New vaccine

[Snow Hill]

1 hour ago, terrierjohn said:

If you use your car locally with a lot of traffic lights and idling in busy traffic, then the stop start will be very effective in reducing air pollution, and most cars fitted with this feature have high capacity batteries, so not usually a problem.

I find it works well on my Renault Captur this one being petrol, my last one was diesel and was always having problems with it. 

[wowzz]

6 hours ago, ann141 said:

.Personally i think takeaways should be closed as well to protect staff

You mean shut them so the staff earn even less money than they do now! Perhaps you should ask the staff what they want.

[wowzz]

3 hours ago, grapau27 said:

Mine is 15 months old with 8,000 miles on clock.

I did 22,000 miles the 15 months previous so you can see how lockdown has affected work.

Paulines car is over 17 years old with 54,000 miles on the clock.

Graham.

 

22000 miles in 15 months! Crikey Graham, I thought you were a rep! I did more than that in 6 months just driving to the office and back, let alone going to JS, Asda or Tesco HQs.

[mercury7289]

9 minutes ago, wowzz said:

22000 miles in 15 months! Crikey Graham, I thought you were a rep! I did more than that in 6 months just driving to the office and back, let alone going to JS, Asda or Tesco HQs.

40,000 miles per year, for 15 years, some scary times! back ended twice,  front blow out at 80 plus on great north road, careering sideways in outside lane, also on another occasion evasive action taken by my guardian angel, causing me to off road, up onto an embankment at 50 plus in the fog on the same road, after van overtook at speed and then pulled into my lane and slammed on its anchors.

[wowzz]

11 minutes ago, mercury7289 said:

40,000 miles per year, for 15 years, some scary times! back ended twice,  front blow out at 80 plus on great north road, careering sideways in outside lane, also on another occasion evasive action taken by my guardian angel, causing me to off road, up onto an embankment at 50 plus in the fog on the same road, after van overtook at speed and then pulled into my lane and slammed on its anchors.

Strangely enough, my 150 mile a day commute up and down the M4 was reasonably safe, mainly because we were all regular commuters and knew the route and the unspoken rules. The M4 at a weekend was a truly scary place however,  with drivers who rarely drove above 40mph, and had absolutely no road awareness.

I've only been truly frightened when driving twice. The first time was driving over Shap on the M6 in a blizzard, with only the inside lane open,  and secondly driving round the Rue Peripherique at night in a torrential downpour, in a rhd car,  desperately  trying to find my exit, well before the days of sat nav.

Happy Days!

[grapau27]

9 hours ago, wowzz said:

22000 miles in 15 months! Crikey Graham, I thought you were a rep! I did more than that in 6 months just driving to the office and back, let alone going to JS, Asda or Tesco HQs.

I'm 65 in October.

Thought you retired at 50 and moved to Spain?

I have been Semi retired for the last 5 years only working 2-3 days a week.

I used to drive up to 50,000 miles a year for 40 years when full time.

 

Edited January 10, 2021 by grapau27

[wowzz]

10 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

I'm 65 in October.

Thought you retired at 50 and moved to Spain?

I have been Semi retired for the last 5 years only working 2-3 days a week.

I used to drive up to 50,000 miles a year for 40 years when full time.

 

Sorry Graham. I was referring to the late 90s, early noughties when I was still working. One of the reasons that i decided to stop working and live off savings was that the driving, plus jet lag from monthly trips to North America, made me reconsider my priorities in life. 

[Angel57]

I was interested to hear on the news this morning that many over 80s would soon be receiving letters from the NHS inviting them to book their  vaccine slots online at the big vaccination centres. Now I am not being ageist and I know most that on here most of us are reasonably tech savvy, but I do wonder how many will do it wrong and miss their appointments. Time will tell I suppose.

I do think it is a great way for the younger cohorts, but let’s hope Royal Mail gives these letters priority.......

 

[grapau27]

4 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Sorry Graham. I was referring to the late 90s, early noughties when I was still working. One of the reasons that i decided to stop working and live off savings was that the driving, plus jet lag from monthly trips to North America, made me reconsider my priorities in life. 

Personally I would have done the same as you if I could.

👍

[Eddie99]

I’d like to learn the rationale behind the mass vaccination centres.    Borrowing Angel’s proviso, that there are, happily, a lot of very fit, very mobile, very switched on octogenarians, there are also many in that category who are less fit, less mobile and pretty much ‘stay around homers’.

 

Why seek to make them travel tens of miles to huge centres in busy conurbations?  Why take them away from their home environment and their own GP or GP hub?

 

Surely it feels more logical to save the stadium settings for the younger end of the vaccine cohort?

 

Is this something of a publicity stunt where the effort would be better placed elsewhere and where, once again, local trumps National?

Edited January 10, 2021 by Eddie99

[Selbourne]

9 hours ago, wowzz said:

My driving instructor from 1969 would have wrapped my knuckles if I did that.

Wrong on so many levels. Why not use neutral, give your left leg and your clutch a rest, and, using your eyes to see when the lights change, then select 1st gear? 

I would find that approach far more hassle Wowzz! Besides, who still drives like your driving instructor taught them? Do you feed your steering wheel through your hands in sweeps like they taught us, or do it more naturally 😂 Anyhow, it’s very rare that I drive a manual these days. It’s only my daughters cars and that’s very infrequent and I’m rarely stopping. My own cars have been autos ever since stop-start was invented!

[Selbourne]

10 hours ago, wowzz said:

22000 miles in 15 months! Crikey Graham, I thought you were a rep! I did more than that in 6 months just driving to the office and back, let alone going to JS, Asda or Tesco HQs.

But don’t forget that most of those 15 months have been in the strange world that we now live in and, for the vast majority of us, our normal mileage has plummeted. We are retired now and our annual mileage dropped to around 12,000 a year, but we’ve only done around 5,000 miles in the last year due to all the lockdowns, restrictions and advice against travelling, so 22,000 miles over the last 15 months is still many times what most of us have done, I should think?

[davecttr]

There are no mass vaccination centres here in Kent and Medway, at least not yet. The nearest is Excel in London, 27 miles as the crow flies but a several hour marathon otherwise and obviously not aimed at those who don't have personal transport. The next nearest is Epsom racecourse, 37 miles with similar transport problems. There has been discussion that a 'local' centre could be at the Detling Showground, under 4 miles from my house but on the other side of the Downs and no public transport, actually there is, a local large minibus service to Maidstone which runs 5 times a day at 2 hour intervals and then another bus to Detling, a total of 15 miles. Maybe they will lay on special buses like they do when there is a show on, a hourly service from Maidstone, they would have to provide such a service for Medway as well.

 

I am not happy about having to expose myself to risk of infection just getting to a vaccination hub, the nearest practice hub is 15 minutes walk away but not for me as it is not covering my practice, itself a hub but a bus ride and half mile walk.

 

I agree with Eddie, it is a publicity stunt as such centres are obviously  aimed at the under 50 jab cohorts

[lincslady]

It looks as if our local vaccination centre will be Newark Showground - a very large site and hard to imagine being able to park right outside the door, and not have a distance to walk.   This would have been fine for us up to about 5 years ago, but now my husband is over 90 and poor at walking and standing I fear that it would not be ideal for us, and for many like us.

 

I am hoping that in the not too distant our local GP or pharmacy will be able to do the vaccination for people like us.  I have said for a while now that I feel that younger, active, working people should be given the priority, along with those with medical problems, and us ancients who tend to stay at home anyway can continue to isolate for a month or two more.  A lot of fellow seniors do not agree with me!  What do you think - I guess many of you are 65 to 75ish.

[Angel57]

Interestingly a friend from the Wimbledon area got a text late last night (she is 79) inviting her to go to a hospital at 8am this morning as they had left-over vaccine. She went at 8am, got jabbed and was home by 9am. She was given the Pfizer vaccine

[Angel57]

12 minutes ago, lincslady said:

It looks as if our local vaccination centre will be Newark Showground - a very large site and hard to imagine being able to park right outside the door, and not have a distance to walk.   This would have been fine for us up to about 5 years ago, but now my husband is over 90 and poor at walking and standing I fear that it would not be ideal for us, and for many like us.

 

I am hoping that in the not too distant our local GP or pharmacy will be able to do the vaccination for people like us.  I have said for a while now that I feel that younger, active, working people should be given the priority, along with those with medical problems, and us ancients who tend to stay at home anyway can continue to isolate for a month or two more.  A lot of fellow seniors do not agree with me!  What do you think - I guess many of you are 65 to 75ish.

I agree and disagree.......  In theory you are quite correct and I applaud your thoughts. I’d like to say I would do the same, but hand on heart - I want to feel less scared. I live alone and am finding the lockdown much harder this time around.

[Selbourne]

9 hours ago, wowzz said:

Strangely enough, my 150 mile a day commute up and down the M4 was reasonably safe, mainly because we were all regular commuters and knew the route and the unspoken rules. The M4 at a weekend was a truly scary place however,  with drivers who rarely drove above 40mph, and had absolutely no road awareness.

I've only been truly frightened when driving twice. The first time was driving over Shap on the M6 in a blizzard, with only the inside lane open,  and secondly driving round the Rue Peripherique at night in a torrential downpour, in a rhd car,  desperately  trying to find my exit, well before the days of sat nav.

Happy Days!

When I eventually climbed to the top of the greasy pole and made it onto the board of directors, I had a 240 miles a day round trip commute on the M4 to West London. Have to say that my experience was a little different from yours, as I absolutely hated it! I had a very luxurious and powerful company car that was fully expensed (they even paid the tax liability on my private fuel benefit, as well as the fuel itself) and friends and family thought I was very fortunate, but it was no life. I was earning a lot of money but had very little time to enjoy it.
 

In spite of having driven high mileages for decades, I am fortunate that I never once had an accident in any of my company cars. None the less, I decided in the end that my odds were lessening as each year went by and, like you, I bailed out and retired early (54 in my case). It’s true that having done all of that put me in a financial position that I could easily make that decision, but I look back now and wonder how on earth I did it. I also feel terribly sorry for the many thousands of people who do those sorts of mileages year in year out without the same sort of financial reward. Pandemic aside, the volumes of traffic get noticeably more as each year goes by and the standard of driving gets noticeably worse. 

[kalos]

 

How's that song go again ? 

 

🎶You can reach me by ... I don't care how you get here but get here if you can 🎶

I'm over 65 and with serious underlying conditions, which puts me up the queue

a little bit. Providing the Mrs and me get our vaccine then I do not care where it is .

It's not like I'm pulled out with work or got better things to do whilst sat in the house for the last 14 months. Personally if I can travel half the country to step on board a cruise ship then I am just as capable of travelling for a vaccine that will make my life better .

There will be people sat in nursing homes or who genuinely cannot travel for whatever reason but I'm sure the NHS will have made plans for such events and will be there for them . There will be unforeseen hiccups along the way  as with anything else in life but where we can ,if your offered the jab , lets all get there if we can .  

[Selbourne]

24 minutes ago, lincslady said:

 I have said for a while now that I feel that younger, active, working people should be given the priority, along with those with medical problems, and us ancients who tend to stay at home anyway can continue to isolate for a month or two more.  A lot of fellow seniors do not agree with me!  What do you think - I guess many of you are 65 to 75ish.

Whilst I understand the sentiment, as I do with the idea that certain key workers should be higher up the priority list, there is no getting away from the fact that the most overwhelming factor in determining survivability with this virus is age. Both our daughters (20’s) are still exposed on a daily basis as they are still working - one public facing and the other using a bus every day to get to work - whereas my wife and I are retired, but the reality is that if they get the virus it is extremely unlikely to harm them, whereas even though my wife and I are ‘only’ in the 55-60 group, our chances are far less certain. Having discussed this with them, they would much rather we were vaccinated first.

 

[Selbourne]

4 minutes ago, kalos said:

 

How's that song go again ? 

 

🎶You can reach me by ... I don't care how you get here but get here if you can 🎶

I'm over 65 and with serious underlying conditions, which puts me up the queue

a little bit. Providing the Mrs and me get our vaccine then I do not care where it is .

It's not like I'm pulled out with work or got better things to do whilst sat in the house for the last 14 months. Personally if I can travel half the country to step on board a cruise ship then I am just as capable of travelling for a vaccine that will make my life better .

There will be people sat in nursing homes or who genuinely cannot travel for whatever reason but I'm sure the NHS will have made plans for such events and will be there for them . There will be unforeseen hiccups along the way  as with anything else in life but where we can ,if your offered the jab , lets all get there if we can .  

Beverley Craven. Great song. Saw her live in 2019 with Judy Tzuke and Julia Fordham. Absolutely superb show. And yes, I agree, I would drive to the other end of the country to get my jab ASAP. 

[terrierjohn]

1 hour ago, Eddie99 said:

I’d like to learn the rationale behind the mass vaccination centres.    Borrowing Angel’s proviso, that there are, happily, a lot of very fit, very mobile, very switched on octogenarians, there are also many in that category who are less fit, less mobile and pretty much ‘stay around homers’.

 

Why seek to make them travel tens of miles to huge centres in busy conurbations?  Why take them away from their home environment and their own GP or GP hub?

 

Surely it feels more logical to save the stadium settings for the younger end of the vaccine cohort?

 

Is this something of a publicity stunt where the effort would be better placed elsewhere and where, once again, local trumps National?

I hope that GPs will be the source of most of the vaccination bookings, I think ours will, and hopefully they know their patients and will be able to determine which might need home vaccinations.  Maybe Beckett could advise from her experience.

[jeanlyon]

Well we've got 14 miles to do to get the jab on wednesday.  Hopefully by the time mine is due, it will be the GP surgery 100 yards away.

 

[arlowood]

17 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

Beverley Craven. Great song. Saw her live in 2019 with Judy Tzuke and Julia Fordham. Absolutely superb show. And yes, I agree, I would drive to the other end of the country to get my jab ASAP. 

Sorry to contradict you Selbourne but the original hit was recorded by Oleta Adams - Get Here.

 

 

A great song by a great singer. She was discovered in the US I believe when she turned up to do a backing track for the group "Tears for Fears". I think they has some involvement in promoting her career.

 

It may have been covered by Beverley Craven at a later date

Edited January 10, 2021 by arlowood

[Selbourne]

1 minute ago, arlowood said:

Sorry to contradict you Selbourne but the original hit was recorded by Oleta Adams - Get Here.

 

 

A great song by a great singer. She was discovered in the US I believe when she turned up to do a backing track for the group "Tears for Fears". I think they has some involvement in promoting her career.

 

It may have been covered by Beverley Craven at a later date

You are spot on in all respects. I mixed her up with another of my favourite female artists. Haven’t seen Oleta Adams live though. I have the CD and yes you are also right with the Tears for Fears link. As I recall, wasn’t it ‘Woman in Chains’ that got her noticed?

[bobstheboy]

Our local surgery has stated it is ready to vaccinate up to a thousand a day if necessary, once they get supplies. It is keeping locals updated through Facebook and a recorded message on a dedicated phone line. Excellent service.