wrighty

Don't know. I'm only going by the MR article in response to the Keys question. I have no inside knowledge on this one.

Correction. We're paying our medical director to do clinical work in Liverpool. I don't think he's MD over there.

A bit like the police. Too many people moan about how terrible they are, but it's still the first number they call if they get robbed or assaulted etc.

We should either enforce parking regulations or let people park anywhere they like. It shouldn't be a game where you try and get away with illegal parking because you think the wardens aren't working after midday or whatever. I'm a firm believer in "park anywhere as long as you're not causing an obstruction, and you're not there for too long" school of thought. I'm not bothered about a 10 minute stop on double yellows, but 10 seconds blocking the pavement should mean a ticket.

Feel free to point them in my direction (equally, those members asking me about their being charged for drug dealing or bestiality or whatever I’ll send your way)

If true that’s ridiculous. Who told you 8 years ago that you needed two hips? I’m assuming it wasn’t me or one of my colleagues as if so you’d have had them done ages ago. Feel free to PM me your details and I’ll look into what’s going on.

Not really. Patients came from the same pool and were done pretty much in order of how long they'd waited. It's never done exactly, for lots of reasons, but the aim is that the waiting list is a queue and everyone waits the same as everyone else. The Synaptik surgeons had priority over us though. This was to maximise the overall throughput. They were here for 1 or 2 weeks at a time, and generally did 3 joint replacements each day. I can do that, as can my colleagues, but we sometimes go on leave which reduces the throughput in that week. And there aren't enough of us to cover each other's leave as we have other things to do - clinics, trauma, mandatory CPD etc, something your insourcing team don't have. So it's more efficient to insource, not that it's without issues of course.

That is not true in orthopaedics. I would go further and say, almost certainly, that no joint replacements were done at weekends. Synaptik did their joint replacements monday-friday, 9-5. And when their surgeons were on site, in-house elective orthopaedics had to share theatre space with trauma cases, which meant we did fewer cases than we ordinarily would.

You mean greedy I really don't know what these so called wealthy people do with their money. Can't take it with them. If they like living here and contribute to the life and soul of the island then great, they're very welcome. But do we really want people who are simply here for tax avoidance purposes?

I'll go further and say that they'll be 75% the same

Although it would cost me personally, I’d have preferred to see an increase in the thresholds and an increase in the 10% band, with a top rate rise to perhaps 25% above a certain figure (and while we’re at it scrap the tax cap). The way it’s been done today hits everyone, and as always it’s the poorest that suffer most.

Went really well. Great feedback about the sound quality, and the light show was incredible. Picture harvested from Facebook as an example.

And bombing them back to the stone age will achieve that how?

Well she shouldn't have voted for Hamas, and then allowed them to store their weapons under her bed. Am I doing this right?

I disagree. Addictive gambling is clearly bad, just as alcoholism is clearly bad. I don't consider myself a gambler, but I place the odd bet on football matches, have dabbled in online poker, and have enjoyed a few days out at the races (which if it weren't for gambling simply wouldn't happen). It's only when it becomes destructive, with people gambling instead of eating, and running up debts etc. The gambling/gaming industry should do more to combat that side of it.

Interesting stuff there @Declan. Where do Man City fit in with all of that? I'd be interested on your take on how their dominance has affected the Liverpool/United rivalry.

Numerology makes homeopathy seem rational.

Correct. There’s no such thing as a “full pension”. Longer you work, and the older you are when you retire, the more you get. It really is as simple as AxBxC, where A is years worked, B is the accrual rate (gets higher the older you are) and C is your pensionable salary - average of best 3 years in the last 13. You choose when to go. For GUS, normal retirement age is 65. You can go as early as 60 if you want, with reduced benefits.

In the Government Unified Scheme, 7.5%. Employer contribution is 15%. There are some sections of the scheme with higher contributions. I pay 10.25% for example.

I was replying to your point about “their pensions” meaning the public sector ones, and meant “your” as a generic plural pronoun rather than your specific pension. Apologies if my slightly sloppy grammar confused things. No, there isn’t a savings pot. There was a reserve fund which is all but gone. Current public sector pensions cost about £110 million a year, and contributions in are about £80 million. The rest comes out of general taxation. The overall situation will ease in years to come, as combined employee/employer contributions will be closer to what needs to be paid out. But pensions changes take decades. And before anyone says “just cut everyone’s pension by 30%” or whatever - legally you can’t. You can (you general, not you Declan) make changes going forward, and that is what happened in 2016 to reduce accrued years by 6%.

I was talking about public sector occupational pensions (we were talking about costs to government) which are Defined Benefit schemes that work by current contributions funding (in part) previous retiree's pension payments. In private pensions, where you actually have a savings pot, you'll be able to get much more at 70 than at 55 as your annuity rates will be much higher since you'll be living 15 years less. Those pensions don't cost the government anything at all.

Yes and no. The longer service and higher accrual rate that comes about from working older is balanced by fewer years of pension drawdown. I haven’t done the calculations myself, but I suspect that from an actuarial valuation perspective, the cost of your pension is the same whether you go early at 55 or stay until you’re 70.

"pension age should be based on life expectancy and occupation" I somewhat agree with this, but it'd be a difficult one to make fair. It seems to me whatever you do the rich and wealthy pensioners will do better than a low-paid manual worker who has to struggle on to 67 before dying a couple of years into retirement.

We will be playing in St Ninian's Church Friday 16th February, doors open 7pm, show starts at 8. Somewhat unusual location for us - expect slightly scaled back versions of the usual Pink Floyd classics. Not 'unplugged' as such, but cleaner sounds, and a more relaxed vibe. There will be the usual professional sound and lighting though. There are tickets still available - if anyone wants them they're £15 each, available through the band's Facebook Messenger, or just PM me on here.

The folk that granted asylum to that acid (or alkali, whatever it was) throwing maniac convicted sex offender probably had lots of empathy. If that's what it does for you I'm glad I'm somewhat lacking it, apparently.