The Night Mail

[J. S. Bach]

4 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

It’s probably the rare and little known psychoactive “cuckoo“ squash (aka pumpkin to the Americans). It lurks, perfectly camouflaged, amongst harmless squash, waiting for a careless or inattentive victim.

Those exposed to the psychoactive toxins then go on to do weird and bizarre things - especially in the kitchen: how else can you explain pumpkin pie, carved pumpkins, pumpkin (squash) cake and pumpkin (squash) bread?

Or pumpkin spice around the Christmas holiday season.

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[coastalview]

The Inventory of railway stuff is finished.Having looked at the number in the bottom right hand corner I have now got two jobs to do:

 

1. Find a specialist model railway insurer
2. Make sure the number in the bottom right hand corner is never revealed to anyone else who may live in the house.......

Rather surprised at how much I had that I had forgotten about and some things that I thought I had bought from eBay that I clearly never had.

 

A boring but necessary job finished

[SM42]

Well that 90 minutes I won't get back. 

 

Just been on to Sky for my free upgrade and they are charging £20 for the freeness  of it all. 

 

But it's OK cos I get 4 months free which more than makes up for it. 

 

I'd rather have both and then I would be £20 richer, but they couldn't grasp the concept that a £20 charge is not free. 

 

Luckily the call was free. 

 

It also seems that my router is so old that it doesn't exist and hence I am not on RMweb now and this post is just a fig tree of your imagination. 

 

 

 

Andy

Who isn't here

[Tony_S]

20 minutes ago, SM42 said:

have both and then I would be £20 richer, but they couldn't grasp the concept that a £20 charge is not free. 

Did you suggest that in that case you would cancel and go to someone like BTTV(with all the sky channels)? We left Sky as we liked the idea that we could change our bundle of programmes monthly. Since then Sky sent offer after offer getting cheaper as time has gone on. Not going back though. 

[SM42]

25 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Did you suggest that in that case you would cancel and go to someone like BTTV(with all the sky channels)? We left Sky as we liked the idea that we could change our bundle of programmes monthly. Since then Sky sent offer after offer getting cheaper as time has gone on. Not going back though. 

 

Not that simple unfortunately. 

 

Anything via the Internet is limited.

 

It's satellite or aerial round here at the moment.

 

Andy

[br2975]

With "HH" currently bobbing about on the briney aboard the 'Iona' - I must report my very recent return from a similar exercise in bobbing, on Ionas's sister vessel 'Britannia'

.

Whilst alongside at Bassaterre, St. Kitts we took  a trip along the "St. Kitts Scenic Railway"

.

Attached are a few images of the day, which should explain 'why' it is called a "scenic" railway.

.

 

[br2975]

Having captured your attention..................

.

Whilst briney bobbing we also visited St. John's, Antigua where further items of railway interest were found at the Museum of Antigua & Barbuda.

.

Sadly, the exhibits, whilst extremely interesting, were not arranged with photography in mind.

.

 

[polybear]

7 minutes ago, br2975 said:

 

 

Certainly a very "hilly" place......

[SM42]

17 minutes ago, br2975 said:

With "HH" currently bobbing about on the briney aboard the 'Iona' - I must report my very recent return from a similar exercise in bobbing, on Ionas's sister vessel 'Britannia'

.

Whilst alongside at Bassaterre, St. Kitts we took  a trip along the "St. Kitts Scenic Railway"

.

Attached are a few images of the day, which should explain 'why' it is called a "scenic" railway.

.

 

 

How's the black eye coming along?

 

Andy

[br2975]

25 minutes ago, SM42 said:

 

How's the black eye coming along?

 

Andy

.

The train ride starts just after 9:00am - and includes complimentary rum punch.

.

Sadly, the passenger shown over indulged and by 10:30am her speech was incomprehensible, save for the four-letter exclamation as she descended the stairs to the facilities.

.

Her male companion was far too busy helping her along to notice me capturing his limp 'rag doll' for posterity.

.

 

[Dave Hunt]

53 minutes ago, br2975 said:

Sadly, the exhibits, whilst extremely interesting, were not arranged with photography in mind.

 

There was a different boob in your first sequence.

 

Dave

Edited January 16, 2023 by Dave Hunt

[Tony_S]

4 hours ago, SM42 said:

 

It's satellite or aerial round here at the moment

Sky are now offering non satellite access, not that that would help you though if decent broadband isn’t available.
For us anything we used to get via Sky satellite arrives via broadband except for anything on Freeview which comes down the aerial. It is possible to select “no aerial” when everything comes down the broadband. I have removed the Sky box but I connected the cables from the dish to the satellite inputs on the TV to access FreeSat channels. Just because I could, not for any particular channel I wanted to watch. 

 

[Dave Hunt]

We had an appointment with our local vet this morning as a follow up after Horace the cat's Saturday night episode. She said that he should recover OK providing we keep him indoors for a few days and give him the prescribed antibiotics over a week. He seems brighter now and is walking without crying, albeit slowly and stiffly, as well as eating and drinking. He has been given fair warning that if he damages my wallet in like fashion again he will have to go out rat catching or such to make up for it.

 

Dave

[SM42]

Once the TV is back in its final spot, I'll reconnect the aerial to get freeview too. 

It's a miracle it works really as the aerial is probably as old as the house ( around 40 years) and bits have fallen off it never to be seen again 

 

At least it doesn't rattle  in the wind anymore like some out of tune windchime.

 

Andy

[J. S. Bach]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

Certainly a very "hilly" place......

I was thinking more along the line of "in the valley of the jolly green giant ....".

[Dave Hunt]

Having got severely fed up with the carp shown on terrestrial TV these days (including freeview) we have decided that we should sign up for some of the streaming services, particularly as I have Amazon Prime. The problem is that our current TV does not have a USB port so we will shortly be heading off to our local TV shop to get a new one. Our neighbours had one from the shop recently and said that they are very helpful, not pushy and will come out to set it up at no charge. I have been told that Samsung and LG are good brands so will probably have a look at what is on offer with them.

 

Dave

[polybear]

12 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Having got severely fed up with the carp shown on terrestrial TV these days (including freeview) we have decided that we should sign up for some of the streaming services, particularly as I have Amazon Prime. The problem is that our current TV does not have a USB port so we will shortly be heading off to our local TV shop to get a new one. Our neighbours had one from the shop recently and said that they are very helpful, not pushy and will come out to set it up at no charge. I have been told that Samsung and LG are good brands so will probably have a look at what is on offer with them.

 

Dave

 

Bear purchased an LG a few months back - very pleased with it.

 

[New Haven Neil]

1 hour ago, SM42 said:

At least it doesn't rattle  in the wind anymore like some out of tune windchime.

 

 

We had one which hummed, although it took a long time to work out it was the aerial.  It's a high gain job, and it was the long arms on the reflector that were vibrating in certain winds.  Eventually our aerial guy was persuaded to go up there and twang it, which proved the source of the sound that resonated through the house as it is on the gable end, not a chimney.  Cable clipped a plastic grid to the arms, job sussed.  Took six weeks of sleepless nights when it was windy (winter) after installing it.

[Tony_S]

9 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

been told that Samsung and LG are good brands so will probably have a look at what is on offer with them.

If you buy a Samsung like ours it will have a USB port but you won’t need it. Ours had the Amazon Prime Video app (and many others) already installed.  I assume you aren’t buying a small portable device which may not have app capability. Our Samsung is a couple of years old and new streaming channels have appeared, and can be downloaded. I am sure LG will be similar.   The TV does have wireless capability to connect to our router but I have it connected by an Ethernet cable and we get no buffering at all even when streaming UHD programmes. 
Tony

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, SM42 said:

Once the TV is back in its final spot, I'll reconnect the aerial to get freeview too. 

It's a miracle it works really as the aerial is probably as old as the house ( around 40 years) and bits have fallen off it never to be seen again 

 

At least it doesn't rattle  in the wind anymore like some out of tune windchime.

 

Andy

We had an old aerial (older than this house) in the loft that was ok considering we are “extreme fringe” reception for Crystal Palace.  Some Freeview channels  were on a lower power system and prone to disappearing. Anyway that problem disappeared when the frequencies were sold off to phone companies. However we were told our loft aerial would cease to work once the solar panels were fitted. Eventually putting the aerial (a new wideband model) under the north facing roof (no solar panels) worked. 

Edited January 16, 2023 by Tony_S

[jamie92208]

3 hours ago, br2975 said:

With "HH" currently bobbing about on the briney aboard the 'Iona' - I must report my very recent return from a similar exercise in bobbing, on Ionas's sister vessel 'Britannia'

.

Whilst alongside at Bassaterre, St. Kitts we took  a trip along the "St. Kitts Scenic Railway"

.

Attached are a few images of the day, which should explain 'why' it is called a "scenic" railway.

.

 

I had heard of the paps of Jura, are those the paps after Jura.

 

Jamie

Edited January 16, 2023 by jamie92208

[coastalview]

We have Samsung (12 years old) and Sony (seven years old) TVs.

 

Both of them use external sources for the "app" functionality. The Samsung used Google Chromecast and now a Sky Q mini box and the Sony a Sky Q box. One of the problems I have found with the embeded apps on the actual "smart" TV is that over the years they stop working due to the TV manufacturers not updating the software/firmware on the TV. This means that the app can no longer connect to the host service such as Prime. or Netflix.

 

The Samsung which at the time bought had a number of apps including iPlayer hasn't had any smart functionality working for ages as from memory they only updated the software on the TV for 5ish years. Its very similar to the model for updates to a mobile phone.

Edited January 16, 2023 by coastalview

[Winslow Boy]

12 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

I had heard of the paps of Jura, are those the psps after Jura.

 

Jamie

 

It's not the 'hills' that worry me, but the 'valleys'. Some of them can be quite treacherous you know.

Edited January 16, 2023 by Winslow Boy

[SM42]

2 hours ago, SM42 said:

Once the TV is back in its final spot, I'll reconnect the aerial to get freeview too. 

It's a miracle it works really as the aerial is probably as old as the house ( around 40 years) and bits have fallen off it never to be seen again 

 

At least it doesn't rattle  in the wind anymore like some out of tune windchime.

 

Andy

 

We had a similar aerial to ours at my parents 40 years ago. 

 

The vertical plate at the post end was loose and rattled in the wind, but it still worked. 

 

A couple of years ago I noticed I hadn't heard the ting ting ring noise and that's when I  noticed the plate had gone 

 

Aerial still works though. 

 

After mum died I retrieved her Freesat set up

 

I'm going to see if I can get it working in the motherland. 

 

I quite like the idea of watching my local news channel in another country.  

 

Just need to work out how to mount the dish when there is 15cm of insulation (a material that looks like expanded polystyrene ) on the outside of the house. 

 

Andy