Having been a teacher, I recall David Blunkett who deserved respect as Education Minister.

You have all put it so much more succinctly than I could - and I completely agree.

It’s truly frightening that Government appears to be one of the few areas in life in which appointments are routinely made with little or no regard to qualifications or experience that might make the appointee suitable for the job in hand. Reshuffles usually consist of the same set of mediocre figures being shifted around and given new job titles - only very rarely does someone with genuine ability emerge from the pack.

@ Beth and samandi - Although I agree with you both in general the Ministers and aids are assisted by Civil Servants who must presumably take some of the blame, Unless, of course, they were overruled.

I don't think a new cabinet will improve things. Very few of these people actually have experience of what they are put in charge of, so they all bumble along until there is another shuffle.

Such lovely photos of you and Simon, it is so unfair that Simon had to die so young, he was a very brave man, and you will treasure his last letter forever.

Thinking of you often x

Lovely photos Em, thank you.

Your pups have given pleasure and comfort to lots of people.

The puppy photo is lovely. Em and Simon look so happy.

I have added the puppy photo last night. Hope you like it.

It's a lovely idea that people can post memories and photos of Simon. It'll always be something you are able to look back on 💕

Great photos Em. Non tech me finally got to the page after some stupid AI was poking its nose in. You have got some lovely memories there. Take care of yourself and don't rush things.

Thanks for sharing this Em.Lovely photos.Thinking of you ♥️

Awww lovely....thinking of you, take care ❤️

What a lovely tribute, Emma. Simon looks so handsome and happy. The Dancing Man is very appropriate - Simon will be dancing in heaven.

Thanks for sharing with the PMP family Em. Thinking of you and your family.. Xx

Thanx Emma.

Such lovely, happy pictures and beautiful memories to treasure forever. In our thoughts brave lady xx

Thanks for sharing the photos with us Em. Thinking of you. Take care 💞

As Saphicat said,some lovely photos of you both.I am glad that you are able to raise a smile at times although tears will be close to the surface.Glad you are keeping busy as much as you can.

Thank you for posting this Em, nice to see the pictures of a happier time. Thinking of you each day ❤️

Some gorgeous photos there Em .... I love, love, love the colour of your bridesmaid dresses and the profile picture of you two is simply stunning. It's so wrong that you've lost Simon so very young and, as you say, you can only take each day at a time. You are in all of our thoughts and hopefully we can help a little bit if you remember that we're all sending unlimited virtual hugs & tons of positive wishes 💕

Raised a smile.

😄

:-)

Sounds dangerous Beth.Try the ring pull ones.

Anyone tried opening a tin of tuna with a can opener recently? They always seem to have a couple of dents somewhere round the rim and I end up pushing a knife through , bending the lid up and trying to operate the opener at the same time.

Last time we had them was about 20 years ago they were on special offer (steak, steak & kidney, steak and ale - 4 for £4 - I think) and there was more soggy pastry than steak. They used to be a good staple to have in the cupboard for the winter.

I remember Fray Bentos pies, couldn't get a tin opener that would cut the lid off! Mind you, if one did manage to get into it, the effort was wasted, more meat in a veggie sausage!

Stopped you asking for a second helping I bet !😭😤

Like a spaghetti bolognese the stingy chef in Germany once made for staff, a bucketfull of spaghetti, 50ml bottle of Tabasco, & just one level dessertspoon of mince, nothing else, it was really watery & burnt your lips.

I still have 3 Fray Bentos pies, All Day Breakfast & 2x Chicken & Mushroom i picked up reduced to 70p, just take the lid off & throw in the oven for half hour till the pastry has risen & crispy, just enough for 2 people. I used to buy their "pie in a tin" regularly, but when they went over a pound I stopped.

Two questions: 1. Do you create these, or find them? 2. If you create them, why aren't you on the stage - yours are better than many so-called comics, and if you find them, Where?

:-) :-)

😁

:-) :-)

😀

🤣

Ah. I don't do WAD.

I have a confession to make - please don't tell the RSPCA! The boys were being a pain this evening, bouncing all over each other and threatening to go off in corners (bad sign!) which meant I was constantly chucking them in the garden, then bringing them in and trying to do more research. I knew one had performed (watching them on the Alarm system monitor) but not the other, so around 9.30 they went to the back door again, I put them out and forgot them. Next thing I knew there was a scraping at the back door and I suddenly realised that the big black blob in the dog bed wasn't the two puppies on top of each other but Indi, taking advantage of their absence to get into her own bed for once. I looked at the time, and it was 10.30 - pitch black and getting a bit chilly, though luckily quite mild compared with the last few nights. I let Shadow in, who was ecstatic to see me, but no sign of Storm - panic! had he fallen in the pond, escaped out of the gate that I carefully wired and he then walked through the following day? I grabbed the torch and went searching, with the old Psalm whatever running through my head - 'and did he not go and seek the missing lamb, and bring it home safely' or whatever... anyway, no sign of Storm, I went back to check the back doorstep and he came hurtling out of the dark, leaped indoors, covered me with kisses and the two of them smothered me, jumped all over me and my notes, email, phone and pens, before having a play fight and then crashing out together. Indi has lost her bed again. Never mind, she is on mine with the electric blanket coming through nicely.

Looks like your Woody won a dinner?

Let’s hope something comes of your unexpected meeting 🤞🏻🤞🏻

Thanks Jaffa, I didn't see the post (Bonus Page) until now.

😢

Well, I've had another look and Pollock's scribble still doesn't say anything to me and is certainly not something I would give house room to. As for the coloured stripe on a canvas, that is surely something that anyone with a tester pot of paint could produce.

SuedeNym, I'm not hating on Rothko perse, but modern art in general as I said I don't get. I don't seem to have imagination to visualise the sort of things you are referring to. I've never been able to create something like art, drawings or anything like that.

My OH tries to describe things, but he ends up drawing them, cos I just can't visualise what he's describing.

You all seem to be hating on Rothko but I have quite a bit of time for his work. These paintings are meant to be sat with and contemplated for a while so that you start to see the fields of colour shimmer and see the many layers and overpainting that has gone into creating them. They have been described as Buddhist TV sets - a bit of a glib statement but you get what they mean. When we were taken as a group to see them in the Tate the tutor asked us what feelings we got from them, making out that they were depressing, being all dark maroon and such but I found them calming.

The story of Mark Rothko is quite tragic - he committing suicide and was partly driven to it by the appalling treatment that he got from the gallery that signed him up - Marlborough Fine Art. They constantly pushed him to produce more and more works that they could sell and persuade him to compromise his artistic integrity to make them more commercial. It was a bit like a record label signing a band and worked in a very similar way. He also overpainted acrylic on top of oils which is a big no no as it makes the painting unstable due to the different rates of drying so they are a nightmare to conserve and could all fall apart in the future. Some have speculated that he did it deliberately to get back at the gallery!

Lol63, yep that sounds like Rothko paintings. My OH, daughter and me went to a modern art museum in Dublin. Well one of the art pieces ( I use the term loosely) was an old TV playing a video, of what I don't remember, but that piece was the catalyst for me. I left them to it and went and sat outside, I was so annoyed !

SuedeNym. That would be an interesting critique...everyone stood around saying "it's not my cup of tea". Or maybe the art class was reality.

I took art A-Level at school and as a "treat" we were taken to London to see an exhibition of modern art at the Tate (not Tate Modern.)

My friend Shaun and I wandered around enormous canvasses with titles like "Black on Maroon," "Maroon on Red," "Maroon on Blue," which were all basically just a huge coloured vertical stripe. Then by chance we turned a corner into the classical section and were greeted by Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais. A relatively modest 30x44 inches.

As one, we both said "Now THAT'S a painting."

Umm, I really don't get so called modern art. Mark Rothko in particular makes me cross. It's just squares of colour. I don't see depth, interest, shading anything. Just someone whose used a tester pot to try out the best colour ! I cant get immersed in it as Rothko suggested. One sold yesterday for 74 million dollars, sorry to all the art lovers , but that amount of money for a square of colour is obscene!

If you want to own the art, the artist has done the job. A famous musician once said there are two sorts of music, good or bad.

They were wrong opera singers hurt my ears, there is music you like & music you don't like.

I saw an exhibition of his in Milan years ago and some of his stuff was really good as they all had to be able to paint classical scenes.I think he hated most women though.

I remember saying to my mate as we came out of an Art History class, ‘Thank goodness Picasso’s just died - at least he won’t be churning out any more junk for us to learn.’ She nudged me and said, ‘Mr. … (the teacher) ‘s behind us.’ I risked a glance and he was smiling, so I don’t think I offended him too much. When I got to uni I sent him a C & A carrier bag - you know the one with loads of dots in the middle and the letters in shades of colours, like those puzzle pictures. I put a note, ‘How could Seurat sink so low as to become a commercial artist?’

Yeah Alley1940, I do have a bit of a problem with conceptual art and 'installations'. Anyone who thinks you can get away with sticking up a video and saying 'it means whatever you want it to mean' needs to experience an art school group crit. This is where you put up on the wall whatever you've been working on and the rest of the class ask you to explain it. You'd better be able to defend your work because your peers don't hold back and those things can be brutal! I sometimes think some modern artists need a bit of that.

In the end I think you really agree with me SuedeNym.

My other peeve is the modern use of the word "Poetry". I was taught that poetry always rhymed and that anything that was a nice use of words was prose. Nobody can change me on that however hard they try.

I once sat through a talk by a teacher whose school had created an Art room and did a big project on the artist mentioned above. I turned to the colleague sitting next to me and said, "Well, that was a load of Pollocks!". She nearly wet herself.

Whilst I'm not a great fan of Jackson Pollock, I feel that as someone with a degree in Fine Art, I should offer some defence of modern art. These works may look like are simple to produce because they're not obvious recreations of recognisable 'real world' things, they are far from that. Try copying one yourself or look up a YouTube video of the artist and you'll see how much work goes into it. The artist is trying to convey more abstract ideas, rather than just illustrating them literally.

There are two things I believe you should ask of a work of art... that is that it should have intent and it should tranform whatever medium it uses to convey that intent. Drawing is a skill that can be learned, but seeing is unique. Just like you can learn an instrument but it won't make you a composer. The artist is trying to say something which may or may not be successful but it's still a valid endeavour.

Having said all that I do think a work of art should have some presence, speaking as the art student that tripped over the damned bricks in the Tate!

My unmade bed looks better to me than the artist's one ever did and I used to have some spare bricks somewhere.

I know art is subjective but can that be described as anything but scribble?

The price of fish & chips is expensive though..!

I like a nice bit of pollock "with chips", but i wouldn't pay that much ;-)

To err is human, but to really foul up on a grand scale, you need a computer.

Unfortunately we're having issues sending the daily reminder emails to addresses operated by Microsoft (again).

If you have a non-Microsoft email address, please consider using that instead: https://pickmypostcode.com/account/my-details/

We are in contact with the Outlook Support Team and things are slowly improving, but we do advise members not to rely on our reminder emails because of situations like this. We have suggestions so that members don't have to rely on them, listed in this FAQ article:

https://help.pickmypostcode.com/article/30-my-email-reminders-arent-coming

Just use an old reminder until they come back. Best of all, set up your own reminders and create a shortcut on your phone.

https://help.pickmypostcode.com/article/86-how-to-create-a-shortcut-to-pmp-on-your-phone

Like that!

Very good, csikijanos! 😀

A load of bull, or at least fishy.

Very funny.

:-) :-)

😊

😄

🤣

😂

You like the posts, but if you mark the page as a favourite, you'll see posts higher up in your feed.

Your posts are always good reading Beth. We never had any problems with our dogs when they were pups except for one who had been a stay and at the beginning used to scavenge any food she could find. She soon learnt that she would get fed regularly.

Essay is an ongoing black cloud hanging over me - 3,000 words on Austen’s Persuasion and Pride &Prejudice. Quite enjoying it but a lot of work as we have to include critics’ writings and our own independent study done during the term. The trouble was that there was a lot of reading, note taking etc during the term, and different independent study each week, and you don’t know until the end which books you are going to choose, so you may find the independent work isn’t the one you needed to do for the question or books you are using, so you have to find time to do another chunk…

Beth, You know your going to miss them. keep the posts coming please..

And did you get your essay finished with all the interruptions? Aren't they lovely when they're asleep 😂

From Rob in Derbyshire.

Quite often, the dogs got to the pet shop counter before the owner did, so we got to know many people by the names of their dogs or by what they normally bought, ie Brandy’s dad, Tesses mum, Mrs pound of Shapes. One old boy used to drag this thing in on a bit of string. We used to refer to him as “My dogs got fleas” as that’s how he once introduced himself.

Maybe you are Squeaky's Mum, or a runny mummy?

Beth. Ref your spare key - have you thought about installing a keysafe to the outside wall of your home?

Don’t tempt me! I have a fridge full of bottles, but as I said to my friend when she commented on it, they are full - if they were empties in the glass box, it would be something to worry about! Most have been there for months - the beer is from last summer, the Baileys was a Christmas present and the sherry was the bottle I took on holiday last year. I think my liver is safe.

Beth, I think I'd be swapping the coffee for something stronger! 😀🍷

In The Yorkshire Vet (Channel 5), they are constantly having to open up dogs to extract something they've eaten. Quite often, it's repeat offenders, so keep an eye on 'em, now they've got the taste.

Blimey Beth, they certainly keep you on your toes - understatement! ☺️

They could turn into house breakers and start a career of crime….😂😂

The person who has the chancenof winning it is the only one who sees it.

The £5 Flash Draw happens daily. It or they are only shown to those accounts who are randomly selected as a winner of that draw each day. That is between 5-10 people each day and they could be anywhere on site, in any ad slot. This is why they go unclaimed so often, though we have had a few claimed recently which is nice. Many people just check the draws and don’t scroll down all the way or check every page.

This FAQ article has more information:

https://help.pickmypostcode.com/article/12-what-is-the-5-flash-draw

There is no special place you need to go to find them, they can appear anywhere! They appear to individual users randomly - not to everyone browsing the site

You won't find it because it only appears to the person who found.

I read a study of analysing which era people lived in by the amount & type of plastic that gets into their food & bodies. It also shows in the hair & bones.

Mostly the bags are more photodegradable rather than biodegradable. It is light (probably the UV components) that cause the breakdown so burying them in landfill is bad. There's a lot of misinformation in labelling the bags as biodegradable.

However they break down, plastic particles are threatening a wide variety of animals and may be harming humans.

With the rollout of the new waste management systems, soft plastics will be collected in more areas.

Our council collects soft plastic in the recycling, otherwise take to a supermarket that has recycling for soft plastic.

I used to save carrier bags but also found that over time they disintegrated and therefore can no longer reuse them.

it is the disintegrating plastic that the marine life digests,. This is why I hate sky lanternx. One landed in my garden, it was a coat hanger covered in a black plastic bag which spread finely shredded bits of red hot plastic over the garden, It burns and it is so fine you can't sweep it up.

Good idea I will try that in future thank you.

We've been making "samosa" shapes of bags for years. I think a lot of crafters do it. I have at least nine at a time in a little zip pocket of a handbag, they take up hardly any room that way.

😈Thanks for saving me the postage.

The best way to store plastic bags was shown me by a French lady - 'le packet' Flatten the bag, fold from the side inwards, fold over again twice more, then take the bottom corner of the narrow strip you now have and fold diagonally, just the corner, keep folding it all the way up until you have a thick triangle left and tuck the handles in. Very useful for sticking in a bag or pocket or in the car for a spare.

My bags were long before they started charging for bags and before biodegradable were really getting into fashion. I've just had a look and there's no wording or marks to say recyclable, biodegradable or anything. Apart from their own name the only other thing is that they are "Proud Sponsors of Cruelty to Children". Which I was pleased to see. Oh, hang on, it's followed by "Must Stop". Well, that was a letdown, I was just about to join.

I think biodegradables need to be exposed to sunlight & air to rot away.

I have a carrier bag in each back pocket, used about 100 times.

I have aa monthly magazine that comes in compostable bioplastic but I've found them a couple of years later & they haven't changed after being in the compost bin & then buried in the garden.

Some modern plastic bags are designed to disintegrate sooner. Do any of them have a label saying they're compostable bioplastic?

Magic? 🪄✨

Why thank you, kind Anon! (Curtseys), How did you get rid of your name?

The little “tails” read very well. The humour isn’t forced, it’s derived from the actual activities with an emphasis on the comical side. There are also little dramas included. Do we have any freelance artists on PMP?

You could make a fortune here, Beth!

Holy cow! Commissions? I will contact a publisher toot-sweet as Del-boy said. After my last assignment goes in on Thursday.

I would buy the book too.

I'd love to hear these stories from the puppies' point of view!

Hilarious 🤣🤣

These anecdotes will make a great book. You could write in the form of a diary with short chapters. You just need to enlist an artist who could illustrate with comical sketches. I’d buy it! 😊

Cakey 😀

Is this a question off the GCSE Maths paper?

Bet they had a blast. Get that book written like Chocolate Spaniel said as it would be hilarious 🤣😂

Safely in the wardrobe!

Where are the trainers?

I bet they thoroughly enjoyed themselves 😂

Oh dear! 🤣🤣🤣 You should write a book about your adventures as a puppies mum's owner. Great fun for the reader, not so the author.

@ Lol 63 and Samandi - All the girls in Selfridges used to spay the air just as you walked through so the scent lingered for hours on your clothes. I was glad when they told us to use the staff entrance.

It would be ok if it was just one perfume, it's the assault on the senses of so many different smells that is migraine inducing.

Hopeful2B, I'm the same!

Lol 63

Although I'm female I hate anything highly perfumed. It gives me a headache if I linger in the perfumery so I always dash through too..

All those tv ads about making your house/ washing smell to high heaven really annoy me. I want unperfumed everything!

Alley1940 - Can't comment on the brothel part, but the John Lewis in Peterborough has one of its main entrances through the perfumery. If my wife dawdles there, I have to keep moving through or I start choking.

I'd like to know, too. Might be good for a laugh.😈

I had to occasionally work in Selfridges. In the beginning my colleagues and I would go in by the front doors but later we had to use the staff entrance at the rear. Entering at the front you go straight into the perfume sales. I told my wife it smelt like a brothel. I had to change that opinion when my wife asked me how I knew.

:-) :-)

That's the first time it occurred to me that it can sound like two words...duh 🤪

🤣

Yay !! Enjoy the chocolate. 🍫

🎉🎉

Well spotted you. Enjoy.

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼🎉🎉🎉

Great choice. 🍫

Congratulations

Congratulations. Enjoy!

Buying the chocolate will take longer than the eating. 😁

Well done, chocolate Mmmm, yes please...

Agree, perfect choice. 😀

Congrats on your win.

A wise choice!

Congratulations on your win! Enjoy the chocolate 🍫 🎉

Well spotted, santamaria - they’re elusive little bu@@ers!

LLAP 🖖!

Well done. Enjoy your chocolate🍫

Nice one

Yum🤗

Congratulations 🥳. Enjoy your chocolate!

🎉 Congrats 🎉

Good idea😋 well spotted.

All right Alec of the Smart variety...

I've got one leg, and I laughed. My other leg is fine too.

Don’t worry, Alley, my dad had one leg and he would have laughed, too.

The bottom of that barrel is going to be all the way through at this rate 😀

Funny but a little cruel.

😂

:-) :-)

Well I would have been honoured if you had called her that Beth.

Me too - she nearly got called Jaffa! I just wanted names that tied in with the colour of their collars, but decided Saffron was a bit more unusual for a dog. I used to know someone with an Arab stallion called Jaffa - beautiful horse. I digress!

I do hope Saffie makes it .

Haven't heard about Saffie yet - may contact the police after my final exam submission on 28th. Woody is doing really well and they are very happy with him. He has settled in beautifully, gets on with their other dog and the son loves him. Ivy is with my friend and came out for a walk with us yesterday - the old dog she lives with is finding her hard work as Jasmine is about 13 or 14 now, nearly deaf and I think her eyesight's going too, and Ivy is a live-wire so coming out with the boys really wore her out and put her in her place. The daughter, who has severe OCD and sometime goes into mental lockdown, unable to get up for days at a time, is doing brilliantly. She gets up early, has done lots of training with Ivy, walks her regularly and is coping well. Ivy sleeps through the night and is devoted to the daughter, and I suggested she could get Ivy registered as an emotional support dog, which might help her go back to uni. She really liked that idea, and if it works it would solve a lot of problems. Poppy is doing well too, living in stepson's lounge and going to girlfriend's house most days, and they take her out and about a lot too. She is a bit manic with the boys when she meets up in the garden, but apart from that all OK. She travels well on short car journeys too, which is good as we will have a long one to go on holiday later in the year. And you know about the termites here with me! Storm is currently in the crate on his own with a smacked bottom since I caught him chewing the ottoman again an hour ago, but he has gone to sleep quite happily. Shad is on my bed with Indi - I hope!

Have you heard how the others are getting on Beth? I love the Puppy Tails too.

We have a small cockapoo (dad's a toy poodle, so at almost five years age she's only 5.7 kg). She barks at everyone going by, running along the fence if she's outside, and even barking for/at people 100 m beyond. Very little difference in tone whether friend or stranger. Having grown up surrounded by little people (we child-mind) she's very gentle and actually quite shy at first when face-to-face with anyone larger than her with two legs or four.

Me too! ☺️

I love your Puppy Tails. 😀

You will be safe at night.

Bradley losing it is the best bit of The Chase.

The Celebrity one tonight was good with Darragh Ennis as Chaser and some Irish comedian on the team. They won £120,000 - he got £9,000 on the cash builder. Can't remember what creased up Brad this time but he was nearly wetting himself.

No Lol 63, I was expecting that too, but it wasn't included this time round. There were some other great giggly moments though.

Don't know if you saw it a while back, but Brad did actually get to meet Fanny. It was during Michael McIntyre's Big Show programme where he surprises a celeb. by creeping in to their bedroom in the early hours, and several people from their past appear in the room too. It's terribly cheesy, but I did enjoy that particular episode.

Was it the one where Brad got the giggles over the name Fannie Schmellar?

Glad your concert went well.

I would have recorded it, if I'd noticed it in the listings. They are always good, though my favourite is Beat the Chasers. It's almost impossible to win on the regular Chase programme.

I was out last night, singing in a concert with my choir. We had a sell-out....in spite of (or maybe because) the European Song Contest was on.

🙂

Groan.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

But I had not heard it before🤣

Silly, extremely silly. 😊

:-) :-)

😄

🤣🤣

Nick is in contact with the Outlook Support Team and things are slowly improving, but we do advise members not to rely on our reminder emails because of situations like this. We have suggestions so that members don't have to rely on them, listed in this FAQ article:

https://help.pickmypostcode.com/article/30-my-email-reminders-arent-coming

Thank you Marie. Regarding the daily emails, despite receiving the Saturday one after the problems seemed resolved, nothing has arrived since. I can still check of course, but obviously this is not what you want happening as you need to keep the advertisers happy. Hopefully it can be resolved.

Edit: Sorry, actually it was Sunday that it was received.

Mystic Bear, the emails to and from the admin inbox are different and there is no problem with them being blocked or deferred. That's why you received them without issue.

I changed my email from my outlook one to my btconnect one and they started again but I haven't received one today (Sunday) but got the Saturday one and have used that each time today.

Thanks Nick. The emails did resume as you said, but the last one received was on Thursday, although I've actually had emails on a specific matter from admin since then. It seems very random and I hope you manage yo get ug sorted. Meantime, I have still been able to check without the reminder emails of course.

I have had them every day, I think, though I don’t keep a check on what time - maybe it’s not coming until the next day. I just use the first email fromPMP that I see, sometimes a week old.

Thanks for everyone's responses! I do keep the previous reminder each time until the new one arrives.

I do the same as Alley1940 and keep my reminder email on until the next one comes in, but only because it's usually about 1.50pm and I prefer to check not long after 12...

Yes you could pin a PMP reminder to the top of your inbox and use that, if you can't set up a bookmark and just remember.

Alternatively do not delete the last email received until you get the next.

That way you have an email to use and it will always take you to the current draws.

Hi trufflest, you might be better opting out of the emails altogether and using your own reminder. There is less chance of missing a potential win that way.

Hi Trufflestu, we noticed earlier today around 8.30am that Microsoft has started deferring our daily reminder emails, so you may receive it late. We have contacted Outlook again to try and get this resolved.

If you have a none Microsoft email address, it may be worth heading to your account settings and changing your PMP email

I have never bothered with them but someone mentioned it on the Bonus Draw page so maybe there's a problem.