The Night Mail

[AndyID]

19 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Teaching (or attempting to) such concepts to teenagers in physics lessons can be quite difficult.  Some students seem to stick at the perception level no matter what experiments may demonstrate. I must admit the roundabout experiment may not have been allowed. 

 

Not just students. Some scientists will argue that centrifugal force is legitimate within the observer's "frame of reference" but they cannot explain what happens to the frame of reference when the subject lets go of the roundabout 😀

[Oldddudders]

7 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

Hmmm, whoever drew that does not know much about trains. The engine's road number would be in the numberboards not "express", no spikes or tieplates, no airhorn (although some modern practice is to put the horn back near the middle of the hood),

Yeah, but it has twin sealed-beam headlights. 

[Happy Hippo]

Good morning.

 

I'm about to go back out into the garage to continue my tidying up.

 

Yesterday I started to apply my new policy of not hanging onto stuff that might be useful in the future.

 

First on the list were the containers of plastic butter/take away cartons, empty yoghurt posts and coffee cans.  I've retained about half of the butter cartons. but the rest have half filled the recycling bin.

 

The paint has all been boxed up at present with the intention of sorting through it all and disposing of all the old and partially used pots:  They are well past their sell by date!

 

Since I made a routing table out of a trim router (good old You Tube) my old Wolfcraft table which was designed to take an inverted plunge router, and was a pig to set up, has had no use, so the router and NVR switch will be removed and the rest of it consigned to the scrap bin.

 

Do I really need a rebating plane and three block planes?  I haven't used any of them in over 20 years!

 

The list goes on.....

 

And the boxes for the recycling centre get fuller.

 

Although on the matter of recycling, I did strip the springs out of our old mattress, as if it had gone to the tip complete, it would have gone to land fill, whereas at least the springs went into the scrap metal bin.

 

Please note the old bed springs were not rusty!

Edited January 8, 2023 by Happy Hippo

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Yesterday I started to apply my new policy of not hanging onto stuff that might be useful in the future.

 

... but retaining those items of no conceivable future use?

[Happy Hippo]

14 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

... but retaining those items of no conceivable future use?

Like the box of slightly rusty steel hinges?🤣

[Happy Hippo]

Brian will be annoyed that Leeds United managed to hold Cardiff City to a 2-2 draw in the FA Cup third round.

 

I'm sure the Bluebirds will be triumphant at the replay.

 

I'm not sure what happened in my garage and workshop this afternoon.  Picking up and moving all those boxes was like a manic game of Pass the Parcel on a Belfast Bus.

[AndyID]

7 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

 

Please note the old bed springs were not rusty!

 

Rubber sheet?

[Happy Hippo]

4 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

Rubber sheet?

Hardly, I eat too many vegetables😂.

[AndyID]

30 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Hardly, I eat too many vegetables😂.

 

But not too much pissenlit then?

 

[Happy Hippo]

6 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

But not too much pissenlit then?

 

Absolutely not!

 

You know I detest the horrid things.

 

But mercy is on the horizon as the fields over the road, which used to be a source of many seeds are becoming front gardens, so all the weeds will be departing.

[Winslow Boy]

1 hour ago, AndyID said:

 

Rubber sheet?

 

Oh dear. I've got this horrible vision of Big H encased in rubber.

 

I do wish you lot would keep your 'fantesies' - other words are available, to yourself I have enough problems getting to sleep as it is without having such visions floating around the old brain cell.

[Happy Hippo]

You're enjoying this fantasy so much, you've posted about it twice.

 

A rubber hippo, just for you:

 

[polybear]

1 hour ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

Oh dear. I've got this horrible vision of Big H encased in rubber.

 

I do wish you lot would keep your 'fantesies' - other words are available, to yourself I have enough problems getting to sleep as it is without having such visions floating around the old brain cell.

 

Bear just Googled for an image of a Hippo in Rubber to post.....using the search term "Hippo+Bondage".  Oh, how I wish I hadn't......😮

Trust me, there was very little sign of an actual Hippo.....as for the rest...... 

[SM42]

 

The priest has been booked for next Monday, so the Christmas tree will probably be down on Tuesday. 

 

I'm not waiting till 2nd February despite what Mrs SM42 says. 

 

Meanwhile, the West wing is getting emptier. 

 

Andy

[DenysW]

11 minutes ago, SM42 said:

The priest has been booked for next Monday

Whilst most of me assumed this is based on the date of Epiphany, some of me wanted to believe it was to exorcise the demons presently attacking @polybear and @Winslow Boy. At least, based on their posts, attacking them.

[SM42]

2 minutes ago, DenysW said:

Whilst most of me assumed this is based on the date of Epiphany, some of me wanted to believe it was to exorcise the demons presently attacking @polybear and @Winslow Boy. At least, based on their posts, attacking them.

 

Well he is coming to ward off evil spirits amongst other things. 

 

Andy

[DenysW]

1 minute ago, SM42 said:

Well he is coming to ward off evil spirits amongst other things. 

I rest my case.

[BoD]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

 

A rubber hippo, just for you:

Nobody said anything about a rubber hippo.

It was a request for HH in rubber.

 

Hang on, I’ve just seen bear’s post.

Forget about that.

 

Mind you, why bear automatically associated rubber with bondage in his search, I’ll leave you to wonder.

[SM42]

In all seriousness, the priest will be here to bless the house for another year ( hopefully the holy water he throws about won't mean I have to redecorate) 

 

Mrs SM42, being of a Roman Catholic persuasion, considers Christmas to end at Candlemass on 2nd February and hence the tree etc should stay till then

 

In a sort of halfway house between Polish and English tradition, the Christmas lights get turned off on Epiphany and most of the twee decorations come down over the next few days. 

 

The tree and some less garish, traditional decorations stay till after the house blessing which we usually arrange for mid January. 

 

We already have K+B+M 2023 ( the initials of the three kings)  chalked one of our doors using chalk blessed at the Epiphany service and added to the door that night. 

 

Christmas gets busier at SM42 Towers after Christmas, rather than before, but it's not a patch on what goes on at Easter 

 

Andy

[Dave Hunt]

11 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

I'm about to go back out into the garage to continue my tidying up.

Yesterday I started to apply my new policy of not hanging onto stuff that might be useful in the future..............

 

The list goes on.....

And the boxes for the recycling centre get fuller.

 

I'm in a bit of  dilemma as although I too need to do some heavy duty tidying up/getting rid of stuff, every time I do something along those lines the end result seems to be that there is actually more stuff when I finish than when I started. Spookily, though, the contents of the recycling boxes do indeed get more numerous so the only explanation I can come up with is that the process is linked to the modelling equivalent of Terry Pratchett's concept of L-space, meaning that all modelling workshops everywhere are linked in another dimension. This means that every time I get rid of junk, more of it arrives from that which other modellers are getting rid of. Similarly, of course, someone else ends up with my junk and so it goes on. As was discussed here some time ago, the same thing obviously happens with cupboards or shelves of shame where unstarted or partially completed kits and other projects never seem to diminish.

 

And to think that some eminent physicists are only now starting to consider the existence of parallel universes; we modellers have been aware of them for decades.

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

14 minutes ago, BoD said:

Mind you, why bear automatically associated rubber with bondage in his search, I’ll leave you to wonder.

 

That was an unspeakably underhanded way of sowing a particularly horrible mind worm BoD. Getting to sleep later is going to be a problem.....

 

Dave

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, SM42 said:

We already have K+B+M 2023 ( the initials of the three kings)  chalked one of our doors using chalk blessed at the Epiphany service and added to the door that night. 

 

Does that work properly though? I thought the point was that the initials of the three kings, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, are also the initials of Christus mansionem benedicat - “May Christ bless this house.” When asked to translate the Latin when in Year 8, my younger son reported "someone does something to something", which as my elder son, who was a dab hand at the Latin, said, shows that at least he had a good grasp of the grammar, even if the vocab was lacking.

 

20 + C+B+M + 23

[Winslow Boy]

15 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

I'm in a bit of  dilemma as although I too need to do some heavy duty tidying up/getting rid of stuff, every time I do something along those lines the end result seems to be that there is actually more stuff when I finish than when I started. Spookily, though, the contents of the recycling boxes do indeed get more numerous so the only explanation I can come up with is that the process is linked to the modelling equivalent of Terry Pratchett's concept of L-space, meaning that all modelling workshops everywhere are linked in another dimension. This means that every time I get rid of junk, more of it arrives from that which other modellers are getting rid of. Similarly, of course, someone else ends up with my junk and so it goes on. As was discussed here some time ago, the same thing obviously happens with cupboards or shelves of shame where unstarted or partially completed kits and other projects never seem to diminish.

 

And to think that some eminent physicists are only now starting to consider the existence of parallel universes; we modellers have been aware of them for decades.

 

Dave

 

Just think if you could travel between the dimensions and come back with the completed kits. You could start a kit here put it on the shelf/cupboard of shame whereupon it would disappear only for you to next see all completed in another dimension at which point you return with it to your dimension. Wouldn't half cut down on how long it took to produce the finished version.

[Dave Hunt]

4 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Does that work properly though? I thought the point was that the initials of the three kings, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, are also the initials of Christus mansionem benedicat - “May Christ bless this house.” When asked to translate the Latin when in Year 8, my younger son reported "someone does something to something", which as my elder son, who was a dab hand at the Latin, said, shows that at least he had a good grasp of the grammar, even if the vocab was lacking.

 

20 + C+B+M + 23

 

Quite correct, Stephen. Our parish priest talked about it at the epiphany service and the description of what is chalked on the threshold matches what you posted, as does the alternative use of the letters as an acronym for Christus mansionem benedictat. It is interesting though that it seems to have been the first time anyone in the congregation had heard of the practice.

 

Dave

[Northmoor]

12 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

I'm in a bit of  dilemma as although I too need to do some heavy duty tidying up/getting rid of stuff, every time I do something along those lines the end result seems to be that there is actually more stuff when I finish than when I started. Spookily, though, the contents of the recycling boxes do indeed get more numerous so the only explanation I can come up with is that the process is linked to the modelling equivalent of Terry Pratchett's concept of L-space, meaning that all modelling workshops everywhere are linked in another dimension. This means that every time I get rid of junk, more of it arrives from that which other modellers are getting rid of. Similarly, of course, someone else ends up with my junk and so it goes on. As was discussed here some time ago, the same thing obviously happens with cupboards or shelves of shame where unstarted or partially completed kits and other projects never seem to diminish.

 

And to think that some eminent physicists are only now starting to consider the existence of parallel universes; we modellers have been aware of them for decades.

 

Dave

It doesn't seem to matter how much I remove stuff a bit at a time from the garage or loft, neither get any emptier.  However taking the contents of one corner of the loft to a storage unit temporarily makes the place look better for a while.  I can only hope that when we sort through the stuff on its return, the quantity actually reduces.  Unfortunately, when it comes to the children's stuff, my wife is a worse hoarder than I am.