mike carey

Yes, he has, but before today he had only posted on the day he joined and the following couple of days, so 'just started' isn't too far off the mark. Any way, welcome [back] to the forum, @Medjock, there's some fun to be had here. Make your case clearly and with good humour and you'll receive a fair hearing, but you won't please everyone. As you might have noticed. Sometimes it's best to keep your peace.

You've reminded me of one of my childhood meals, salmon pie, which I now feel compelled to make. Cooked rice, a can of salmon (or tuna) and cooked peas, all in an oven-proof dish topped with grated cheddar cheese, in a hot oven for 20 minutes. Possibly with a finely chopped onion in the salmon and rice mixture. Thinking about it, adding a cheesy white sauce to the mixture would be good.

There are a number of coffee vans around Canberra, they usually park at office buildings, set up at sporting and other outdoor events or even park by highways in and out of town. According to someone who rang the local ABC radio station, with the lack of any of its usual outdoor events, at least one of the vans has taken to driving around suburban streets with a loudspeaker the way ice cream vans do. Apparently some streets are quiet but the caller reported that on their street people flooded out of their houses of isolation to buy espresso coffees. Remembering how I jumped at the opportunity to buy a coffee on a trip to the shops after a few days in the house, it doesn't surprise me that a fair number of folk took advantage of the opportunity.

My house in a country town has a 'milk door' but alas there are no milk deliveries. My mother had the house built in 1968 and the milk door was on the side of the house where there was a flat for my grandmother, and she had had one in her previous house. Where I lived in the late 1990s we had milk deliveries, glass bottles that they collected to be reused (not recycled). The milkman supplied a polystyrene foam cooler to keep the milk cool.

Well, this one won't be flying for a bit. An A380 from Singapore Airlines has arrived at the long term aeroplane parking lot at Alice Springs. [MEDIA=twitter]1254182503947972608[/MEDIA]

Twitter runs hot and cold. The bad is the lack of facts you cite and the frequent bitchiness. Also the near impossibility of subtlety or nuance. The good is links to articles that I might not otherwise find, and some of the longer thoughtful threads some people post. The most recent account I follow is John Burn-Murdoch who does a lot of the statistical analysis and graphs for the FT, and tweets in detail most days.

Report from the front, at the Weston Creek Woolworths. I wanted to buy a couple of things this morning, bread being the main one. They didn't have cones and tape marking out a queue to enter, and there wasn't one, but they have installed a sensor-operated barrier at the entrance. They may be using that to limit entry when the shop is busy but it let me straight in so I don't know if it does that. They have also installed an automatic sanitiser dispenser just outside the entry, you just hold your hands under it and it squirts sanitiser into them. In the toilet paper aisle, people were stopping to look at the fully stocked shelves!

Yes, I did. Obviously I haven't spoken to every escort in the world, and my counterexamples don't disprove your assertion but I think there are enough guys, like the ones I cited, to say that your generalisation is unfair. For sure some escorts are messed up, but to say most are, or that they generally are is misplaced.

We're on the way down, but still 20s here, and it's beautiful. BUT, in the next week it's predicted to be 9C.

Exactly, and one would delight in meeting beyond such restrictions and of course with you.

I disagree, although there are plenty of people one might contact who are messed up, that doesn't mean all escorts are. I can think of two, one in NYC and one in Connecticut who are as sharp as a tack in any circumstance. They are not alone.

Hell no, but I'm not greedy, but if I could have one to keep, all the time, I'd be happy.

And maybe you won't. There are plenty of flu symptoms that aren't Covid-19. People who 'think' they might have the virus, get checked, if you're not sure.

Two answers from me. For guys in Australia, I have no idea when I'd be prepared to hire again. There's no-one in my local area that interests me (so far), so maybe when I can travel that will be enough for me to be prepared to hire in places I can go to. As for the US, it doesn't look as if travel there from Australia will be possible any time soon. If that becomes possible, I'd be prepared to hire, and there's one guy in NYC and another in Connecticut that I would meet in a heartbeat. Also a couple of guys in Las Vegas (if everyone isn't killed in a placebo trial), and some LA/OC guys. I'm not lacking in caution, rather, if I can travel to places I'm prepared to take the risk of hiring when I'm there.

I'm sure you could take my mind off it (or vice versa) but travel across the pond is closed. But hey, it's only 34C.

I want one of those!

There should be a law that you have to use the colour appropriate to your preference.

They are those plastic cones that are used to mark off areas. And a most profound apology, I should have written 'witchs' hats' I'll correct my earlier post post haste!

Yes they do, but usually those limits are planned in advance. Imposing limits in reaction to panic buying is a different dynamic.

Me too! But the 84pc had me confused.

I wasn't talking about just the US, I was also talking about Australia, Canada, the UK and even Aotearoa/New Zealand. Australia had a multi-billion AUD bond issue last week that was over subscribed. Those four aren't the only countries other than the US that have the capacity to issue debt. The other EU countries outside the eurozone would also be able to, and there would be others.

Possibly yes. But a country that can borrow in its own currency and can print money has an advantage. It can roll the debt over till the end of time. (Or until inflation kills it.)

Way to go, Canada Post. [MEDIA=twitter]1252919280519315456[/MEDIA]

I rarely order things for delivery, so I had been unaware of anything similar happening here, but there was a story on the news this evening. They didn't canvass supply chain issues, of which I'm sure there are similar ones to the Amazon issues that have been described in this thread, rather it was about the effect on Australia Post. They are seeing parcel delivery traffic that have been running at Christmas levels for six weeks. They spoke of a 470% increase in 'department store' parcel dispatches, whatever that means, over normal levels. There had already been increases during the drought and the summer fires as city people were ordering things from small retailers in the bush to help the businesses through what were hard times, but this has supercharged mail order stuff. Australia Post are reducing their letter delivery to every second day in metro areas and switching their postmen to delivering parcels on the other days. They are also cutting out signatures on delivery where they can as a distancing measure.

I completely disagree. No retail business would react precipitately to a run on an individual line of stock on one day, they would want to see a pattern. They would respond more quickly if it was a threat to their bottom line or the stability of their operations. This wasn't. They wouldn't allow an individual shop manager, much less a checkout operator, throw the switch, but they would fairly quickly see that it was happening in multiple outlets and their IT systems would tell them the scope of the issue. That would be when they would move, which is what they did. It wasn't a threat to the company, the restrictions were implemented to calm shoppers down. That calming effort was complemented by detailed e-mails of what they were doing to their loyalty card holders and signage in the shops. This wasn't a run on a bank.