The Night Mail

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, New Haven Neil said:

Not wishing to get involved in Polly Ticks, here's a reset.

 

Neither GWR nor maroon. Neutral territory!  It's coming together now.

 

The Dapol B4 is an absolute delight.

 

I acquired mine from Sheepbloke (NHY 581)

[pH]

20 minutes ago, AndyID said:

Yippee!

Care to expand on that? 😈

[SM42]

2 minutes ago, pH said:

Care to expand on that? 😈

 

Ki ay?

 

Andy 

[BSW01]

7 minutes ago, pH said:

Care to expand on that? 😈

It might be about the decision made by the good people of Brooklyn!

[PhilJ W]

18 minutes ago, BSW01 said:

It might be about the decision made by the good people of Brooklyn!

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/30/politics/jury-decision-trump-verdict-dg/index.html

[AndyID]

A purely historical fact. Al Capone was smart enough to plead guilty to get a reduced sentence.

[J. S. Bach]

8 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

Well M'lud Moderator, it was this Bear that encouraged me so it's all his fault you see. I'm really a quiet and unassuming sort of bloke who hates upsetting people, even GWR modellers, but he leads me astray......

 

Dave

And I have this bridge for sale.

Edited May 31 by J. S. Bach

[J. S. Bach]

Junk mail! These three arrived (some time ago) on the same day! Note that they are all offering the same service:

I had once subscribed to HughesNet but exactly one day after my contract expired, I cancelled as it is satellite based and the weather has an effect on the signal reception. My internet/phone is now cell-based through AT&T. Note that I covered my address so that I can not be sent any surprise red panniers!

 

EDIT: I collect phones so the "Pay Phone Advantage" does have some meaning to me. A couple of my pay phones (with photo-bombing cat):

 

 

 

 

Edited May 31 by J. S. Bach
To edit the post

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[polybear]

 

8 hours ago, AndyID said:

Yippee!

 

YAHOOOOOOOO.........

 

8 hours ago, pH said:

Care to expand on that? 😈

 

YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...................

[SM42]

It will make not one iota of difference. 

 

He'll still claim to be the victim and people will believe him and vote for him cos there's a deep state conspiracy and he is the only one fighting it apparently.

 

Unlikely as a custodial sentence seems, he can still be elected and then he can pardon himself.

 

 

 

Andy

[polybear]

9 hours ago, Northmoor said:

You've just reminded me of an experience on my train home this evening.

 

There is a young woman who always gets on the same carriage as me, with one or two other young-ish men she obviously works with.  They always talk about work, meetings they've been in that day, incidents with their teams and how they manage them etc.  What's fascinating me is that they talk about every aspect of their work in a sort of Junior Management Trainee-speak; it's never, "She said she disagreed with me", but, "I got instant negative feedback".  Or they'll talk about a meeting and describe how their manager, not "He judged that wrong", it's "He didn't read the room before giving their message or they'd have expected the probing questions".  What's amusing is that despite eavesdropping* on their conversations - they clearly aren't worried about anyone overhearing - on perhaps half a dozen occasions, I still haven't the feintest idea what they or their employer actually does.....

 

*Eavesdropping on commuter trains is great fun.  If I get made redundant ever again I may go into the corporate espionage business; what some people are prepared to unwittingly divulge about their employers, bids they are preparing and their daily rates, is quite staggering.

 

Rumour has it that a rather obnoxious slug that worked for the Great Empire made such a PITA of himself whilst working in the Hebs. that the Army (IIRC) decided to get rid of him (not in the way that some of us would've liked, sadly.....).

 

On a subsequent visit they got him talking about things he shouldn't have been talking about whilst in the Bar of the (Dark Island?) Hotel; there just happened to be some MoD Security Guys in the Bar at the same time.  What a coincidence......

Apparently on the following Monday the PITA got as far as Glasgow Airport before receiving a Tannoy message over the Airport PA to go to the nearest Customer Service Desk as there was a message for him.....

That was the end of his trips to the Hebs.

[AndyID]

21 minutes ago, SM42 said:

It will make not one iota of difference. 

 

He'll still claim to be the victim and people will believe him and vote for him cos there's a deep state conspiracy and he is the only one fighting it apparently.

 

Unlikely as a custodial sentence seems, he can still be elected and then he can pardon himself.

 

 

 

Andy

 

He cannot pardon himself. The pres can only pardon Federal crimes. This was a State crime.

[SM42]

3 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

He cannot pardon himself. The pres can only pardon Federal crimes. This was a State crime.

 

Don't you believe it. 

 

Anything is possible with him. Probably just change things so he can. 

 

Might even just deny the whole thing as fake news.

 

Andy

[Dave Hunt]

12 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

And after banging on at ME for merely mentioning a couple of on-the-hoof manifesto commitments by Windy Rishi...

 

Words fail me!!!

 

🤪🤪🤪

 

Abject apologies my dear chap. I shall don the hair shirt for the day and promise to be good despite any encouragement from the Bear to misbehave.

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

11 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

Not wishing to get involved in Polly Ticks, here's a reset.

 

Neither GWR nor maroon. Neutral territory!  It's coming together now.

 

Careful, you’ll be causing SteveyDee to have conniptions again.

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

11 hours ago, bbishop said:

I was trying to behave myself, Dave, and now you might be about to set me off again.

I really could do with a SORRY button couldn’t I?

[jamie92208]

1 minute ago, Dave Hunt said:

I really could do with a SORRY button couldn’t I?

Better not mention a certain Corpet tank then.

 

Jamie 

[Dave Hunt]

10 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Better not mention a certain Corpet tank then.

 

Jamie 

I already did to HH yesterday.

 

Note for puzzled readers: some time ago I offered to build a French metre gauge locomotive from a kit for Jamie to go on his layout diorama that he is making. I had actually forgotten about it but the kit has now arrived at Chateau Guest and will be inbound at Hunt Towers next month. I just hope that the instructions are largely graphic as my French is no more than totally inadequate.

 

Dave

[iL Dottore]

15 hours ago, rockershovel said:

It's particularly ironic that so much was said at one point, about "Victorian values". The Victorian era was a time when the corruption and nepotism of the 18th century was purged from public life, when huge public works were constructed for the public good.

A point consistently overlooked by those who wish to rubbish the idea of "Victorian Values" for their own grubby little political ends.

 

Whilst it is true that for a good portion of the Victorian and Edwardian era, life was - at the very bottom of the social scale - pretty grim, it was the same across most of Europe (with perhaps the exception of Germany after 1883 with Bismarck's Staatssozialismus - which was one of the earliest examples - I would argue - of using Realpolitik to achieve a positive social outcome that in turn has a positive political outcome [maintaining social balance and harmony]).

 

Those who now rail against "Victorian Values" and the wishful (and well-heeled) Victorians who eulogized (fetishised?) the "simple country life" overlooked the reality that until the advent of the industrial revolution, life for the majority - especially rural workers - was pretty ghastly. As picturesque straw thatched cottages may be from the outside, inside they were often as squalid and unhealthy as the cheap back-to-back housing built later in the century to house industry's workers. And whilst incredibly flawed on many levels, the Industrial Revolution would not have succeeded had it not provided the majority of people with something better than before.

 

But returning to "Victorian Values". These, or a version of these, were inculcated in me in skool when I was a wee lad in the early 60s (back when when Britain was not regarded by a goodly chunk of its citizens as an "evil white man's empire"). These values included (but were not limited to) the following unspeakable awful and colonialistic attitudes such as

• Honesty
• Integrity
• Diligence ("doing the best you can") 
• Sportsmanship (in the sense of of "playing fair" and "treating everyone fairly")
• Loyalty
• Fortitude
• Civic Responsibility
• Social Responsibility
• Personal Responsibility
• Self-Reliance
• Charity (in the sense of helping others)
• Self-Sacrifice (in the sense of not putting yourself first all the time)

Like all philosophical and ethical approaches to life, often - for many reasons - such values were only honoured in part (sometimes "more in the breach than the observance"). But as a code and a philosophy to live up to, there have been (and are) worse.

 

So whilst the Victorians and their now much derided "Victorian Values" made mistakes and were hardly "plaster saints", what so many conscientious Victorians strived for - and often achieved - makes the current posturing of politicians and self-appointed (so called) do-gooders seem all the more tawdry.

[SM42]

Tomorrow's planning activity, largely outdoors, has been cancelled on  account of the weather forecast for more storms 

 

This gives me a mostly free day to explore. 

 

The dishwasher is on here and makes a regular faint tink sound as thd rotor makes a glancing blow on the contents. 

 

Andy 

[iL Dottore]

14 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Amazing what one learns by listening politely while being bored to death....

Aah. Another alumnus of the Lord Vetinari School of Aggressive Listening I see...

[Tony_S]

16 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

a French metre gauge locomotive from a kit for Jamie

I looked up the Corpet tank engine on Google and at least,it looks like a normal engine. I was expecting one of the  bi-cabine sheds on wheels. 

Edited May 31 by Tony_S

[iL Dottore]

37 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Abject apologies my dear chap. I shall don the hair shirt for the day and promise to be good despite any encouragement from the Bear to misbehave.

 

Dave

I sympathise, Dave. There IS something about The Bear that encourages, nay forces one to misbehave.

 

There we are, quietly enjoying MR or Michelin Starred Cuisine, totally uninterested, unimpressed and unaffected in the fact that others may like the GWR or enjoy oven fries - then along comes The Bear and the next thing you know DH is railing against Green Locos and iD is fulminating against UPF - all semblance of harmony with one and the universe GONE!

 

I reckon PB is a 鬼熊, (onikuma "demon bear") but instead of stealing horses and cattle like the onikuma, PB steals harmony, tranquility and CAKE

[Happy Hippo]

9 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

 

 

I reckon PB is a 鬼熊, (onikuma "demon bear") but instead of stealing horses and cattle like the onikuma, PB steals harmony, tranquility and CAKE

Bear may be many things, but he is not a Cake thief.

 

He always asks politely before taking it....