mercurydancer

Benjamin As a nurse I have dealt with many patients with Alzheimers, especially on the medical wards. Back in my student nurse days I spent a lot of time with one patient who was probably at the stage you describe. He was ex-RAF and undoubtedly did some dangerous missions, repeatedly. He knew his short term memory was going, but he actually said that the long term memory was enhanced, and he could recall in greater detail of things like the war. I did part of my nursing degree on him and memory loss. I wish I had gained his permission to record his memories on tape. Also, there was anothe

Aluminium has been proved as having nothing to do with Alzheimers. It is indeed a horrific illness, but many who were in their 70s and 80s in the 1960s and earlier never got Alzheimers because they didnt live long enough to get it.

I was driving to work today alongside the A66, which goes through Middlesbrough. No one can say its the worlds most picturesque road, but today held something special. The Sir Nigel Gresley was on the track alongside the A66. Its configuration was a little odd as the carriage was in front of the engine. I took a left turn and got to a place where I could see it. A lovely sight and brightened my day immensely. I think the Sir Nigel was there as its linked with the North Yorkshire Moors railway.

Melissa. Where I live now, its not that a bus will arrive a few minutes late, its that it runs at all.

Benjamin Be grateful that Nottingham has such a tram system. Its clean, efficient and safe. It runs to time. Compared to the public transport where I live, the trams are in a different league.

Annesleyred Back in the late 70s I used to work (very amateurishly but enthusiatiscally) in sound engineering at the Hearty.

I adore the heritage railways, but my favourite has to be North York Moors railway. It actually goes places, and there is opportunity to go further. It goes through some of the most beautiful countryside (although I would find Scotland more interesting) and arriving in Whitby on a steam train is a total joy. The staff are genuinely interested in their job, very knowledgeable and friendly. At £14 for a day pass its superb value too. The mrs and I did one of the evening "romantic evening dinners" on the pullman coaches last autumn. The food was good, the wine was a bit ordinary (I am a tota

The original paint job for the deltic was lovely, light blue with chevron design on the front. What on earth made them paint them green and put a big yellow snout on them?

I have never ever heard my father or mother use the f word. I seldom use it myself as I think it is below me. I despise the swearing when its used as punctuation. My senior manager is a woman and she uses foul language as it makes (in her mind) her look like an Alan Sugar type of hard, tough manager. She told me to f*** off once when put in an annual leave request. This was in front of an office with several women in it. In an equally loud voice, I said to her that if she was a man and told me to f*** off then I would follow the man into the toilets and become violent. Thats why male manag

banj The bad news...... you are actually a health tourist. You arent actually entitled to free NHS care as you arent resident in the UK. But if you wont tell them I wont!

ayupmeducks The ZX was certainly a Sinclair production. It introduced many of my generation into computing. I never could write code, but I knew from that machine what code was, and its basic frameworks. It came in handy later in life. Essentially, with the ZX, all that was needed was a modem and you would actually have the main component of the internet there and then.

Black Russian tomatoes! I'll be growing them next year. We were at a lovely garden and hall very close to Durham city centre called Crook Hall. Its directly below the railway station. Unless you were looking for the place you would never know its there, but it is a delight. The greenhouses had a good variety of tomatoes including black Russian. I got talking to the gardener, a very knowledgable and entertaining man, and he gave us some seeds for next year, amongst some other seeds.

My first computer was a ZX80. I still have it somewhere.

Its so strange to me that the deltic could get to 125mph without difficulty but the speed shook the carriages behind to bits! Looking at the timetables posted on this thread and others, the actual time taken on the trains is not a lot different to what it is now. The argument for HS2 should have been settled in the late 1970s not now. Up where I live, some airlines are competing with trains to London on a cost basis. This should not make economic sense at all, unless the train companies are overcharging. Given that subsidies are paid to train companies to keep to schedule, whereas airlines

Rob If you know the solution to my ipad problem, let me know!

The deltic. I do recall them fondly from my childhood. Its all about raw power. They were beautiful in a very distinct way - because of the power they held. IIRC the engines had a very distinct beat due to the triple piston system which was used. Its very rhythmic.

We found a charming little village whilst touring round Dumfries and Galloway. Its called Wigtown, and it has the most amazing collection of second hand book shops I have ever seen. There must be about 15 of them, all around the lovely village square. Closer to home, there is a fantastic book shop opposite the Minster, and the charity bookshop in Durham is a small library really.

After being an apple fan for many years, I have become furious about Apple products. I upgraded from snow leopard OS and it cost me about 20 quid. What a horrible operating system that was! I had to upgrade as some of the apps I use would not work on snow leopard. No wonder they gave mavericks away for free. It gets worse. I love my ipad and its been everywhere with me, so if anything happens to that machine I miss it. I upgraded the ipad operating system (there is a theme emerging here) and after it loaded, the ipad remained completely useless. All that the machine could do was to show t

I hate toffee apples! Always have done. Do they still have the seafood stall on the top row? I adored the whelks and of course the mushy peas.

I do laugh when I go to Weatherspoons pubs - they have Baltika 7 beer in bottles. Its Russian and tastes exactly the same as it does in Russia. Not that it is a good beer, but for consistency its good! Baltika is in various numbers. Baltika 0 has no alcohol at all and is surprisingly palatable. Baltika 9 is brain death in a can.

My mrs is from that part of Russia, the north caucasus. (Kavkas) Ive been to Sochi and its lovely in the summer. Hot weather and huge beaches.

My mrs is Russian so I have had to learn Russian. In some ways its more straightforward than English. I speak with little accent as the army beat it out of me, but the mrs always remarks that when I go to Nottingham its like I am speaking a different language. Ayup took some explaining. She still cracks a smile whenever she hears anyone referred to as "duck" I explained to her that it was exactly the same word as a waterfowl and she nearly laughed herself sick. Of course the phrase that pays in Russian is "Morshna balshoy peeva pajalsta" (It is a very polite way of asking for a large beer

As a very keen amateur brewer water quality is important. Soft water is best for lager/pilsner style (bottom fermented beer). In fact the Czech republic which produces the finest of all pilsners, has very soft, almost pure water. To have water of that quality is almost impossible in UK, no matter what treatments you give it. Its about taking away minerals, not adding to them. Guinness depends on hard water. It balances out the heaviness of the deep dark malts, and makes it very very smooth. I often artificially harden water for stouts to get this balance. That said I am not a fan of stouts,

The Co Op milk floats operated out of Beechdale Road. I worked occasionally on the milk wagon (which brought the milk in bulk from the various farms and milk processing plants) it was a joy as the hours were from about 3am with delivery to Beechdale for 5am. I recall very fondly the dawn light over the countryside, a delight which has never left me. However, when we got to Beechdale, many of the floats woudnt work and needed batteries

I can recall going down the Forest Rec slide (which was very very shiny) face first and having a nose to concrete intimate relationship! I can recall washing my face in the drinking water fountain close by. I wonder if its still there.