The Night Mail

[Winslow Boy]

2 hours ago, Northmoor said:

Grumpy old man alert:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y83kj3wg2o

 

So now (some) people expect to be congratulated for being able to sit and stare out of a window for a few hours?  While it would come under their heading of "stimuation" I never found it difficult to pass the time on a long journey with a thing they're probably unaware of, called a book.

 

Muppets.  I thought the comments from the medical professionals to be very pertinent.

Wasn't there a craze a few years back of throwing a bucket of cold/frozen water over your head to prove how 'hard' you were. Same o, same o.

[DaveF]

I think I am quite fortunate with the Medical Practice I use.  It has 12GPs, my named GP is the senior partner but I do see others if I want a very quick appointment or if I want to discuss something in their particular field of interest.  There also 5 nurses.  Usually a phone call at 8a.m.results in a same day appointment.  If it is not so urgent I often use e consult online which takes time to fill in but works well, sometimes that results in a same day apointment in the afternoon or other response usually within 24 hours.  Routine appointments take longer but the time depends on urgency.  They are open 8am to 6.30 pm Monday to Friday though some appointments are available from 7.30a.m.

 

The last time I had a blood test, about a prostate issue, my GP texted me the basic results at 8a.m. the next day which showed everything was normal.  Also all test results and appointment notes etc are avaiable online for me to see.  I order repeat prescriptions online, there always seems to be time to do it before I run out.  I can also do it 24 hours by phone or I can ring and talk to someone in opening hours.

 

I can self refer for physiotherapy, musclo sketelal issues, podiatry and , if I needed to, (I don't) drugs/alcohol/sexual health issues.

 

The same buidling houses our little hospital, district nurses and the Health visiting team.  X rays are usually next day arranged by ringing the hospital for an appointment - unless it is very urgent, then it is "walk along to X ray, by the time you are there I'll have rung them."

 

Fortunately the big A&E specialist hospital is only about10 minutes drive away and the general hospital just over 15 minutes drive away.  Then there are also the Newcastle hospitals for some very specialist things and several private hospitals if I want to pay.

 

I think I am lucky.

 

David

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

 

It's if they're clutching a copy of the LNER Society Journal that I'd very slowly walk away, avoiding eye contact and disembark.

And even more worried idea if the title involved GWR. 

 

Jamie

[jjb1970]

1 minute ago, jamie92208 said:

And even more worried idea if the title involved GWR. 

 

Jamie

 

Steady on old chap, this is a family friendly forum, there may be minors reading🫣

[iL Dottore]

1 minute ago, jamie92208 said:

And even more worried idea if the title involved GWR. 

 

Jamie

Naaah. You're just being a "nervous nellie".

If anything, It means that they retain some vestiges of sanity... 

[jjb1970]

I have had a strange urge to buy a Wrenn Duchess 'City of Carlisle', it's a woefully dated model which looks mediocre (at best......) next to a modern Hornby duchess and I have zero interest in collecting Dublo/Wrenn but I saw one for sale and fancy it as a reminder of home.

[Tony_S]

5 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

I have had a strange urge to buy a Wrenn Duchess 'City of Carlisle', it's a woefully dated model which looks mediocre (at best......) next to a modern Hornby duchess and I have zero interest in collecting Dublo/Wrenn but I saw one for sale and fancy it as a reminder of home.

Heljan are releasing one soon(ish) but it isn’t a steam loco.

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

I have had a strange urge to buy a Wrenn Duchess 'City of Carlisle', it's a woefully dated model which looks mediocre (at best......) next to a modern Hornby duchess and I have zero interest in collecting Dublo/Wrenn but I saw one for sale and fancy it as a reminder of home.

My Finney Duchess will be City of Carlisle when I finally get round to building it.  I was born there of course. 

 

Jamie

Edited August 11 by jamie92208

[polybear]

3 hours ago, Northmoor said:

My experience of China Southern Airlines just over 20 years ago was, err, "interesting" in what might be described as cultural differences.  My neighbour completed his in-light meal with a loud and rather odorous belch, while based on his actions (and those of about a quarter of the passengers), the Mandarin element of the safety video appeared to say, "Immediately upon landing, passengers are requested to unfasten their seatbelts, climb over the person next to them and remove all items from the overhead luggage compartments as quickly as possible.  Prizes will be awarded to the winners".

 

Many Moons ago a certain Bear undertook Civil Airliner evac. training as a part of an Aircrew Survival Course; as a part of this we went "down the slide" IAW The Book.

We (about 16 of us at a guess) were then instructed to "go for it" as though "looking after No. 1" was the only thing that mattered.

The outcome?  The vast majority, if not all ended up in a massive heap inside the cabin and in a real scenario the chances are none of us would've got out.

 

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

In maintaining a good patient-doctor relationship it’s also advisable to admit mistakes (we’re only human) explain why the mistake was made (“I’m sorry Mr PB that we didn’t catch this earlier, but the test results and your symptomatology were consistent with baked bean deprivation and not cake deprivation as the latest tests have shown”) and tell the patient what you will do to address the issue (“we will now put you on an ultra high cake intake diet to correct the deficiency” ).

 

Any chance you could p.m. me the name of this Doc?

 

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

* as mentioned above, Lucy has become deaf, certainly to the point where Mrs iD notices Lucy‘s deafness. However, I don’t think Lucy is entirely deaf, because sometimes she does things that make me think “hold on a minute, is she pulling a fast one on me?  But who cares? It is what it is.

 

Would those moments involve the mention of food by any chance?

[Winslow Boy]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

 

Would those moments involve the mention of food by any chance?

SOP for the Boss that.

[Happy Hippo]

I crept out to the garage this afternoon, and toned down the bracket signal prior to installing it.

 

I made sure the motor boxes under the baseboard for both the bracket and single signal were both properly secure, as vibration in the car travelling to a show has caused operating issues, after the layout was erected.

 

Whilst I was at it, I made up some rather crude brass plates that ensure there is no chance of the point drives popping out of the Cobalt motors.  The screw with the built in washer for these is rather small, so enlarging the trapping area seemed a good idea.

 

Normally when they are mounted under the points it is not an issue, but there were mounted off to the side and are semi buried in the scenery, so are not working as they should be.

 

 

[The White Rabbit]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

... Would those moments involve the mention of food by any chance?

 

However did you guess... 

 

https://www.cartoonstock.com/cartoon?searchID=CS318469

 

Edited August 11 by The White Rabbit
lost a bit

[pH]

36 minutes ago, The White Rabbit said:

 

However did you guess... 

 

https://www.cartoonstock.com/cartoon?searchID=CS318469

 

Reminds me of what was my favourite ever cartoon series, and one of its recurring themes:

 

https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article1142698.ece/ALTERNATES/s1227b/Perishers - 14th July 2012

[bbishop]

Evening all.  I intimated a while ago that Flavio offered to build an Imbiss for my Spur Null layout.  He gave it to me during his last visit to London and it is exquisite.   It can be seen on Blindheim at the Seaford exhibition on 2 November.  

 

To publisise the exhibition, there will be an article on recent updates to Blindheim in the November Continental Modeller.  Flavio, whilst sofa sitting after his recent accident, has written an article about the Imbiss.  Hopefully the two articles will appear together.  I've borrowed church tables and will set up the layout in the garden in order to photograph it.  However the Imbiss sits at one end of the beer garden which is somewhat unpopulated.  So during the last few days I've been batch painting Preiser figures.  I can only paint accurately in daylight so have been sitting in the south-facing workshop, listening to cricket on Radio 5XL.  The figures will be stuck down in the next couple of days.

 

Listening to the Prom tonight and about to have my dinner.  A scrounge in Sainsbury's produced discounted mushrooms and broccoli, which have been sweated with garlic and some black olives which need to be eaten and then cooked with some pasta.  Schubert just started so it is goodnight from me.

[SM42]

We're home. 

 

Trip blighted by roadworks and a broken down car in the Brexit theme park AKA The M20  15 mile long contraflow

 

Mostly unpacked now

 The rest can wait till morning. 

 

Andy

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[jjb1970]

13 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Heljan are releasing one soon(ish) but it isn’t a steam loco.

 

I plan to get the Heljan 86 as a souvenir too, even though it's the wrong livery ( I like 86's in BR blue). In the case of the Wrenn there's a double whammy, it would be a souvenir of home but also as a small boy I remember listing after awfully expensive and quite exotic Wrenn models at a toy shop in Carlisle that sold model railways. At the time they were way way beyond my reach. I know it is just shameless wallowing in nostalgia, but now the Wrenn bubble seems to have deflated I really quite fancy one.

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

I know it is just shameless wallowing in nostalgia, but now the Wrenn bubble seems to have deflated I really quite fancy one.

With some of RMWeb’s more notorious inmates (y’know, the really scary ones) I have created a loose association known as The COGs (Curmudgeonly Old Gits), recently we have undergone an “upgrade” (so to speak) to GCOGs (Grumpy Curmudgeonly Old Gits).

 

Why mention this? Simply because when a few of us GCOGs get together, there is at least, 200+ years of collective wisdom, experience, knowledge and (dare I say it) “common sense” around the table quaffing beer. And, as is our wont, talk turns to what in our various pasts really was better than the equivalent today.

 

Are we being nostalgic? Not really, I think. Some things were indeed a lot better back then. Public transport (especially the railways – given that is the raison d'etre that brought us together in the first place) certainly was. People were a lot more polite, civilised, and – well, decent with each other. Perhaps it was because in the 50s and 60s Britain, along with Western Europe, had settled down into a modestly to fairly prosperous state of affairs, but with the scars from World War II still fresh we did our upmost to get along together.

 

Of course, there were many things, many injustices, to address in the 50s and 60s, not to mention the many criticisms of the powers that be,  but there wasn’t the sense that most everyone is permanently offended, most everyone is hypersensitive to the very smallest perceived “insult”, that most everyone has a gargantuan sense of entitled “me, me, me” selfishness and that there are topics You Are Not Allowed To Talk About. Something you cannot say about much of the Western World today.

 

If I were asked to pinpoint a single cause for the state of today’s malaise, I would unhesitatingly point to the rise of the “professional politician“. In other words, people who have never actually held a real job in the real world. In the 50s and 60s Politicians were – as they always seem to be – a mix of the very good, good, bad and indifferent; but they had all lived in the “real world“! Many had served with distinction in the Second World War - on both sides of the house; most of the labour politicians had done real jobs in industry before going into politics as had most conservative politicians, albeit  in very different areas than their opposition.

And most of them, much, much more than today, were politicians of conviction. You may not have agreed with them; their politics, their ideas or their convictions, but at least you knew what they stood for. So unlike the politicians of today, whose “firm principles” only last from one focus group meeting to another.

 

Today’s politicians, no matter on what side of the dispatch box they sit, are pretty much all the same: a PPE degree at a Russell Group University followed by a “job” in a “think tank“ or union sinecure before being parachuted into a safe seat, and elected to Parliament. And, as can be plainly seen today, although they may be singing different songs, they are all certainly singing in the same opera. The “group think“ created by getting a PPE at a Russell Group University permeating all sides of the political debate. 

[jamie92208]

You may well be right Flavio.  Dennis Healey was a tank commander heading up the road to Arnhem, Tony Benn was a fighter pilot anfpd Tam Dayell was a tank commander. All politicians of conviction.  The long serving MP for Pontefract was a former miner, kicked out by Blair inn97 and replaced by Yvette Coope. 

 

Jamie

[SM42]

I think the Internet is more of a cause of today's malaise. 

 

People can be angry, anonymously, at distance and with very little chance of consequence for their actions being visited  upon them. 

 

There is essentially carte blanche to say what you want, upset who you want and be generally unpleasant and get away with it. 

 

There is also, in the anonymous on line world the ability to influence. 

 

How easy is it to believe some comment dressed up as a fact? 

 

Pre Internet you were likely to be punched or arrested for saying some of the stuff that you see on line in  person.  

 

The career politician of today has to contend with this and there is a trend to be influenced by social media  due to its wider catchment and the political opportunities it presents. 

 

It can be used as  force for good or evil, but mostly the latter as whilst most people are generally nice, they a have their little agendas which they can now vent much more easily, find others who think the same and thus reinforce the perceived injustice, offence or whatever. 

 

Self satisfying indignation has moved out of the on line world and into the real one as a tool to make a point or shut down another's  opinion. 

 

It's very hard to combat and the world is a poorer place for it. 

 

Reasoned debate?

That's a thing of the past. 

 

There are still a few politicians I have respect for in the HoC. 

 

I don’t necessarily agree with their politics but they seem to be genuine down to earth people who want the best for their area and are trying to get it.

 

Andy

Edited August 12 by SM42

[bbishop]

58 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

You may well be right Flavio.  Dennis Healey was a tank commander heading up the road to Arnhem, Tony Benn was a fighter pilot anfpd Tam Dayell was a tank commander. All politicians of conviction.  The long serving MP for Pontefract was a former miner, kicked out by Blair inn97 and replaced by Yvette Coope. 

 

Jamie

Jamie, Denis Healey was a beach master.  B

[SM42]

We are on standby. 

 

The nephew is off to a two week summer camp in The Lake District. 

 

The coach departs from somewhere in London shortly. 

 

As we are halfway to the lakes we will be rendezvousing with the coach somewhere en route as will a number of other Midland based families. 

 

Rumour has it somewhere around Leicester, ( odd route, but maybe due to where others are based )  but details to be confirmed with whomever is driving the coach. 

 

Failing that, a day out in The Lakes beckons. 

 

Andy

[jjb1970]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

You may well be right Flavio.  Dennis Healey was a tank commander heading up the road to Arnhem, Tony Benn was a fighter pilot anfpd Tam Dayell was a tank commander. All politicians of conviction.  The long serving MP for Pontefract was a former miner, kicked out by Blair inn97 and replaced by Yvette Coope. 

 

Jamie

 

I remember the old joke that Dennis Healey joined Labour because he was too right wing for the tories😲😆

[Happy Hippo]

Nyda came up with a tag line/name for a Delicatessen:

 

Black Olives Matter

 

 

We'll start packing for our stay in a Gulag

[Oldddudders]

18 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Nyda came up with a tag line/name for a Delicatessen:

 

Black Olives Matter

 

In my final working days I recall going into one of those bespoke sandwich places. He was making up my order and i asked for black olives - but he'd only got green ones. I had to point out I hoped there was no racial discrimination going on - I have known some really nice black olives.