The Night Mail

[Tony_S]

2 hours ago, TheQ said:

it appears to be 90% conservationists

Surely all we have to do to save the planet is but a new kettle. It must be true, our PM (at time of writing) said so.

[Happy Hippo]

The is a lot of good going on in the conservation world:  For instance, BASC is busy working about the re-introduction of the Great Bustard back into the UK, although why they should want Chris Packham to be ...... Sorry wrong Bustard.

 

I'll get my coat

[Sasquatch]

On 01/09/2022 at 21:14, iL Dottore said:

Another one from the bookshelf…

 

Decolonising The Shed by IMA Pratt
 

Sheds tend to be enclosed spaces, full of magic and mystery. But like any secret thing, there is a dark underbelly: sheds have been (and still are) places of privilege, of hegemony, of colonial arrogance.

 

The whole concept of shed was a violent appropriation of a native cultural treasure by imperial regimes. Between Africa and India, in the Arabian Sea, are the Obscure Islands – which were invaded and exploited by the British, the Dutch, the Belgians and the French. After the islands were conquered, notwithstanding the brave but ultimately futile resistance of the native population who greeted the invaders with aggressive welcomes and bloodcurdling cries of “thank Nimnul you’re here, get us off these damn rocks“,  the European occupiers - needing places to store the riches they had stolen (or “bought”) from the native populations – noted the holy houses of worship (the sheddahs) used by all males of the Obscure Islands to store much valued mystical relics and as an environmentally friendly complement (or “refuge”) from their daily happy and fulfilling non-misonogystic and non-patriarchal interactions with their women and children. Ignoring the anguished cries of “sheddahs? Easy-peasy oh pasty-faced ones - we show you how” Europeans stole the sacred plans and started creating their own sheddahs - first on the Obscure Islands and then, upon returning home, back in Britain.

 

Over the centuries sheddah has become “shed” but all the name changes in the world do not hide the fact that the shed is a holy artefact, a holy concept, stolen from the rightful inhabitants of the Obscure Islands….

 

 

 

Day in the shed today... building another sheddah! 

 

We're decolonising six Euro chicks with tasty legs that are coming to stay, so I'm going to need somewhere to put them. (Can't have them making all that noise in the house!)

SWMBO will no doubt be brandishing the paint brushes once again, so we'll see if we can't make it a green build between us. 

 

Very clever BTW, it's not easy to make a Sasquatch smile!

 

Regards Shaun

Edited September 3, 2022 by Sasquatch

[Dave Hunt]

Had a good day at the Guildex in Stafford. Webbers I met there included Crimson Rambler, Airnimal, Tricky, Ian St Enochs, Bill Bishop to name but a few and although my stock of modelling tokens shrank a bit I avoided big ticket expenditure. There was, of  course, a great deal of gum bashing all round but that is the main purpose of model railway shows isn't it?

 

To chip in my two pennorth on the RSJ colour debate, the one in our house is wall colour overall.

 

The next event to feature on my social calendar is a get together of Hipposhire TNMers on Wednesday. Don't I lead an exciting life these days?

 

Dave

[AndyID]

Good luck trying to find an RSJ here. We only have I-Beams 😀

[Sasquatch]

19 minutes ago, AndyID said:

Good luck trying to find an RSJ here. We only have I-Beams 😀

I didn't realize Idaho was so developed. We're still using beams, the wooden kind!

 

Regards Shaun

[AndyID]

24 minutes ago, Sasquatch said:

I didn't realize Idaho was so developed. We're still using beams, the wooden kind!

 

Regards Shaun

 

Well this bit is fairly advanced because it's so close to Washington but the other bits have not got beyond mud huts.

[Dave Hunt]

Mud huts? Mud huts? You were lucky. When I were a lad........

 

Dave

 

(with apologies to Monty Python)

Edited September 3, 2022 by Dave Hunt

[pH]

28 minutes ago, Sasquatch said:

I didn't realize Idaho was so developed. We're still using beams, the wooden kind!

 

Regards Shaun

Older Safeway stores were built in what was called the ‘Marina’ style (the first store in this style was opened in the Marina district of San Francisco).

 

https://imgur.com/DKkUU

 

The internal space was spanned completely by curved ‘glulam’ beams:

 

https://flic.kr/p/dKU9XR

I thought they looked superb. As far as I know, none of the Safeways in the Vancouver area built in this style still belong to Safeway. Most have been demolished but a few are now used by other businesses, including a thrift store near us.
 

[AndyID]

1 hour ago, Sasquatch said:

 

 

 

We're decolonising six Euro chicks with tasty legs that are coming to stay, so I'm going to need somewhere to put them. (Can't have them making all that noise in the house!)

 

 

We had three hens when we lived in Arizona. When it was really hot they'd sneak into the house and hop into the bath tub.

[Sasquatch]

1 minute ago, pH said:

Older Safeway stores were built in what was called the ‘Marina’ style (the first store in this style was opened in the Marina district of San Francisco).

 

https://imgur.com/DKkUU

 

The internal space was spanned completely by curved ‘glulam’ beams:

 

https://flic.kr/p/dKU9XR

I thought they looked superb. As far as I know, none of the Safeways in the Vancouver area built in this style still belong to Safeway. Most have been demolished but a few are now used by other businesses, including a thrift store near us.
 

The one in Ashland is like that! Don't think I've ever been in the Grants Pass Safeway. We always go to Medford where there's more Organic at sensible prices!

 

Regards Shaun

[Sasquatch]

5 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

We had three hens when we lived in Arizona. When it was really hot they'd sneak into the house and hop into the bath tub.

Who said anything about hens?

 

Had some in Helgium that would come in the house. That place was built in1776 and believe me when I say they didn't need to seek out the tub to cool off! Old world tech long lost, the SW corner of the house was rounded to deflect the prevailing winds and all the windows faced South. Set into a 2-foot-thick wall, they let in all the winter sunlight and kept it out in the summer months! 

 

Must get back to the building in hand before the day is lost to heat and smoke!

 

Regards Shaun

[Happy Hippo]

3 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Surely all we have to do to save the planet is but a new kettle. It must be true, our PM (at time of writing) said so.

That quote was very bad and highly edited reporting.  It has since  been debunked.

 

However what was worse was the  Mail on Sunday doing an anti-cycling report with time elapsed pictures of  around 200 cyclists going through a red light outside Buckingham Palace.

 

What isn't made clear in the article is the Mall was closed to all traffic and the Met had officers on site who  were directing the cyclists to go through the reds.

[Gwiwer]

11 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

the  Mail on Sunday doing an anti-cycling report with time elapsed pictures of  around 200 cyclists going through a red light outside Buckingham Palace.

 

What isn't made clear in the article is the Mall was closed to all traffic and the Met had officers on site who  were directing the cyclists to go through the reds.

The Daily Wail's Sunday Division upholding the rag's normal weekday standards then. 

[AndyID]

31 minutes ago, Sasquatch said:

Who said anything about hens?

 

 

I thought you were building a chicken coupe 😁

[Tony_S]

31 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

That quote was very bad and highly edited reporting.  It has since  been debunked.

I did actually see the unedited report  where the kettle speech was taken from. I did realise the pm was trying to justify spending money on a new power station. I thought it was a very poor explanation. I suspect someone had explained it to him that way and he was repeating what he was told. To me it was an example of someone who doesn’t really understand something themselves trying to explain it to the assembled journalists. 

[AndyID]

Uh-oh. Thunder-storm right above us. I can hear a lot of boats scurrying back to the dock as fast as they can. Not good to be out on the lake when there is lightning around.

[iL Dottore]

6 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

The Daily Wail's Sunday Division upholding the rag's normal weekday standards then. 

I think you can say that about every British paper: they all have their own particular axes to grind and consistently mix good journalism with shoddy reporting and strident or sycophantic opinion pieces that toe the newspaper’s party line.

 

I read, on line, a variety of newspapers with political perspectives ranging from the left to the right. And I find it interesting to note that the much derided tabloids are financially a lot healthier than some of the high minded broadsheets. I also note that sometimes the tabloids will feature braver and more impressive journalistic reporting than their tonier, upmarket, rivals.

 

But if you really want an unvarnished, unadulterated and brutally honest look at Britain as it is today, then Private Eye is the go-to publication. And often, when a major national newspaper reveals “an exclusive scoop“, you’ll find that Private Eye has got there first (and sometimes by years). In addition to its journalism, Private Eye also has great humour – often satirical, often cynical and often very dark indeed (shurely shome mishstake?)

[jamie92208]

I always buy a Private Eyecwhen I come over.  I even found one of Beth's.distant cousins mentioned in Rotten Boroughs once.

 

Jamie

[Dave Hunt]

I once featured many years ago in the national press (although not by name) when I had an airmiss with a light aircraft that was carrying Lester Piggott to a race meeting. It definitely wasn't my fault and I was exonerated by an investigation (it was a combined cockup by air traffic and the light aircraft pilot) but the reporting by the press was wildly inaccurate except, strangely enough, by the Mail. Piggott actually tried to sue the MoD because during the airmiss the light aircraft pilot thought his aircraft may have been overstressed and landed at a nearby airfield to check it over, which made them late for the race meeting and cost him some rides. The case was thrown out.

 

Dave

[jjb1970]

I stopped paying much attention to the press and TV/radio news many years ago. We need them to keep abreast of what is happening in the world, but if it is a story which is in any way political and it is something you find interesting them a news story should be a starting point to do your own research (a grandiose word to use when I'm really suggesting using the world renowned internet to do some digging). That goes for all newspapers, magazines, TV news etc, including the 'serious' broadsheets, the tabloids, BBC etc. The last one I had much time for was the Economist, but they went increasingly hawkish and started printing a lot of stuff which was just using their platform to push an agenda the same as the rest of the press. All of these news outlets have two purposes:

 

-To push the interests of their paymasters or conform with demands set elsewhere; and

-Provide confirmation bias to their readers/viewers

 

In some ways I find the first less bad than the second as at least there's a logic to it, but reading a paper or watching a news bulletin because a person wants to read/watch something that tells them what they already 'know' is right is a bit bonkers really.

There's an old truism that if you ever know the actual story of anything in the press then you will realise just how wrong the reporting is, and I have to say that in the case of all the stories I've been familiar with that adage has been correct.

[Happy Hippo]

41 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

I once featured many years ago in the national press (although not by name) when I had an airmiss with a light aircraft that was carrying Lester Piggott to a race meeting. It definitely wasn't my fault and I was exonerated by an investigation (it was a combined cockup by air traffic and the light aircraft pilot) but the reporting by the press was wildly inaccurate except, strangely enough, by the Mail. Piggott actually tried to sue the MoD because during the airmiss the light aircraft pilot thought his aircraft may have been overstressed and landed at a nearby airfield to check it over, which made them late for the race meeting and cost him some rides. The case was thrown out.

 

Dave

I once made a named appearance on Page 9 (or it may have been 11) of The Sun.  The court martial was quietly rolling along and the single reporter from the press obviously bored out of her socks, until in my role as Prosecuting Officer, I mentioned that one of the reasons that the two members of the WRAC had deserted was due to them having formed a relationship together, which at the time was deemed illegal by Queens Regulations. 

 

At that point, her pen suddenly leapt into action and lots of scribbling was made in her note pad.

 

I was lucky with Court Martials:  Every case I either prosecuted or defended I won, with the exception of the single case where the accused pleaded guilty, and due to the severity of the case, was there purely for sentencing.

 

 

[Northmoor]

I had the Eye on subscription for many years and only stopped because my work arrangements (long drive and very short or interrupted lunch breaks)  meant I barely had any time to read it.  I still remember their cover after Princess Diana's death, which upset a huge number of people, many non-readers who seem to miss that their hypocrisy was the target of the joke.  Stephen Fry said of the Eye that its humour is frequently racist, sexist or homophobic, but he would forgive it all of those things because crucially, it is funny.

[Gwiwer]

3 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

I always buy a Private Eyecwhen I come over.  I even found one of Beth's.distant cousins mentioned in Rotten Boroughs once.

 

Jamie

I don't wonder if I have ever been mentioned.  It's not something I lose sleep over.  But I could have been for all I know.  Much of my working life has been very much in the public's face and for better or worse has involved the dispensing of advice.  Certain individuals have taken exception to that as is human nature.  It is perfectly possible that I have crossed paths with someone who later made reference to such a moment, or to the individual concerned, in print.  

 

Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye, is by reputation the most-sued person in the UK.  According to the internet he is "no longer as sued as he once was".  An interesting observation.  

[jjb1970]

Private Eye has evolved over the years. I first started reading it in the 80's and although even then it had become quite a 'respectable' part of the press it was much edgier and willing to shake the tree than it is now. At one time they really did go out on a wing and a prayer publishing stories about the alleged great and good like Robert 'Captain Bob' Maxwell. And they had stuff like the letter from Dennis column which was properly funny. Now I find it quite tame and written much more to appeal to those within or who closely follow the Westminster and press bubbles. I lost a lot of respect for them when a certain scandal went public a few years ago. They were vicious in attacking the rest of the press (deservedly so) but rather quiet on why they'd never done anything to try and break the story when they'd been printing oblique references to it for years.