The Fugitive

Wow! Not being Australian this is shocking to me. In U.K. Government (State) Pension is NOT means tested because you have either paid National Insurance Contributions whilst working or received Pension credits when unemployed/job seeking or receiving welfare payments for being disabled and unable to work. Occupational pensions you pay for out of your salary (or non-contributory where your employer pays into a fund). The poor guy lost his entitlement to free GP consultations (free to all in UK with over 6 months residence) and prescription medicine (free for over 60's in England and Scotland and free for all in Wales).

They obviously gave you a sight test. Did this include such as a field, pressure test and photograph of your eye (Retinal Imaging)?

Thanks for taking the trouble to explain. Very sad. Sounds as if the local GP might have known full well so was only managing the symptoms to make your friend more comfortable. The hospital should have given him all necessary pain relief and sedation in the final stage. That they didn't is inexcusable as you say.

My dentist in U.K. asks if I am in good health and taking any regular medication? My dentist in Thailand takes my B.P. and pulse and also asks if everything was OK at my last annual medical?

Various possibilities. When taking out the policy he could have failed to disclose previous diagnosis and treatment of high blood pressure. He could have developed raised B.P. subsequently and not disclosed it when renewing premiums. Most disturbingly could he have developed it but genuinely never become aware e.g. he didn't have annual medicals and had never visited a hospital or clinic since taking out the policy?

Can I ask whether your friend was already diagnosed as untreatable when he was placed on the dying ward? Or, was he receiving treatment that was discontinued because of his inability to pay his bill and therefore left to die of his condition?

My local and regional government hospitals use the large 'whole arm' blood pressure/pulse machines. Notoriously inaccurate. Lord knows what damage they are doing to peoples medical history records?

Wow! I have two Acer's. One from 2009 and the other from 2011. New keyboard fitted into the 2011. That's all.

I find there is a world of difference in portability between 15.6 and 14 inch. 14 inch seem so much easier to transport.

Good on you! It really is not too difficult. You do need a little initial confidence and must ensure that you can't lose important data before you begin by backing-up to a cloud service or an external hard drive etc. I found Windows 10/11 to be too heavy for my mid-range 2012 laptop with 4GB RAM. Any Linux distro works just fine though.

On second thoughts perhaps you're right! We are fortunate that our guy is a family friend and, in addition to his core business also obtains secondhand computers to order.

I would also recommend installing Linux Mint. I have a similar laptop and it works perfectly. If you aren't confident (or really don't want to be bothered) and/or have files on the laptop you don't want to risk losing, your friendly local mobile 'phone shop should be able to install it for you.

Thanks for this! I found this (albeit over 12 months old) actually on the Surfshark pages; https://surfshark.com/blog/decentralized-vpn

Agree! I use the Windows app to watch tubitv.com which is, apparently, only available in USA.

I understood that VPN companies constantly change things (workaround), as websites become aware of geo-unblocking via VPN's. Are they saying that certain websites e.g. William Hill in UK are now totally impossible to unblock?

Absolutely! When in UK I avoided pre-Christmas (works do's), Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Eve. Used to go to clubs and restaurants etc. during the first week in January. Got treated like royalty!

There really isn't much to say. I couldn't believe an 'academic' would come out with this. Left it for others to make up their own minds. I agree with what you say, Palestinians haven't got much choice in who fights for them. Hezbollah are Lebanon based and Houthi are in the Yemen.

Good to know thanks!

Completely understand. After my free trial they sent emails with special offers on subscriptions. When the price came down to just over one dollar per month I signed up for three years. Otherwise, I was going to go for Atlas VPN which is about the lowest priced alternative. Never had any problems with SurfShark though!

Part Two is setting up the VPN; https://support.smartdnsproxy.com/article/176-vpn-setup-for-chromeos-l2tp

Here's the ChromeBook set-up instructions; https://support.smartdnsproxy.com/article/44-chromebook-dns-setup-for-smart-dns-proxy

Have you already done this? This set up is for Windows 11 but there are instructions for other operating systems; https://support.smartdnsproxy.com/article/791-windows-11-setup-for-smart-dns-proxy

Sorry about that. I previously subscribed to 'ZenMate' (simply because it was the cheapest). However, it wouldn't unblock BBCiPlayer. Their C/S told me they were presently working on a solution but couldn't give any timescale. As it wasn't available before my initial 30 days was up I cancelled and received refund in full. No problems with SurfShark for two years but I now use Smart DNS Proxy due to their special offer of three year's for £41.11 GBP ($50.98 USD).

Not to worry, it isn't the easiest but once you get it up and running it's worth it. Did you see four green ticks after you logged into .'My Account'?

How many could truthfully find that sort of money? I know my credit card wouldn't stretch that far!