The Night Mail

[PhilJ W]

5 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

The advantage of a minefield is the muffled crump announcing an intruders former presence.

Thats better.

[Tony_S]

33 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Thats better.

 My Dad had chronic back pain with acute flare ups due to a mine explosion. At the time I suspect he was pleased not to be dead. 

[J. S. Bach]

On 13/12/2020 at 09:21, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Woke up this morning, went to open my blinds, and a landscape of white greeted me. Very surprising, snow isn’t rare in Oklahoma but we don’t get it often, certainly not this early. 
 

Douglas

 

The blizzard of Jan 2018 here:

 

 

And the flood of Aug 2020 :

 

 

 

 

 

 

[J. S. Bach]

20 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

 ...snip... I realized today that there was an empty bulb socket in one of my Lionel switches, so decided to fill it for the first time in my ownership, and to my surprise it worked. A photo of the K4 and bulb is below, along with the wintery landscape.

Douglas

 

 

 

There is a cover that goes oveer the bulb and gives an indication (red or green) of the switch's position. These are probably available as a repop from some Lionel parts dealers. It will improve the appearance measurably.

[J. S. Bach]

On 13/12/2020 at 12:50, simontaylor484 said:

 ...snip... In response to the Bach organ piece earlier may i humbly suggest Wiridors 5th 

https://youtu.be/DKejfYzB3ak

Nice, but I think that this is better:

 

[J. S. Bach]

3 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Just finished my only exam of the day, algebra. It was reassuring stressful. 
 

I decided I should probably fortify myself for the coming exam, so managed to find the motivation to make myself a much larger than usual breakfast. It was quite good, the ends of the bacon could have had a little less fat though. 
 

Douglas

 

Hmmm, bacon way too crisp, not enough egg, get rid of the beans, and at least it looks like orange marmalade on the over-toasted-under-bettered bread!

[J. S. Bach]

2 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

 ...snip... I have a liking of good Church organ music and Welsh male voice choirs a good rendition of Can Rhonnda makes my eyes water, as well as Amazing Grace. I also have a brilliant version of nessum dorma by Jussi Borling a Swedish opera singer 

Church organs are alright but a theater organ with its toy chest will blow the church organ out of the water.

[New Haven Neil]

Ah, young Gert, although he isn't quite as young now.  He's very good, I have his CD's.

 

Although I am an atheist, I love church organ music, just one of those things!  I'm  also friendly with Dr Peter Litman, the head of Music at Peel Cathedral here.....is takes all sorts to make a set!  I also have two friends that sing at a very high skill level.

 

I don't begrudge anyone their beliefs, as along as they're not hurting anyone.  I just don't subscribe to them personally.

[New Haven Neil]

2 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

Church organs are alright but a theater organ with its toy chest will blow the church organ out of the water.

 

Not a Cavaille-Coll it won't!

[Oldddudders]

I have known ladies who found a swelling organ was exactly what they wanted....

[bbishop]

Ian, present tense, surely.  Bill

[Happy Hippo]

2 minutes ago, bbishop said:

Ian, present tense, surely.  Bill

33 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

I have known ladies who found a swelling organ was exactly what they wanted....

If this goes on I'm going to have to rename this thread The Night Male.

[bbishop]

Well, you can delete the butter and the bacon.  Whilst vegetarian sausages are very edible, vegetarian bacon has the texture and taste of old shoe leather.  Bill

[Happy Hippo]

2 minutes ago, bbishop said:

Well, you can delete the butter and the bacon.  Whilst vegetarian sausages are very edible, vegetarian bacon has the texture and taste of old shoe leather.  Bill

Taking that a stage further, eating the spaghetti and parmesan with a Bolognese must be akin to chewing through an old sweaty sock.

 

Now you'll understand why I prefer cake.

 

In other news there is a barn owl making a bit of a racket from the oak tree nearest the house.

[PhilJ W]

Vegetarian sausages are no good for toad-in-the-hole.

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

parmesan

 

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

an old sweaty sock

My sense of smell is bit imprecise but Parmesan doesn’t smell of smelly socks to me. Though we don’t buy the cheaper immature Parmesan which is allegedly smellier. Before Covid my nephew’s girlfriend (now fiancée) would bring us lumps of Parmesan after visiting her family in Modena. I also believe that people in Bologna don’t serve their sauce with spaghetti.

An example of my odd sense of smell is that until someone identifies it for me I can’t tell the difference between gas leaks and onions. 

Edited December 14, 2020 by Tony_S

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Tony_S said:

My sense of smell is bit imprecise but Parmesan doesn’t smell of smelly socks to me.

 

Therefore, to achieve the full Parmesan experience, store the cheese in your socks. You will smell like an authentic inhabitant of Parma when you wear the socks again. 

[Dave Hunt]

I once went to a fancy dress party where one of the attendees was dressed as a tramp. He really looked the part and since he'd put grated Parmesan in his pockets he smelled the part too. My God, did he pong. Fortunately it was summer so a large section of the party was outside, which is where he was instructed to remain for the duration.

 

I'm intrigued as to how Bill knows what old shoe leather tastes like. Have you fallen on hard times Bill?

 

Dave

[rockershovel]

On 08/07/2020 at 10:04, jamie92208 said:

I suppose they've got to gave somewhere to put all the stuff that allegedly went down on the Atlantic Conveyer.

 

Jamie

 

Some years ago, I visited Buenos Aires in connection with the oil exploration being conducted in the N Falkland Basin at the time. There was a belief among the marine staff, that Atlantic Conveyor had in fact, been sunk by a sniper from the Cunard insurance office.... its replacement was built on Tyneside, possibly one of the last commercial vessels built there? The iconic images of British troops “yomping” across the barren Falklands terrain under huge packs, derive from the loss of eleven of the twelve helicopters on board. 

[Grizz]

8 hours ago, Tony_S said:

 

My sense of smell is bit imprecise but Parmesan doesn’t smell of smelly socks to me. 

Mmmmmmm loss of sense of smell???........UHHO! 

[rockershovel]

8 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Vegetarian sausages are no good for toad-in-the-hole.

 

DiL eats these things. My good wife “got some in for when she came” and they have remained in the freezer ever since, I’m not sure how long they’ve been there but my grandaughter is three years old.... 

[rockershovel]

I’m mercifully ignorant of what “vegetarian bacon” might taste like, but the pallid, pinkish-grey strips (uniformly patterned in longitudinal stripes of pink and white, like a particularly unsuccessful 1950s wallpaper pattern) served as “bacon” in Baku hotels, don’t suggest any reason to investigate.

 

 

[rockershovel]

Well, I quite like Parmesan. I did a lot of work with Saipem at one time, and their catering tends to leave quite a lot to be desired (I think they budget about one shilling and twopence per man, per week). Subsisting on a diet of pasta, more pasta and sloppy, anaemic sauces comprising mostly tomatoes, it’s nice to have something that tastes of something from time to time. 

 

 

[rockershovel]

One of the signs of approaching Christmas chez Rockershovel, is the consumption of those small bottles of curiously flavoured gins, heel-taps of assorted spirits and small pots of marmalade and chutney which are the invariable leavings of the year, if only to make room for their inevitable successors. 

 

This year’s success story has been a bottle of limoncello. Who bought or donated it, remains a mystery. However as an accompaniment to starchy food tasting strongly of garlic and tomatoes, it has no equal and it also goes well with curry, I find. 

[rockershovel]

Speaking of gin, who decided that this most delicately flavoured of spirits should be served in a huge balloon, under a shovelful of ice? Or that a “pink gin” was a sort of raspberry alcopop? 

 

I was in Angola in the early 2000s, in the Terminus Hotel in Lobito. There was a thatched brick veranda fronting onto the beach, which cried out for gin and tonic in the evenings... but no. However they did serve gin with Fanta or Vimto, according to taste, and that was better than you might expect.