mike carey

I'd add another comment to ease the concern that digital certificates could be gamed by forgers. I'm reasonably confident that public health records show where different batches were used, so a forger would need to match a real batch number against a location were that batch was injected into arms, and that location would need to match where the holder of the certificate lived. Not impossible, but not easy either.

I haven't spent much time in Auckland, but it recently topped the Economist Intelligence Unit's most liveable cities list (the top 10 were all in Aotearoa, Australia, Japan and Switzerland). Being liveable isn't the same as interesting or exciting for tourists, so status on that list isn't relevant to the topic of this thread. Of the main cities in the country, I like Wellington the best (from what I've seen). Like Auckland, Wellington has a scenic harbour, but Auckland is pretty flat, while the capital is hilly, which I prefer (not the only reason, I hasten to add). Christchurch is nice too. Both cities are half the size of Auckland. If you're retiring there and planning to travel internationally, long-haul flights from Aotearoa operate only from Auckland (Wellington and Christchurch have non-stop flights to Australian cities, and there was a direct Singapore Airlines fright from WLG-SIN via MEL).

That's hilarious. I've been more the revenge saving, and realising the things I spent money on before I didn't always really need.

The thoughts that animate my doctor-related imaginings these days were not even the faintest of inklings at the time, but it occurs to me that Dr Kildare and Ben Casey might well have had that effect if I had been so inclined at the time. And more recently, David Tennant as The Doctor ain't half bad.

The old system was based solely on how many posts you had made, the new one uses a point system based on posts, likes etc given and received amongst other things. That said, I'm not losing any sleep over it, it is what it is. There is a new gallery under development that uses a different part of the software's capability rather than the standard forum part that the Legacy Gallery uses.

You and me both!

As @keefersaid, thoroughly worth a visit. Fun fact, there's a statue of a white Australian in there. (It's of Peter Norman who was the silver medallist in the 200m at the Mexico City Olympics. He is depicted along with Tommie Smith and John Carlos.)

Indeed, Americans are not permitted to cross one of their land borders even now. (And I can no longer go to New Zealand, at least for the next three days, they have imposed a short quarantine border closure for the whole country.)

There will be a lot of catching up to do, and the among denizens of this forum are some of the people I want to see again. So, my inclination was to put the USA first, but the reality is I'm likely to be able to travel to a limited number of SE Asian countries first, so a short break in Singapore looks good (if I don't go to NZ first). Although I'll be vaccinated and not overly concerned about the virus itself, the Covid situation is likely to affect the travel experience in many countries for some time, so what my overall preferences are for where to travel could well be upended when travel is again possible.

It could be. Ireland isn't in Schengen, but people from the rest of EU27 would be entitled to go there. The issue would be whether Ireland had a quarantine requirement. Flights DUB-LON don't require passage through passport control as they are within the UK-Ireland common travel area (although non-nationals of the two countries would need to have their passport with them). UK, or to be specific English quarantine requirements (if any) would still apply to people who had been in prescribed countries in the previous 14 or however many days, but arriving from Ireland there may not be a check on arrival to attempt to enforce them. The authorities would have to get lucky (or the traveller unlucky) to detect someone as being in breach of the regulations. If there is no requirement for travellers from CZ to quarantine, there's probably no need to use the DUB workaround. As we're discovering again over the last couple of days, passport and quarantine rules apply as separate layers of restriction. Australians and New Zealanders have the automatic right to travel anywhere in the two countries (passports only needed to travel between them) but each Australian state and territory, and New Zealand controls the quarantine rules for travel between jurisdictions. Before travel we need to check on the rules, so for example, travel from NSW to NZ is not permitted right now, but is from the rest of the country. Your friends will probably need to do similar research on travel to the UK.

The UK was never in the Schengen Area, and there were always border and passport controls on entry (except from Ireland). As I recall British border formalities are conducted at the stations in Paris and Brussels, and Lille (don't know about AMS but I assume not). Most, if not all EU countries probably still have visa-free entry, but not the right to do so (as do Australians, and presumably Americans among others).

I'm not reluctant in the slightest. It's just a matter of arranging to have my first shot, and it will be AZ, that's the only one available to me now. I'm not worried about AZ, I know that the risk of disease is higher, and the clotting syndrome is extremely rare but easily treatable. I hadn't seen any reporting on the gender of people who suffered from the clotting syndrome. There have only been two deaths here, both women. One was 52 and the other 48. If the older were post-menopausal, she could easily have still been on HRT which would conform to your hypothesis. From the reporting I've found this afternoon, an early report here cited two of the eight cases that week were men, and in a report on the early German experience 28 of 31 cases were women (although the cohort receiving the vaccine were health care workers who were mainly women). That would tend to suggest women are more susceptible although not uniquely so. In any case, since I wasn't concerned about the vaccine, evidence that men can't or are less likely to have a clot doesn't change my calculations.

The vaccine stroll-out here has been appalling, but in its speed, not necessarily the medical principles behind it. The TGA approved the AZ vaccine when it had become clear from UK experience that the results were better if the second shot was later than the originally prescribed three weeks. Now that a vaccine single shot is proving less effective, even in preventing serious disease, against the Delta variant, that is being questioned, and the current approval guidelines of 12 weeks may be reduced to speed the rate of full vaccination. I haven't had my first shot, not because I can't but because I haven't negotiated the process to book an appointment. AZ is not recommended here or people under 60 here, because of the clotting issue, that will have made it easier for me to get the AZ jab.

https://rent.men/FFHoleWhisperer The profile link had been discussed in other threads.

My understanding is that it's part of a software change, not a conscious decision to change the way this site operates To me, the ranks are an interesting way to reflect members' levels of engagement with the forum, but I'm not persuaded that the specific ranks warrant the effort needed to customise them. Of course, if others want to do it I'm happy for them to go ahead with it.

Well, after 16 months of this, I have finally been caught in the maw of the Covid public health bureaucracy. Well, not exactly 'caught'! I went to Sydney for a football game 10 days ago (and a liaison that didn't end up happening [sad face]), and today in the face of a developing outbreak in that city, the ACT Government has imposed travel restrictions. From today, people travelling to Canberra from seven affected local government areas (LGA) in Sydney have to register and isolate for (I think) 14 days. Unless they have been to known exposure sites (and there are a lot of them) they are allowed out of isolation for essential purposes, but have to wear a mask if they do. I fell into a lower tier, people who had been in Greater Sydney in the last 14 days have to register, but there are no specific restrictions. It took me five minutes on line to detail where I had been (LGA, not in more detail) and when, and where I will be staying in the next few days (at home). As soon as I hit send on the web form, I received a text, and an e-mail with the conditions that apply, and that was it.

Bon anniversaire, Joe!

How could they??

At the risk of veering slightly off topic, I have been reading similar reports in other sectors. For example, air travellers appear to be cashed up and have higher points balances after a year of not being able to travel, and are spending money and points on premium cabins when they fly. Those fares are cheaper with almost zero business demand, so that part of the comparison with escorts doesn't hold up, but the increase in leisure demand for those fares is greater than the decrease in prices would have predicted. I think it's a bit premature to talk about runaway inflation. The US reports its inflation on the monthly figures based on the increase over the same month last year, and those numbers for last year were depressed. Many other countries report whole of year numbers and year on year comparisons. Australia for example does this and reports the monthly increase over the previous month not the same month a year ago. This gives a different, and arguably better indication of the inflation trend. But we'll see.

By way of background, the ABC over recent days has been trotting out snippets of public opinion on what Australians think about an incredible range of issues. It is based on an independently conducted survey that asked 60,000 people about 600 questions. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-23/australia-talks-national-survey-how-it-works/100113880 Tonight they ran a 90 minute TV special, on which one item stood out (at least to report in this forum). The survey had asked how often people masturbated, and noted that the federal electorate that had the highest level of, ahem, self gratification (or at least that was admitted) was Sydney which encompasses central areas of the city, including much of the gaybourhood. They had a well-known comedian do some vox pops on the subject, and finished the segment with him devising a simulated ad campaign to sell that aspect of Sydney. He took it to the federal MP for Sydney, the Labor party's Tanya Plibersek. She sits as he rolls out his pitch to her, looking alternately amused and bemused, with an occasional eye-roll. At the end he is going through a series of [lame] slogans for the ad, when in a pause she says, 'We welcome all comers'? Has to be a mic drop, I don't care whether it had been scripted for her.

Yes that's correct. I'm surprised it wasn't clear, especially when I said 'their ad'

It's being discussed in another thread. They do realise (now), having asked where signatures had gone. Signatures are not visible in the phone version of the site and there doesn't appear to be a way of entering or editing a signature from the mobile version. This is where their ad is now https://rent.men/FFHoleWhisperer

I logged into the site on my phone and couldn't find it either. I did, however, find it on the computer version of the site. There, click on your name at the top right of the screen then select 'Account Settings' on the drop down menu, and 'Signature' will be in the panel of the left of the screen. (And yes, I tried to replicate that sequence of screens on the phone and it didn't seem to be there.)

I'm seeing your link in this post, below the 'Quote' button. I'm viewing it on a laptop, and that may be the difference. It may also work on a phone in landscape view.

The points in this sentence are interesting. When I was last in the workforce here, about 15 years ago, having a single-sex selection committee was not permitted, at least in public sector employment.