1st ade

Could members please cease the endless 'sniping' and attempted point scoring (my spell checker tried to put 'pint scoring' which might be nearer the mark..)

...or have a quite NIMBY (not in my backyard) attitude to it. As a Local Councillor I'm regularly approached "Can't you do something about John*" who sleeps on a bench near Tesco+. Well yes, we can. We could have him moved on. Then he'd sleep outside ASDA, then the Co-Op... I know he has deep family issues, used to be a property owner, fell on hard times. He has dignity and any 'help' has to be on his terms. But Mum's in Chelsea Tractors# "I don't think my kids should have to see this" doesn't help... [ * - Not his real name - other details also slightly 'modified' ] [ + - Tesco --> Free public toilets and WiFi ] [ # - Apologies; oversized 23 plate four x four to do the half mile shopping run because "It's so unsafe walking anywhere near a road" ]

A greenie awarded for actually coming back and telling us what you arranged - so many don't...

Nearly forty years ago I was an apprentice boom operator at the BBC in Manchester and worked with Hinge and Bracket (In fact I nearly knocked one of them out as I had the far end of the boom rather lower than intended!) As you say, a lovely man.

A friend of ours owned a boat through Swanline - he had a very dry sense of humour and his suggestion for the name (which had to include "Swan") of "Roast Swan" didn't land well - he eventually agreed to "Broxted Swan" on which I had many happy holidays. Magpie the Elder (mine and @magpie patrick father) was still fit and well, if retired, so I had a few one way trips from Swanline to (say), Gloucester Docks - Mum and Dad would drive to Gloucester then I'd drive his car back to Swanline, collect my own car and go home

The voice of (at least partial) sanity...

I don't know how well the mechanism checks it really is a coin of the realm, but I have plenty of key rings with a detachable metal disc the right size and shape. Originally given away, so you always had the means to take a shopping trolley at a supermarket...

In fairness to Lady G - the first (and also penultimate) canal cruise by the current Mrs 1st Ade had a similar dispute. I'd been for at least a one-week cruise (often longer) every year since I was a few weeks old. The Future Mrs 1st Ade and I moved in together in January and my parents (many of you will know of, if not know, Magpie the Elder) had started booking trips assuming that myself or @magpie patrick would be there to assist. They extended the invite to the future Mrs 1st Ade - Leeds and Liverpool in 1995. The Future Mrs 1st Ade only moaned once - on Monday Morning when she asked "where is the nearest Train Station?" then added "unless you stop this '38 miles and 27 locks today' malarkey, I'm off. I thought this was a holiday" @magpie patrick and myself (and, to a lesser extent, Mum and Dad) took it as a challenge - "how far can we get". The future Mrs 1st Ade taught us the "what's the rush" philosophy...

Hoy! I resemble that remark!

I knew somebody who was charged by Royal Mail with "creating an unauthorised address" (or some similar wording) He'd built a cottage for his parents on his farm, called it Rose Cottage. He got a stiff letter from Royal Mail that he didn't have permission to create a new address like that (fair point as, amongst other things, calling 999 and saying "Rose Cottage is on fire [even with the postcode]" wouldn't necessarily get a fire engine on site) Fair comment

I'm anti W3W for the reasons stated above. And there is a subtlety between W3W and other "Big Brand" names such as Google. With W3W the product is the co-ordinate system, not just the software. If Google put their price up too much, the input data is (relatively) open source. You can type a post code, map reference or lat / long into Bing, Duck Duck Go or almost any other search engine and still work out where to go. If W3W say "nope, it's £100 to tell you where what.three.words is" you have no choice. Well, you do. Take it or leave it.

I've a vague recollection (years ago) of mum and dad picking up an interior sprung mattress on the prop. As they struggled to remove it, a gentleman (I use the term wisely) walked past and asked what the problem was? When they explained, he replied, "I'm the managing director of that firm 20 yards up the road from the next bridge, tell them I sent you to borrow a set of bolt croppers". They did, it worked, they returned the Bolt Croppers and the firm refused a donation. Thanks to "A Gentleman"

Hence stupidity like...

What did the Spartans say? "Come home with your shield or on it"?

Mmmm - good question. I would say "User Groups" but I must be a Mod as I have access to the Mod toolbar (and I'm sane...) so there must be a more technical explanation.

Now where's my mug with the "You don't have to be mad to work here, but it helps" slogan....

I don't really like W3W (with one exception - see below) because of their business model. Free of charge is the bit to convert a location to W3W - potentially chargable is the conversion of W3W to a position. At a moments notice they could say to Amazon, Emergency Services, DPD etc "20p a lookup". Also, there are examples above of two locations having similar words - it's OK saying "oh, you know it's wrong because it's in the wrong country" but that doesn't help work out which word is wrong. For emergency calls - if the phone knows where it is (and if it doesn't, W3W won't work either) the handset sends a silent text to 999 with Lat, Long, Altitude and precision. It's part of the phone operating system whether Google, Android or iOS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location. All Blue light services in the UK have access to the callers location in this way - but some prefer to stick with W3W, Postcodes or whatever If you want to share your location with a friend, most messaging Apps have a single keypress to share either current location or a continuously updated location. WhatsApp and Signal certainly do. The exception is where you can't (for whatever reason) call from the location you want to give - for example someone slips on the towpath but there is no mobile signal. Someone could note the W3W, walk to where there was a signal, call for help and make it clear "not where I'm phoning from but What.Three.Words"

I assume you didn't go for "Stand and Deliver (your money or your life)"?