The NHS in the UK is massively overfunded. However, the money is spent on a toop heavy administration,  Allopathic drugs that don't cure anything, and most are prescribed to counter the side effects of other useless drugs.Fake pandemic pseudo-vaccines, and rental of assets such as hospitals that were donated by wealthy benefactors in the past, and have been sold to the bankers and globalist investors.  Most doctors are no longer doctors, and the hippocratic oath has been replaced by the hypocritic oath.
I don't use the NHS unless it is essential for my heath. For example, they are great for resetting broken bones, as long as you avoid taking their drugs. Natural dental care using methods such as oil pulling and sugar avoidance are best, but sometimes you need to have fillings or cracked teeth fixed. The last three times I had tooth problems, I pulled them out myself, but I reckon I need to save the ones I have left. I used to have a friend who only had one tooth left. I called it his central eating. That is a true statement, and not a joke. His problem was adding sugar to everything.

The facilities at this community centre are unbelievable, I've just discovered that they have a n association with a dental charity. As an 83 year old vanlifer, I am eligible for completely free NHS dental care, The downside is that I can't get an appointment for a check until November, and the guy was apologetic about that. I believe that It would take longer to get one via the normal NHS service. These services are provided by an association between the local council and some charities. It has nothing to do with the national government. I think it is being funded by parking fines - I've had 2 in the last week.

Just as a side piece of information. England is the only country in the UK that doesn't have its own parliament. I think we should petition for independence, and fly the flag.

Ah, It looks as if that was the reason, and I can understand that. It would have been better if that could have been explained, as I got the hump over having a post deleted without providing a valid reason. I thought that this topic was interesting, and that is why I started the thread.

I've just had a message saying that one of my posts has been deleted. It was one about the proposed African Internet, but it still seems to be present. The message purports to come from "Bitcoin Forum" which is a guest account. I'm assuming that this was a scam message, and I'll delete it. I will also see if I can block messages from guests.

It seems certain that Ukraine took control of these drones and redirected them to Poland. This requires a high degree of control and power, and need multiple sources to jam and take control. Ukraine has installed these points and has been using them. The US has monitoring stations, and is aware of everything that happened. It will be interesting to see if they publish the truth. I gather Ukraine has been warned not to do it again. I expect the next stage will be for Russia to attack the control relay points to minimise the possibility of these false flag attacks that are intended to start world war 3 to increase the bankers' control.

Is gender important? Probably not in this forum, but I find it interesting, as I think we should have more girls using Bitcoin.
Is age important? Well once again, probably not, but I'd like to see more older people using Bitcoin.
Is country of residence important? Yes if you are going to trade, as Faster payments only works with UK banks.
Is your home status important? I think so, especially as I have varied reactions as a van lifer. I have a perfect payment record on my credit card, and next month's payment is over £4,000 because of my van maintenance charges, How many people in bricks and mortar accommodation can say that they have no debts and a perfect payment record.
All of the above factors one can sense from members posting and interactions on the forum.
So back to the original question. I'm a traditionalist. I still open doors for women, and I often stand up when one joins my table in a cafe. People look at me as if I am mad now, and assume that I'm leaving. Because of this, I think it is nice to know if one is talking to a woman, and I probably modify my behaviour if I am. I guess this goes against the current narrative though. Unfortunately nobody seems to show any respect, regardless of whether they are talking to a man, woman or a "them". Oh dear, I don't think that "them" is an acceptable pronoun, or is it?

I'm bored with the whole issue. I'm traditional, so I only recognise that gender is assigned at birth. Everything else is diversity of sexual activity. I love the diversity and I support people's choice in it, but it shouldn't affect gender in my opinion. My belief is that the whole gender issue is another creation of the elites to reduce population growth. Bill Gates has stated that this is one of the functions of the current pseudo-vaccine injections. I'm ambivalent about including gender in a Bitcoin Talk profile. My preference would be for a ternary option - male, female and prefer not to say. The gender at birth should be the basis for the entry.

Well that is interesting. I've just discovered that Barclays bank provide a banking facility on three days per week in the community centre. They have no cash facilities, but other than that, they provide support for banking accounts/ Maybe this will be the future of banking for elderly bank customers with no Internet capability.

Maybe I should start a Bitcoin service for local residents on one day per week.

They closed the cafe for a while whilst they refitted it. The community centre does a lot for local people. There is a kids play area, and a regular meeting for mothers and toddlers. Chair gymnastics for the partially disabled is another weekly meeting. Then there is the tea dance, and an evening dance meeting, together with Tai Chi classes. It's sponsored by the council, but I suspect it is self sufficient as a result of various low charges for the facilities. We could do with more centres like these. Especially the kids football club, which teaches team spirit as well as providing good exercise.

I've only got two complaints about the community centre. One is loud music as there is a tea dance going on in the rood next to me. Well I won't get anywhere with that, so I might have to get some sound deadening head phones. Those would help to drown out screaming kids and dogs barking in Costa as well. The other one is the uncomfortable chairs. They are hard plastic cafeteria style, so I might have to bring in a cushion.

It's very clean, and I like the coffee, so I'm not sure what I would complain about. I think it is owned by the council, but the cafe manager is one of those large jolly me, and he seems to be very helpful.; Buttered toast seems to be a bit expensive - it is £1.75 for two slices. I can never understand why they charge so much for a couple of slices of bread, but all the cafes seem to do it.

Costa has just increase the cost of a black Americano ( aren't they all black? ) to £3.09, and it's produced through a compression machine. My local community centre has  filtered coffee for just £1.50, and I understand this is healthier than coffee produced via compression. The beans are also provided by a local supplier. Also, I prefer the taste of the filtered coffee. Costa is owned by Coca-Cola, and I'm cautious about their political and environmental policies.

There is some downsides, and some upsides to the community centre though. Opening hours are just 10am to 2pm, but that is just for the cafe, the centre is open for far longer, and well into the evening. Parking is free and unrestricted, whereas Costa is limited to 3 hours at most of their cafes. Scrambled egg on toast is £2.50, but is not available in Costa, most of their stuff seems to be unhealthy, sugary pastries, and other healthier snacks are available at the centre. Tables are small and lined along the side of the central corridor, and only two table have a single power socket. Costa has numerous twin sockets with USB ports. The Wifi works in the community centre, but it either doesn't work, or is difficult to enable at Costa. Both venues are extremely clean and bright, with the exception of one of the Costa cafes in the centre of the town

I've started this thread to encourage people to switch away from the large corporate organisation, and to support small local businesses and community services. You don't get the same range of flavoured coffees that you would find in Costa, but many of those are unhealthy, and you could create them with some products bought from the local supermarket.

I'm not politically correct, and as an 83 year old vanlifer, I have an unusual perspective on life and politics. I'm not  alone,so I would have thought my opinions would be of use. For example.

I'm not anti-vaccination, but I am opposed to the modern pseudo-vaccinations that have caused so many deaths and health issues.
I don't support the modern allopathic medical practices, Stinging nettles, turmeric, cayenne pepper, dandelion, blueberries and many other inexpensive natural products are better for disease prevention and cure than most high priced pills from big pharma in my opinion.
I believe that electric vehicles are extremely damaging to the environment, and will only be used for a limited number of uses in the future,
I refer to the Governents' so called green policies as the "nut zero initiative". They seem to  be designed to turn anything green into grey or brown spaces.
I don't support excessive charity for illegal migration when the stupid hosting country is virtually bankrupt.
I belive in assisted education for intelligent under privileged children. We need a competent work force and population.
I'm 83 with no health issues, and I don't use doctors or an Pharma products. I don't smoke or drink alcohol, and I avoid sugar, ultra processed foods, Bovaer,and energy and other carbonated drinks.

There are probably a load of other things, and most of them don't fit the current narrative. I was shocked to hear one farmer executive state that an unhealthy child is an income for life for the Pharma companies. I believe children should be nurtured and educated to enable them to have a healthy and productive life. I'm saddened to see so many of them wearing glasses, or crippled and in wheel chairs. This is undoubtedly caused by mineral deficient in food produced by modern farming methods, and a lack of health education in their parents, Pseudo-vaccination is another major contributor in my  opinion.

You can see that opinions such as mine can skew research results, and be detrimental to the interests of companies commissioning the surveys.

I'm also a strong believer that Bitcoin is a real, hard assets, and very few people seem to be able to get their heads round that.

I feel comfortable with the current forum layout, I hope it stay with us.
There are still some good techs to help resolve issues. It doesn't look as if there is as much help as there used to be for people that are really new to Bitcoin, but there are now a lot of videos on platforms such as YouTube, so maybe that isn't as important. There is quite a lot of fud and rubbish there, so I guess a bit of guidance wouldn't go amiss for new members. I live in hope that we can attract some serious political and/or banking figures, but then, they probably only post where they  can influence government policies. I haven't checked on the mining boards. They used to be a bit discouraging for solo miners. A brief flirtation with solo mining can be a good introduction to the world of Bitcoin. I believe we should do more to encourage it.

I bought a new notebook with Windows 11 installed. I tried it for two days, and got rid of it. I installed Ubuntu on the drive, and it is much faster and easier to use for my purposes. Copilot and cloud storage, together with all the spyware and vulnerabilities make Microsoft products a non-starter for me.

I don't seek approbation for my behaviour - I wouldn't have adopted the van life if I needed it. I am interested in social attitudes and opinions though. Recently I've been completing a number of online research surveys, and I'm a bit shocked by the way they are worded to distort the responses, and how participants are deleted or dropped when they appear to be submitting unfavourable results.

Here is a possibly contentious view, which may not reflect my own opinion.

Is it racist to want to preserve the customs and culture of your country of birth? It probably isn't. Is it racist to enter a country illegally, and seek to change the culture,  customs and religion of the country that has been invaded? It may well be racist. This implies that those seeking to preserve the integrity of their homeland are not the racists, but the illegal entrants could well be racists.

Thanks for all the kind words.
I'm still a Bitcoin maximalist, and I'll be interested to watch the development of side chains. I'm also interested in the political influences on Bitcoin, although it is difficult to enter into discussions about his. Especially in the modern Britain with it suppression of free speech, even the shortest of custodial sentences would have a massive impact on me. In fact I have considered emigrating, but I have so many ties here, and I haven't resolved all of the issues from my  past life.

With regards to my accounts here, I think I've got a few that I don't use any more. Maybe I should list them in case they get hacked or something. Don't bother to ask if they are for sale, because they aren't.

Here are the ones I remember -

Talk Merit
Kuffy
Flash Cunt

If there are any that I've forgotten, then please remind me. I think they are all member accounts. I think there is another one, which was the faster to achieve member status in the forum at the time. I reg'd it as an experiment. Flash Cunt was reg'd to entertain Tman, and I'm saddened that he left us.

enturies to build.

I'm starting to feel that this philosophy should be applied to my personal life and attitudes. Unfortunately the rest of the world doesn't leave me alone. For example, the fuelling of electric vehicles with wood chips obtained from ancient forests, and the nut zero obsession with incredibly damaging and uneconomic wind farms contributed to me deciding to adopt the van life, At 83, I should be living in luxury, but there are too many problems associated with this, so I'm loving my freedom at the moment. How long it will last is difficult to anticipate. Our dishonest and stupid government is stealing about £1.5 billion of interest on Russian assets, and giving it to Ukraine. This is incomprehensible to me, as it has no benefit to the UK economy, or the people. Ultimately we will have to compensate Russia for this, and it destroys the trust in Britain, which took centuries to build. I understand that Putin is threatening to confiscate Crown assets in retaliation. It isn't as if the money will be used for the benefit of Ukraine, as most of it will no doubt be used to buy yachts and apartments for the illegal politicians controlling Ukraine.

Britain is bankrupt, but it holds many billions of dollars worth of bonds. If they do cut the rate, then Britain should sell those fast. The long term rates are going up, so an interest rate cut is not sustainable, and will lead to a weakening of the dollar imho.