The Night Mail

[Oldddudders]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

Is that wireless equipped? Does it “talk” directly to the command station or do you need a PC as well?

Yes, Digitrax's duplex radio. I already had a D402D that was wireless, but the new throttles really are a bit more modern. No PC involved at all. My 1998 DCS100 command station works with new tech just fine. 

[Tony_S]

4 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Yes, Digitrax's duplex radio. I already had a D402D that was wireless, but the new throttles really are a bit more modern. No PC involved at all. My 1998 DCS100 command station works with new tech just fine. 

I have been very much in an Xpressnet world for DCC until now but my latest toy is a multi format device. It came with a loconet cabled controller and I’ve got various Lenz and Roco Xpressnet handsets which will work. I have got it wirelessly working with old phones and iPad using the Z21 app. It doesn’t need the PC anymore but if I do use it ,  it can connect via Ethernet or usb to run DecoderPro. I had to tell DecoderPro it was a Digitrax Chief of some description. Hence why I am keen to know about all these other things. 
 

[PhilJ W]

56 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

An Oyster Po' Boy I could be tempted by.  Oysters in any other form are a stupid thing for human consumption.  They are simple organisms that filter all the sh1t out of seawater, then people wonder why they get spectacular (and sometimes life-threatening) food poisoning from them.

The British equivalent of fugu.

[rockershovel]

8 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Oh dearie me, we do have some gastronomic wusses amongst us.

 

Not liking oysters? They are the very essence and epitome of man versus sea (and enjoyed since antiquity - the Romans highly prized Colchester oysters). Perhaps it may help to think of oysters as whelks or winkels without the curly shell.

 

Being a reasonably minded Gastronaut, I can concede that raw oysters may not be to everyone’s taste (especially if you’ve grown up on a diet of meat and two [overcooked] veg). Although it is sad to observe that the gastronomically timid are passing up on such delights.

 

However, our cousins across the Atlantic in New Orleans have the perfect solution to the “oyster-hesitant”: Oyster Po’ Boys! Fresh oysters are breaded or battered then deep fried and served in a fresh roll with accompaniments like remoulade sauce or coleslaw.

 

Certainly beats Turkey twizzlers and oven fries…

Oysters were the Restoration, Regency or Georgian equivalent of pork scratchings; a tasty snack with your glass of porter at the Inn. 

 

Samuel Pepys enjoyed them, especially as a prelude to meat pie. Mr Pickwick enjoyed them. 

[Dave Hunt]

Just had another offer on Dad's house which I've accepted. I'm not holding my breath, though, as I've been here before and the barstewards withdrew after over two months so I've instructed the estate agents to keep the house on the market until something more concrete occurs. The potential buyers are cash customers, though, so with luck things could happen a bit faster than the usual glacial progress. Wish me luck.

 

Dave

[polybear]

17 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Just had another offer on Dad's house which I've accepted. I'm not holding my breath, though, as I've been here before and the barstewards withdrew after over two months.......

 

The slight good news is that the Barstewards must've wasted some money (Surveys etc.) in the process.  May the Fleas of a thousand Camels infect their ar5eholes 🤣

[newbryford]

3 hours ago, Tony_S said:

I have been very much in an Xpressnet world for DCC until now but my latest toy is a multi format device. It came with a loconet cabled controller and I’ve got various Lenz and Roco Xpressnet handsets which will work. I have got it wirelessly working with old phones and iPad using the Z21 app. It doesn’t need the PC anymore but if I do use it ,  it can connect via Ethernet or usb to run DecoderPro. I had to tell DecoderPro it was a Digitrax Chief of some description. Hence why I am keen to know about all these other things. 
 

 

Sounds like a Digikeijs or YaMoRC unit.....

[Winslow Boy]

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

Just had another offer on Dad's house which I've accepted. I'm not holding my breath, though, as I've been here before and the barstewards withdrew after over two months so I've instructed the estate agents to keep the house on the market until something more concrete occurs. The potential buyers are cash customers, though, so with luck things could happen a bit faster than the usual glacial progress. Wish me luck.

 

Dave

 

A good friend of mums regaled mum with what happened when her son sold his flat in London in the '90's. The son was a banker at one of the big clearing houses so had a Bob or to if you get my drift. Anyway flat went on the market and someone came and had a look round. Next thing he knows is he's being offered several suitcases filled with neatly wrapped notes for the full amount. My mum didn't make to many enquires as to where the cash was from but if I say father was a very successful estate agent I'll leave it there. When he got married he bought a big old house in the suburbs, demolished it and built something more 'appropiate'.

[PhilJ W]

[AndyID]

Despite having broken wrists four times and a collar bone (rugby) I'm very fortunate not to experience any pain due to these prior enburglarments. But my lower back was a disaster when I was in my thirties (40+ years ago). Then I started skiing and my back has been fine ever since. And that's my excuse for whizzing away the kids' inheritance on ski trips 🤣

 

I suppose I must be reasonably fit for someone my age. I just skied seven days out of eight in Utah and Colorado and I was at my local mountain today. Recently I bought a new pair of skis which will turn much more easily than my previous ones and now I am able to confidently ski runs that previously intimidated me.

 

The discount ski pass I buy in the summer gives me two days skiing at 26 ski resorts all over the World but a great many of them are not very far from here. The pass also allows me to add on additional days at half the normal rate. I added an additional day at Aspen and the very nice, young South-African lady only charged me half the senior rate. (A Scottish accent does have some advantages in the US 😁)

 

I'm in Idaho as is Sun Valley which was one of the very first ski resorts in the US but I've never skied there. (Some older NightMailers might even remember the song.) But this year my ski pass includes Sun Valley and I'll be there in early March. It's a good bit away from here and the fastest way to get there by road is to head into Montana, cross over to the Eastern side of the Continental Divide then return to the Western side of the divide at the cleverly named "town" of Monida (which is on the border of Montana and Idaho 😀)

 

A

 

 

[BR60103]

I saw the respirologist today.  I think he was pleased and surprised by the blow test which was so much improved from 2 months ago.  I have to go back in 6 months.
He also said that I could probably go back on tea, coffee and chocolate which a different Dr. had taken me off.

 

My approach to tools is to buy a cheap one or possibly a set and replace any that I wear out with sturdier ones.

 

[BR60103]

6 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Oysters were the Restoration, Regency or Georgian equivalent of pork scratchings; a tasty snack with your glass of porter at the Inn. 

 

Samuel Pepys enjoyed them, especially as a prelude to meat pie. Mr Pickwick enjoyed them. 

 

There was a young lady of Ghent

Who said that she knew what it meant

When men asked her to dine

On oysters and wine.

She knew what it meant but she went.

 

[Tony_S]

2 hours ago, AndyID said:

Scottish accent does have some advantages in the US

I did have favourable comments about my accent when I went to Texas. This amused me as Birmingham accents are not usually quite so well received here!

[iL Dottore]

15 hours ago, DenysW said:

Well, no. These are also 'foods' that are an insult to both the intelligence and the tastebuds.

 

Oysters are like many utterly tasteless local treats (porridge, grits, and so on.) in that if you add enough butter/salt/pepper/garlic/vinegar/etc. to them, they taste wonderfully buttery/salty/peppery/garlicky/vinegary/etc.-y.

 

Take a pass, recover the rest of your life.

I’m guessing you’re a “meat and two (boiled) veg” kind of person 🤣

9 hours ago, Northmoor said:

An Oyster Po' Boy I could be tempted by.  Oysters in any other form are a stupid thing for human consumption.  They are simple organisms that filter all the sh1t out of seawater, then people wonder why they get spectacular (and sometimes life-threatening) food poisoning from them.

Although Oysters, because they are such simple organisms, are particularly good at accumulating toxins and other nasties in their bodies (which is why where oysters come from is very important), but this also true for other animals (especially if they are higher on the food chain - like tuna which accumulates in its body any toxins present in its prey).

 

A great example of how diet affects the animal are the various South American tree frogs - who produce hallucinogenic or toxic secretions in the wild . Most of those raised in captivity have non-hallucinogenic or non-toxic secretions as the food they are given in captivity lacks the necessary components needed to produce hallucinogens or toxins.

8 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

The British equivalent of fugu.

Well, given the penchant of British water companies to dump raw sewage everywhere (rivers, streams, off the coasts) eating British oysters certainly can be a Russian Roulette like experience

[AndyID]

25 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I did have favourable comments about my accent when I went to Texas. This amused me as Birmingham accents are not usually quite so well received here!

 

I never really thought much about it before but on this last trip I was talking to people from all over the US and I received a lot of compliments. We've been in the US in a variety of the states for forty years but we are not aware of changes in our West of Scotland accents but we must use many US idioms to make ourselves understood.

 

One lady I was sitting next to on a chairlift actually told me she could listen to me talking all day 😀. (I'm pretty sure she was not hitting on me because her husband was right beside her!)

 

I'm seriously considering selling my voice for commercials, audio books etc, not because I think I'd ever make any money from it but I think it would be highly entertaining if I could actually pull it off.

[AndyID]

50 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Well, given the penchant of British water companies to dump raw sewage everywhere (rivers, streams, off the coasts) eating British oysters certainly can be a Russian Roulette like experience

 

Or even a Swiss Roulette experience.

 

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/covid-19_when-a-typhoid-epidemic-hit-zermatt/45630734

[rockershovel]

4 hours ago, BR60103 said:

 

There was a young lady of Ghent

Who said that she knew what it meant

When men asked her to dine

On oysters and wine.

She knew what it meant but she went.

 

Last verse...

 

Landlord, oh landlord

Landlord, I cried

Did you see that pretty oyster girl

Drinking by my side

She's gone and picked my pocket!

But the Landlord just replied,

Son, you shouldn't be so fond of

Oysters!

[rockershovel]

3 hours ago, Tony_S said:

I did have favourable comments about my accent when I went to Texas. This amused me as Birmingham accents are not usually quite so well received here!

The late, great John Steinbeck was occasionally given to mocking his wife's Texas accent and mannerisms. 

 

A neice of mine emigrated there some years ago; she didn't intend to, but that's how it turned out. The Colorado/Wyoming branch of the family (being an older strain, descended from two cousins who married GIs in the 1940s) remark upon her rapid transition from her Cambridgeshire accent with much amusement. 

 

I've often found that my older Cockney accent (markedly different from the current Estuary version) is taken for Australian in the US. I just let it pass. 

Edited February 1, 2023 by rockershovel

[Oldddudders]

5 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

The late, great John Steinbeck was occasionally given to mocking his wife's Texas accent and mannerisms. 

I hope she kicked him in the grapes! 

[AndyID]

11 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

Last verse...

 

Landlord, oh landlord

Landlord, I cried

Did you see that pretty oyster girl

Drinking by my side

She's gone and picked my pocket!

But the Landlord just replied,

Son, you shouldn't be so fond of

Oysters!

 

I know another version (that actually rhymes) but it's quite unsuitable for this forum 😀

[DenysW]

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Well, given the penchant of British water companies to dump raw sewage everywhere (rivers, streams, off the coasts)

Don't worry. The very same Government that HS2 would run from Euston to Leeds at a cost of £20bn has announced that the sewer overflows can be fixed for a modest £60bn, spread over 30 years and thus not increase water/sewage bills.

 

I take this to mean it will cost £300bn and take 300 years, so as not to increase water/sewage bills.

[Tony_S]

26 minutes ago, DenysW said:

Don't worry. The very same Government that HS2 would run from Euston to Leeds at a cost of £20bn has announced that the sewer overflows can be fixed for a modest £60bn, spread over 30 years and thus not increase water/sewage bills.

 

I take this to mean it will cost £300bn and take 300 years, so as not to increase water/sewage bills.

Perhaps they could combine the two projects and transport London sewage excess to Leeds? 

[DenysW]

31 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Perhaps they could combine the two projects

With careful design ahead of time (ha!) they could convert four of the 6 subterranean platforms at Old Oak Common (platform level 16 m below ground level, which is where the Elizabeth Line is) to storm-water storage tanks once the tunnel to Euston is operational and delighting our remote descendants.

[iL Dottore]

4 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

Or even a Swiss Roulette experience.

 

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/covid-19_when-a-typhoid-epidemic-hit-zermatt/45630734

Not quite the same as dumping raw sewage to lower costs and increase shareholder benefit - see Private Eye (multiple entries)

[Happy Hippo]

8 hours ago, AndyID said:

The pass also allows me to add on additional days at half the normal rate. I added an additional day at Aspen and the very nice, young South-African lady only charged me half the senior rate. (A Scottish accent does have some advantages in the US 😁)

 

Try a New Zealand accent: