RMweb Gold Edwardian Posted November 24, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted November 24, 2020 8 minutes ago, Annie said: A mysterious metal monolith has been found planted in the ground in a remote part of the United States. The truth is out there......... Though as a person who has a problem with a sleep disorder I do have to say that counting sheep from a helicopter sounds awfully dangerous to me. ! 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
KeithMacdonald Posted November 24, 2020 Share Posted November 24, 2020 On 20/11/2020 at 18:11, Edwardian said: We are told that it is unprecedented for a minister not to resign where the Ministerial Code has been breached. So, it is a convention, and one that safeguards us from certain levels of conduct by ministers of the Crown, that you resign if you breach these rules. My learned colleague may (or may not) be interested to learn when the Ministerial Code was introduced. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ministerial-code It appears to be only 10 years ago in 2010. I'd be grateful to learn what had happened in 2010 (or before) that prompted that to be published, and which minister(s) it had in mind back then? 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
KeithMacdonald Posted November 24, 2020 Share Posted November 24, 2020 19 minutes ago, Annie said: A mysterious metal monolith has been found planted in the ground in a remote part of the United States. Actually visible in Google Earth, reckoned to have been there for some years, but only just noticed by MSM. Location https://earth.google.com/web/@38.34304222,-109.66601192,1317.3778543a,139.1139794d,35y,0h,0t,0r 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Annie Posted November 24, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 24, 2020 2 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said: Actually visible in Google Earth, reckoned to have been there for some years, but only just noticed by MSM. Location https://earth.google.com/web/@38.34304222,-109.66601192,1317.3778543a,139.1139794d,35y,0h,0t,0r So how long have they been amongst us then? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Edwardian Posted November 24, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted November 24, 2020 Just now, Annie said: So how long have they been amongst us then? Not long enough by the looks of things. 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
KeithMacdonald Posted November 24, 2020 Share Posted November 24, 2020 12 hours ago, Edwardian said: In the news today .... In the fast-moving world of Cambridge University, it has taken a mere two decades for the University Library to report the theft of Charles Darwin's notebooks. Almost (but not quite) a candidate for a Darwin Award? 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
burgundy Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 1 hour ago, KeithMacdonald said: I'd be grateful to learn what had happened in 2010 (or before) that prompted that to be published, and which minister(s) it had in mind back then? Liam Fox made an undignified departure from office around that time but I am not sure that the Ministerial Code was down to him. Best wishes Eric Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcolm 0-6-0 Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 9 hours ago, Annie said: A mysterious metal monolith has been found planted in the ground in a remote part of the United States. The truth is out there......... Though as a person who has a problem with a sleep disorder I do have to say that counting sheep from a helicopter sounds awfully dangerous to me. Apparently it's a sacred site for this group of people trying to overturn the democratic vote ............ 1 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 If you read the Boris-ised version of the Ministerial Code, it does make you wonder. The core of the thing is, logically enough, the Nolan Principles, and stuff about cabinet collective responsibility, etc, but he has helpfully provided a foreword, which is all about not shilly-shallying, delivering Brexit by 31st October (it doesn't say which year!) etc. Any newbie-minister would get a very clear message about what was really important to their boss on the day he signed it off. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schooner Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 39 minutes ago, Nearholmer said: what was really important Truth! Justice! Freedom!...Reasonably Priced Love!...and a Hard-Boiled Egg! If only. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CKPR Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 12 hours ago, Annie said: A mysterious metal monolith has been found planted in the ground in a remote part of the United States. Makes one wonder what is still to be uncovered in the remoter areas of Norfolk. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium TheQ Posted November 25, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 25, 2020 Black Shuck... 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Regularity Posted November 25, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted November 25, 2020 Disappointing in that it wasn’t a regular cuboid with 1:4:9:25 dimensions, though... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Compound2632 Posted November 25, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 25, 2020 32 minutes ago, Regularity said: Disappointing in that it wasn’t a regular cuboid with 1:4:9:25 dimensions, though... A hypercuboid, I believe. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Regularity Posted November 25, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted November 25, 2020 1 hour ago, Compound2632 said: A hypercuboid, I believe. Thank you: I knew someone would know. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pH Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 On 24/11/2020 at 02:35, Edwardian said: In the news today .... In the fast-moving world of Cambridge University, it has taken a mere two decades for the University Library to report the theft of Charles Darwin's notebooks. I have had those notebooks in my hands, and have seen the page where Darwin first mentions what became his theory of evolution. (Before anyone starts calling the authorities, it was 40 years ago, it was in a secure room in Cambridge University Library, and I was employed there at the time!) It’s not impossible that they could turn up within the library. Mis-shelving is a real problem in libraries, and there are over 130 miles of shelving in that library. In another large library I worked in, there were regular checks for that. Usually, a book would be a few inches out of place, sometimes a shelf, even a bay of shelves out of place. However, books were occasionally found shelved on the wrong floor. Having said that, the odds are that they have been stolen. They (or at least the text from them) have been digitized, though. That project was in progress when I handled them. 1 1 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
drmditch Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 10 hours ago, Schooner said: Truth! Justice! Freedom!...Reasonably Priced Love!...and a Hard-Boiled Egg! If only. Bit late in the year for Lilac to bloom. (At least in this hemisphere, Earth not being a disk!) 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium ianathompson Posted November 25, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 25, 2020 2 hours ago, pH said: Mis-shelving is a real problem in libraries, I quite agree. I have enough trouble finding stuff in my own library which occupies a roughly 8 by 10 foot space. Uax6 is a regular user. He asks for something and I say, "Yes, got that." We then spend half an hour looking for it. Sometimes we find it, sometimes we don't. He has a book on loan at the moment having last asked for a very specific edition of the 1970s Railway Modeller. We usually come across a lot of intersting stuff along the way though, things that I often did not know that I had. Mis-shelving was a dodgy tactic deliberately employed in my undergrad days. We had to submit four essays at Birmingham for the equivalent of one of our final papers, so it was competitive essay writing! With twenty or thirty on a course, it was not unusual for certain relevant texts to "disappear" even though no-one had them out of the library. I was lucky enough to live close enough to Leeds University and use their facilities instead. Coming to grips with the "home brewed" Brotherton Library classification system (quite unlike the standard Dewey system) made for an exciting tiome however. Ian T 5 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
drmditch Posted November 25, 2020 Share Posted November 25, 2020 Re: Mis-shelving. I spent nearly an hour today looking for a magazine (Backtrack) containing details of a late 19thC plate girder bridge. It wasn't where I'm sure I placed it a year ago, but I eventually found it in the bedside shelves were I put material relating to projects I'm working on. The problem with searching is that one gets distracted by other articles and subject matter. (And I'm still not sure whether the 'flyover' spans at Relly (or Relley) Mill Junction were wrought iron or steel. Not that that matters - because mine will be made out of card!) 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Edwardian Posted November 26, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted November 26, 2020 Rural County Durham to be stiffed again by Tier 3. I am dismayed, rather than surprised. Am I alone in getting thoroughly bored of this? Tier 3 v. Lockdown? Apart from the fact that I can soon have a haircut (which I don't need), though still not a pint (which I do), I'm struggling to notice much difference. Yet the highest rates are in secondary school children; so I'll remain fully exposed even in Tier 3, whilst enduring enforced misery to little or no purpose. It's the combination of two things that make me really hacked off. First, the unshakable conviction that the incompetence and delay by HMG early this year that led to Covid getting out of, and never back in control means that we have to keep locking down; Prof Tim Spector on the radio is explaining how lockdown and tiers did not actually work, which is not a helpful thing to hear, whether true or not. Second, the fact that the authorities still can't or won't distinguish between what may be happening in towns and what is happening in place like mine, where my dog and I socially distance from sheep and I can cross a field from County Durham (Tier 3) and North Yorkshire (Tier 2). I notice they can manage to distinguish between Slough (Tier 3) and the rest of Berkshire (Tier 2). If these measures are (a) really necessary and (b) have a realistic prospect of success, why the bl00dy-blue-b*ggering Hell are we being let out for Christmas? Tier 3 people (me) will go magically from no household mixing whatsoever to 3 households mixing indoors for 5 days. WTF? The result will doubtless be to return to Tier 3 or lockdown until such time as Rishi hikes up corporation and income tax to knacker what's left of my income (who did not qualify for any of his munificence). Remind me, when's the next General Election? Yours P1ssed off of County Durham. The 2 December tiers in full from the Grauniad: Tier 3: Very High alert North East: Hartlepool Middlesbrough Stockton-on-Tees Redcar and Cleveland Darlington Sunderland South Tyneside Gateshead Newcastle upon Tyne North Tyneside County Durham Northumberland North West: Greater Manchester Lancashire Blackpool Blackburn with Darwen Yorkshire and The Humber: The Humber West Yorkshire South Yorkshire West Midlands: Birmingham and Black Country Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Warwickshire, Coventry and Solihull East Midlands: Derby and Derbyshire Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Leicester and Leicestershire Lincolnshire South East: Slough (remainder of Berkshire is tier 2: High alert) Kent and Medway South West Bristol South Gloucestershire North Somerset Tier 2: High alert North West: Cumbria Liverpool City Region Warrington and Cheshire Yorkshire: York North Yorkshire West Midlands: Worcestershire Herefordshire Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin East Midlands: Rutland Northamptonshire East of England: Suffolk Hertfordshire Cambridgeshire, including Peterborough Norfolk Essex, Thurrock and Southend on Sea Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes London: All 32 boroughs plus the City of London South East: East Sussex West Sussex Brighton and Hove Surrey Reading Wokingham Bracknell Forest Windsor and Maidenhead West Berkshire Hampshire (except the Isle of Wight), Portsmouth and Southampton Buckinghamshire Oxfordshire South West: South Somerset, Somerset West and Taunton, Mendip and Sedgemoor Bath and North East Somerset Dorset Bournemouth Christchurch Poole Gloucestershire Wiltshire and Swindon Devon Tier 1: Medium alert South East: Isle of Wight South West: Cornwall Isles of Scilly 11 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium TheQ Posted November 26, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 26, 2020 Norfolk's the same, all lumped in together, when some areas (Wymondham) have a rate over 10 times that of North Norfolk . 2 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Regularity Posted November 26, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted November 26, 2020 1 hour ago, TheQ said: Norfolk's the same, all lumped in together, when some areas (Wymondham) have a rate over 10 times that of North Norfolk . We are still talking of Covid-19 here, and not in-breeding? 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CKPR Posted November 26, 2020 Share Posted November 26, 2020 1 hour ago, Edwardian said: Tier 1: Medium alert South East: Isle of Wight South West: Cornwall Isles of Scilly So, basically two actual islands and one virtual island,given the Tamar Straits. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caley Jim Posted November 26, 2020 Share Posted November 26, 2020 I can't help but feel that England is in a right mess with BoJo and co running about like headless chickens. In my view, it's not the restrictions that aren't working, but the selfish idiots who refuse to stick to the rules who are causing all the problems. Our son is working down in Peterborough at the moment and tells us that during the current 'lockdown' you would think nothing was any different given the way people are behaving. Despite the fact that we are 'allowed' to, my wife and I will not be mixing with anyone at Christmas. Our daughter and her family are literally 5 minutes walk away, but they too will be staying behind what Prof. Jason Leitch has described as 'the best defence against Covid - your front door', since our granddaughter is immunosuppressed, having undergone a liver transplant. What you 'can' do and what common sense tells you you 'should' do are two different things. Stay home, stay safe and carry on modelling. Jim 2 12 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Compound2632 Posted November 26, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 26, 2020 2 hours ago, Edwardian said: I notice they can manage to distinguish between Slough (Tier 3) and the rest of Berkshire (Tier 2). Unitary Authorities. Berkshire is an ex-county and has been since I forget when - late 1990s. If the unitary authority idea had caught on, then the gradation of tiering could be more subtle but for some arcane reason when it came to it every other county council found good reasons for its continued existence. The real disaster was that with the break-up of Berkshire County Libraries, when we moved over the border into Wokingham*, I lost access to Reading Central Library's loan copies of Bradley's Southern-constituent locomotive books. *Although where we live is really part of Reading. Wokingham itself is a place I go less than once in a blue moon; it has no relevance to me. 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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