell," I thought, "What's to loose." and hit the buy button.

The bracelet duly arrived and I have to say, for the pound I'd sprung for it, it looked quite nice (in a plastic, tacky sort of way). It was black and shiny with gold dragons and letters etched into the beads. When my wife got back from work, I laughingly gave it to her, telling her all her problems were over. She laughed, and said that she would treasure it and placed it over a ring-stand on her dressing table. That weekend she won twenty five quid on the lottery and we joked that her bracelet must be working the oracle.

The bracelet sat, pretty much forgotten and untouched for the next twelve months or so, until last week when for some reason, on a day no different to any other, as she was preparing to join me for a trip into town, she spotted the bracelet and slipping it onto her wrist under her blouse said "I'll take dragon bracelet out for a spin."

Now that day I had two things to buy. A new pair of black shoes for work and a body-warmer, but to my chagrin the pandemic or brexit had caused my usual work shoes to nearly double in price - an increase I simply refused to submit to, preferring to wear old broken shoes than to succumb to such an increase. The body warmer I was after in another shop had disappeared from the rails, most probably because the winter stock had been replaced by the summer.

Disgruntled that our trip to town was turning out to be a waste of time, I said I just wanted to nip into a nearby charity shop to look at the second hand bookshelf (always a good scource of cheap books for me). Accompanied by my wife I headed towards the bookshelf and lo and behold, sitting on the shelf above the books was a pair of black shoes. Picking them up I saw they were clearly brand new, my size and priced at about five dollars - half the price I had expected to pay for the shoes I had intended to buy in the first place. Chuffed to bits with my find, I headed off and paid for them, and then went to browse the books while my wife scanned the clothing rails. A few moments later, she returned to me with a body-warmer in her hands, my size and if not brand new, then indistinguishable from being so. Priced at a tenner, once again it was a no-brainer.

At home we looked up the items (which had collectively cost me fifteen pounds) on the internet and their combined value was around one hundred pounds. Both found, in situ, brand new, at a fraction of the price, in the same location, on the very day I had gone out looking for them. I make no observation, say nothing, remain the same hard-headed rationalist I have always been - but what were the chances of that!

[I'm Murrin]

Really a testament to the types of youtube holes you've been falling into that those are the kinds of ads you get.

[peter]

Seriously Murrin; is this the best you can do?

You complain that I'm using this thread as a blog, tell me that no-one ever reads what I write, bemoan the decline of the Watch, but do nothing - nothing - to try to help me keep it going except snipe from the sidelines. Check back to your very first post in this thread some eight years ago in which you questioned the necessity for the thread, and here you are, nearly a quarter of a million views and over three thousand posts later still nursing the same old grudge.

Now do me a favour - stop it! I'm sure you're a really nice guy and we'd get on just fine 'in the flesh', but in all fairness, what the frick is it to you what I watch or don't watch on YouTube? That was just a bit of a fun little post to attempt to lighten the tone of what I've been posting of late - to show that I still have some humour in me...........was it really necessary to come back with a nasty little jibe at me.......in what way does it help?

Excuse me if I say that I think you would do better if, rather than simply prodding at me from the sidelines, you were to put together some proper posts that involve what you actually think (as opposed to what you think about what I think) so that we might get a bit of proper discussion here. I notice that you never post in the Tank, which I fully understand; the Tank of old could be a brutal place and many times my own ego took an unpleasant level of bruising in there. In fact it was because of this I started this thread in the first place. The idea was to have somewhere where you could pitch out your ideas or thoughts on topical issues, without the need for extended argument or research, of posting reams of examples and links, in a lighter more superficial way. Your thread about 'how you feel' has a different tone to it; it's not what I intended to go for here and contrary to that original post of yours, was never intended to cross ground with that thread. How you feel is how you feel; what you think is what you think. Not that one cannot ever effect the other, but there is a fundamental difference between the two that I could not see easily being fused Inna single thread without it becoming a mess.

Anyway, fuck it. I can't go around trying to justify myself to you all day, so just give me a break. Either just read my posts and agree or disagree on their content; better come up with a few of your own that we (and hopefully others) can actually have a talk about; but let's not get into ad hominem attacks on each other. Better that I stop writing them (which is unlikely to happen..... I think I've explained this above) or you stop reading them (which I don't want - and I am grateful to you..... and anybody...... that takes the trouble to do so). But enough. Let's leave it there.

[I'm Murrin]

I didn't really intend it to be taken so harshly, but I admit I could have been more considerate in the way I said it. As for what it is to me what you watch... well, you do keep using youtube videos to back up your points. That, however, doesn't tell the entirety of what makes up your particular ad recommendations - or how you use youtube - so I'll concede that it was uncalled for.

Much like the Tank, I don't really have the time or energy to dedicate to painstakingly rebutting anything I disagree with here, and you've made it clear you are not really open to other opinions on the topic, so yes, my posts in this thread have been minimal. At this point I mainly do it to remind other people that your posts - which dominate this thread, which is stickied and therefore held up and promoted by Kevin's Watch - are not representative of everyone here's thoughts on the matter.


Finally, with regard to a "grudge":
1 - it's not my thread. I posted the latest version of it, because I happened to be online when the old one hit 9999.
2 - I gave my opinion that it didn't seem distinct enough to need its own thread, others disagreed, that was the end of it. I have also questioned why this thread is stickied when the counterpart series - which has been running almost as long as the forum has - doesn't get stickied. The "sticky" function has a purpose and I don't see what it fulfills in this case.
3 - When do I ever "bemoan the decline of the Watch"?

[peter]

I concede I have little understanding of forum politics and protocol; the reasons and purposes by or for which a thread may be stickied are not something I have ever looked into or even considered. The use of such on this thread is, seriously, completely outside my interest; if it conveys a kind of 'kudos' on a thread not held by other, unstickied threads, I had not been aware of it - again, had given it no thought. I take your point that such threads might be considered as representative of the 'ethos' of the site in question; when (I think in my first post) I suggested to Ali that the thread might be stickied, I genuinely gave no thought to the use of the term, or its implications. I was simply using a term I'd seen/heard in use in this forum (the only forum I have ever been active in to this day - and that includes Facebook and Twitter) and thought that a gereral enough thread such as this was the kind of thing that was naturally stickied in places such as this. But all that said - if you feel it is inappropriate for such a position/tag/designation (call it what you will), it's not a thing that has any bearing on me (the designation that is). It's late in the day, and I don't even know if this area (what do you call the sections like the 'general discussion forum' in between the forum proper (Kevin's Watch, I assume) and the threads therein.....sub-forums maybe) are still being modded at all (is Ali still active on the Watch?), but by all means, if you think it apposite, get her (or do it yourself if your position/skills are able) to remove the sticky function from the thread.

In respect of the intransigence of my views...... okay, maybe it comes across as such - but in reality it is not so impenetrable. I have a degree of scientific understanding (educated up to Masters level in science), I have spent the bulk of my life working in the area of disease control (bovine tuberculosis, brucella, I worked through the foot and mouth epidemic, saw the advent, progression and eventual decline of parvo disease in dogs - a situation almost exactly comparable in it's unfolding as we are experiencing now) and I have seen much that makes me very unhappy (in the light of my education and past experience) with the way that this has been both tackled and presented to the public. There is science behind all of this - but there is politics too, and the two are a bad, bad mix (I have mentioned before how the State overreaction to the foot and mouth epidemic of the early 2000's nearly destroyed the livestock industry in this country, and the parallels with what we are seeing now are inescapable, even to the point of the same UCL modelling being used).

But yes, I concede that my perception of what has happened is unlikely to change now and (it goes fully and almost without saying) accept your absolute right - and the necessity for you - to present an alternative position and to hold me to task in the no doubt many places where my arguments fall down.

[Avatar]

SEE? Rational, civilised, and open discussion. Amazing innit? That you gentlemen for upholding what should be the finest tradition of the Watch.

(I don't know why it's stickied, (must have been done by a mod) other than as mentioned I believe it was originally meant for everybody to be able to drop random thoughts.)

--A

[peter]

Aww shucks Av!