Early Risers.

[emt_911]

Morning all. Late on parade as I decided not to set the alarm and had a lie in.

 

A day of finishing off a couple of reports and getting ready for a meeting first thing tomorrow which may generate a lot more work over the next few months.

 

Mal - 2015 has definitely been a year to remember for all of the wrong reasons. I'm thinking of you and hoping that your mums recovery is swift.

 

Richard - Totally agree with you

 

With many of my digital friends living in the path of Desmond and the areas of flooding, I hope that you have all remained safe overnight.

 

Have a good day everyone

[Purley Oaks]

Something for Pete (Trisonic) and other musos here from the LT Museum - Fender Strat with tube map

 

http://www.ltmuseumshop.co.uk/gifts-and-souvenirs/souvenirs/product/fender-tube-map-guitar.html

 

Sadly unavailable for overseas delivery...

 

Mal

Edited December 6, 2015 by Purley Oaks

[AndyB]

Morning all,

Power cut last night so, sadly, we missed many of the telly-visual highlights that others have mentioned. 

A half-day at work here today and then the Christmas tree will be brought in, dusted down and, for it's 14th year, placed between the sofa and the television. 

 

But how the Christmas magic can be undermined....

swmbo: are you going to put that book on your letter to Father Christmas?  

daughter: that's a good idea, mum. But I can see from the Amazon page on your tablet that you bought it half and hour ago. 

 

Have a nice day everyone. 

[lightengine]

Was it that big bit of aircraft washed up recently?

This was a huge rectangular shaped object that wouldnt have been much fun to tow in the winds we had yesterday.

[The Stationmaster]

Have you tried marinetraffic.com ?

 

http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-3.6/centery:50.5/zoom:12

 

Possibly the MTS Victory is the tug?

 

Cheers,

Mick

It could well be - currently enroute Waalhaven to Brixham but still in the area where a tug was seen yesterday and is presumably currently anchored as its speed and recent course suggest that is the case.  The only live tow I can find is out in Lyme Bay enroute to Las Palmas and the towed vessl is Havila Jupiter, a large North Sea support vessel, but its course indicates that is definitely not what was seen off Labrador Bay.

 

And good morning all.  Wind has slackened considerably but some occasional showers are foreseen by the Exeter seaweed.  Nothing much else to report - the good Doctor returned from the firm's Christmas bash very full of the spirit of Christmas (in fact I think it was mainly beer) but duly sallied forth to work at some awful hour this morning so has presumably weathered the storm.

 

BTW Jock I'm struggling to think of when I last heard of train passengers being put up in a  hotel while there was still a train to leave them in.  I know it was done in a few cases up to the 1980s but normally in later BR years the idea seemed to be to get them onto alternative transport of some sort if there was no way of getting them forward by train within a few hours.  We had a definite policy in my final big railway company that we would not arrange to accommodate passengers overnight except in very, very, severe circumstances when a train became impossible to move.

 

Have a  good day one & all.

Edited December 6, 2015 by The Stationmaster

[lightengine]

What is it that makes me smile (cynically) about the 'right to bear arms' and the scenario whereby citizens would return fire on a gunman/terrorist/etc?

 

Well despite all the talk, it's never happened! No upstanding citizen has been in a position to return fire!

 

There are two other factors that need to be considered.

 

1. As an old soldier there is no way I'm going to advance to contact and take on 3 or 4 guys armed with assault rifles with my semi auto pistol.

 

2. When the ART/SWAT team arrive, they will not be able to differentiate as to whom is a good guy and the baddies, so anyone with a gun is likely to get shot.

 

 

Finally there is a slight difference between being a hero and ace shot on a shooting range, and suddenly becoming the target. Incoming has a detrimental effect on your accuracy.

Whilst agreeing with some of your post there have been times in the US when a gun attack was carried out by student who acted as a maverick and posibly would have been an easy target for someone with training. After all, they are supposedly giving said training to certain individuals in certain establishments.

Secondly, sometimes the right people are in the right place simultaneously as the bad guy is. Take for instance the train on its way from Brussels this year. Ok the US armed forces guys on there were not armed but they and another took action anyway. If one of them had been an armed guy in the right place then the action may well have been terminated much quicker, after all it was apparently only because 2 servicemen heard the sounds of guns being assembled that they took action in the first place.

 

To go to schools/colleges where single maverick gunmen seem to attack with impunity, just once the attack may take place when someone is there armed. Maybe the local recruiting officer or police officer addressing a group. I understand that a supply teacher guarding 30 pupils may not want to make themselves a target but one day it may happen that the school visitor may be well trained.

Edited December 6, 2015 by lightengine

[NGT6 1315]

Fingers crossed and thinking of you, Mal. Best wishes to your mum!

[lightengine]

Newbryford,

The Victory looks very similar to the size of vessel we saw towing. Now if you imagine a rectangle twice that height and at least twice as long being towed in fairly strong winds.

Anchorage would explain why we saw it facing different directions. But from the distance we were I could not see any day shapes being flown by the tug.

Pete

[trisonic]

 

 

Finally there is a slight difference between being a hero and ace shot on a shooting range, and suddenly becoming the target. Incoming has a detrimental effect on your accuracy.

Gun Clubs in the UK were first promoted and indeed encouraged by the British Government when the Army realized how poorly the British were at marksmanship during the Boer War. My (former) club at Harrow was founded in 1908 and by the time it was fully mature had many members put through the forces - mostly in some kind of either Training facility or Special Forces units.

 

It’s not all bad.

 

I’ve always had a bee in my bonnet about innocents killed by Drunk drivers in Western countries - but then I barely drink myself (in terms of quantity.....

 

Just trying to keep the discussion in perspective, I’m not arguing!

 

Best, Pete.

Edited December 6, 2015 by trisonic

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Wind is still blowing but has abated somewhat, rather noticable in my abode as it is an end terrace with the gable facing due west. Some stuff in the garden is laying on its side and it can stay there for the time being. Hope things sort themselves out Mal and thoughts and best wishes to those on the receiving end of storm Desmond.

[AndrewC]

If its not one thing its another. I'm really beginning to hate the tax man. SWMBO has been waiting/fighting with Canada Revenue Agency for 11 months to get them to declare her as non-resident. This should take only a few weeks but someone cocked up and its been started, stopped, and dumped to the bottom of the pile twice now. Formal complaint action is pending. The issue means that until its resolved she can't move her pension to the UK. Its haemorrhaging around $300/month at the moment, so by the time they get their fingers out she may have lost all the growth from the past 12 years before it shrinks to the guaranteed value.

 

Now the offspring has come to me with a tale of woe. Seems the nice people at HMRC have done a P800 and want £250+ in tax as they think he received £3200 in JSA during the 14-15 tax year that he hasn't had. Not sure how painful this will be to rectify. Anyone out there have any experiences on how difficult it is to get HMRC to correct such a mistake?

[lightengine]

I'm not a gambling man so could someone explain the seemingly wonderful offer presently being shown on Facebook.

6-1 Liverpool beating NUFC today.  If the Scouse lose you get your stake back.

I presume Betfair are not allowed to offer scams.  So how do I lose?

Edited December 6, 2015 by lightengine

[BoD]

I'm not a gambling man so could someone explain the seemingly wonderful offer presently being shown on Facebook.

6-1 Liverpool beating NUFC today.  If the Scouse lose you get your stake back.

I presume Betfair are not allowed to offer scams.  So how do I lose?

The money back is usually in the form of a free bet. I'm not sure if it's a bet of your choice or one of their 'specials'. This is a bit like a loss leader in supermarkets to tempt those who don't have an account to open one. In the long run it's a fair bet (sorry) that they will make money out of it.

 

Also, the odds of 6-1 must be very high plus there's always the chance of a draw. I'm also guessing that most of those who are given their money back will end up spending it with them anyway. Another reason why this is good for the company and not the pundit.

[iL Dottore]

Afternoon All,

IMHO, too many call centre operators appear to think that standardising every tiny detail right down to every single syllable is the only way to achieving customer satisfaction – diligently enforced by recording as many customer conversations as possible and flogging their agents if they dare deviate from the script by just one iota. I'm happy to hear there do seem to be exceptions in what I think of as being a largely roughshod type of business nowadays, though!…

Apparently there is a correlation between the quality of the employees and how stringent and unyielding the SOPs are - the lower the quality of the employees (by whatever yardstick) the more stringent and inflexible the SOPs. There also is a similar correlation between the size of an organisation and the number of SOPs (the larger the company, the greater the number of SOPs).

 

Thus, theoretically, any company you would have the best dealings with would be a small one with intelligent, well trained, well motivated (and paid) employees.

 

Pay Peanuts, get Monkeys

 

Banal TV.  But it's too windy and horrid to go down to the garage!

Television seems to have become the veritable curate's egg as of late: mostly banal and "car crash" TV interleaved with some decent programming.  My current favourite is "The Hunt", narrated by David Attenborough. Not only is it compelling viewing, but during the episode about hunting in the Artic, I found myself cheering when the poor. starving Polar Bear finally managed to catch a seal. Furthermore, one episode introduced me to perhaps one of the most beautiful Canids around: the Ethiopian Wolf (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_wolf#/media/File:Keberow.jpg).Alas, this most beautiful of beasts are in danger of extinction (apparently only about 400 remain)

 

,,,,

Also something very worrying has happened and I blame Richard (HH) for steering me towards the Oakwood Press stall at Warley.  I'm well on with the history of the Waterloo and City line and some very dangerous thoughts of a successor layout to green Ayre are forming in my mind. Built as a sort of extended diorama with the sidings and boiler house lift at one end, the platforms in the centre and the Armstrong lift at the other.   There is potential. Dangerous thoughts indeed, I've even measured it up on Google earth....

And that way, madness lies, trust me, I'm a Doctor. (See http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/70446-the-forgotten-forgotten-underground-stations/and http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/82759-camden-lock-an-illuminated-diorama/ for a full description of the disease: diagnosis, prognosis, treatment [only palliative, I'm afraid] and outcomes)

 

Unfortunately it sounds like you have already been heavily infected, The first stage is the acquisition of numerous books on the subject, the second stage is when the patient starts taking measurements....

 

....I have been suffering, so the lab report says, from Aerococcus urinae. So there. Apparently fairly rare, but seldom serious or fatal. You wouldn't expect  a man of my calibre to suffer from anything common, now would you? The lab report, sent through the post, lists dozens of potential antibiotics, with a summary of the efficacy of each on this infection. Since things are much nicer than they were a week ago, the prescribed one is clearly working - but I'm only half way through the course.  Compared to others' sufferings on here this is point nought one on the Richter scale.....

Ian, you have my sympathies (been there, done that, provided the cloudy urine sample). It may not seem like it, but you are a lucky so-and-so. The rarer the pathogen, the less likely it will be resistant to antibiotics. It could have been worse, you could have had a Acinetobacter baumannii infection (a really scary bug), which also hide in the GU tract causing mayhem. Take the the Abx until you have run out of them, it's the only way to totally eradicate the little bu99ers. Good luck (and keep well hydrated...)

 

Something for Pete (Trisonic) and other musos here from the LT Museum - Fender Strat with tube map

 

http://www.ltmuseumshop.co.uk/gifts-and-souvenirs/souvenirs/product/fender-tube-map-guitar.html

 

Sadly unavailable for overseas delivery...

 

Mal

Aah, but you could arrange to pick it up from the LT Museum store. When I am in London in January I might just wander by the museum and see if they have any. The price isn't bad for a Mexican made Fender Stratocaster, one presumes it would come with the usual accessories (carry case).

 

Anyway, I only had a light lunch due to taking the Wolfpack to Dog School, so I must now entrain for the kitchen where Porc en Croute awaits the finishing touches

 

Have a great evening

 

iD

[newbryford]

 

 

Television seems to have become the veritable curate's egg as of late: mostly banal and "car crash" TV interleaved with some decent programming.  My current favourite is "The Hunt", narrated by David Attenborough. Not only is it compelling viewing, but during the episode about hunting in the Artic, I found myself cheering when the poor. starving Polar Bear finally managed to catch a seal.

 

And if you want to watch a true combination - Gogglebox - reality TV showing people's reactions to the polar bear hunt..... (Not that I watch Gogglebox, it happened to be on as I passed slowly through the living room.)

 

 

Cheers,

Mick

[lightengine]

If its not one thing its another. I'm really beginning to hate the tax man. SWMBO has been waiting/fighting with Canada Revenue Agency for 11 months to get them to declare her as non-resident. This should take only a few weeks but someone cocked up and its been started, stopped, and dumped to the bottom of the pile twice now. Formal complaint action is pending. The issue means that until its resolved she can't move her pension to the UK. Its haemorrhaging around $300/month at the moment, so by the time they get their fingers out she may have lost all the growth from the past 12 years before it shrinks to the guaranteed value.

 

Now the offspring has come to me with a tale of woe. Seems the nice people at HMRC have done a P800 and want £250+ in tax as they think he received £3200 in JSA during the 14-15 tax year that he hasn't had. Not sure how painful this will be to rectify. Anyone out there have any experiences on how difficult it is to get HMRC to correct such a mistake?

I think it may be possible to ask your local Job Centre Plus to get a statement of the JSA paid to your son

[Coombe Barton]

Our Wolfpack is deafening. Walk this morning followed by lunch means that they're snoring it off to prepare for supper.

Edited December 6, 2015 by Coombe Barton

[edcayton]

If its not one thing its another. I'm really beginning to hate the tax man. SWMBO has been waiting/fighting with Canada Revenue Agency for 11 months to get them to declare her as non-resident. This should take only a few weeks but someone cocked up and its been started, stopped, and dumped to the bottom of the pile twice now. Formal complaint action is pending. The issue means that until its resolved she can't move her pension to the UK. Its haemorrhaging around $300/month at the moment, so by the time they get their fingers out she may have lost all the growth from the past 12 years before it shrinks to the guaranteed value.

 

Now the offspring has come to me with a tale of woe. Seems the nice people at HMRC have done a P800 and want £250+ in tax as they think he received £3200 in JSA during the 14-15 tax year that he hasn't had. Not sure how painful this will be to rectify. Anyone out there have any experiences on how difficult it is to get HMRC to correct such a mistake?

 

If you still have a local HMRC office then go there and speak to a real person. I always found ours extremely helpful. Obviously take relevant documents, not sure how you prove a negative though! It's probably quicker to go there than to phone the helpline thingy.

 

Ed

[Happy Hippo]

 

 

I’ve always had a bee in my bonnet about innocents killed by Drunk drivers in Western countries - but then I barely drink myself (in terms of quantity.....

 

 

I have just driven for a couple of miles behind some prat who was driving, let us say erratically.  His speed varied from 25-45mph and he was not sailing a steady course.

 

Drunk? almost certainly.

 

Caught by the police?  Not a hope.

 

In this neck of the woods, road policing is carried out by camera, so you only get caught if you exceed the speed limit. 

 

Sadly, I am only too aware of the budgetary cuts that our local force has/is undergoing, especially in the more remote rural areas.

 

I am vehemently opposed to any drink and drive 'allowance'.  It should be zero tolerance and any one caught doing it should lose their driving licence for at least 10 years!  And that ban should follow on from a custodial seneance. and not run concurrently.

 

Ott?  Bittter?

 

No I speak from having had to identify the remains of three of my soldiers who were mown down and killed by a drunk outside our barracks in Belgium.

[Coombe Barton]

Encouraged by a friend at work, I've installed Duet for OS-X and iOS so that I can run my iPad as a second screen for my Mac. It works.

[newbryford]

I have just driven for a couple of miles behind some prat who was driving, let us say erratically.  His speed varied from 25-45mph and he was not sailing a steady course.

 

Drunk? almost certainly.

 

Caught by the police?  Not a hope.

 

 

 

You can ring the police with the registration and report a possible drunk driver. A police mate of mine positively encourages it. Whether they respond or not is down to available resources.

 

Cheers,

Mick

[southern42]

Got a bit of modelling started - so hard when you take a few days off - till the daylight (sunshine!) went but got enough done to encourage me to finish it off tomorrow.  There's the sound of T9s running up and down at the moment but methinks it's time to get dinner on the go.

[The Stationmaster]

Window on the weather.  A pal of mine who is ex TA is involved with the North Tyne Railway at Alston - he drove up there yesterday to find the river had flooded however that was not his main concern as enroute he went through flooding 'up to the bonnet' of his (smaller) van of which he has laconically (?) written  ... 'first time that's happened to me in a civilian vehicle'.  Seems things were not so bad, apart from the strong winds, on his way back to the east coast which gave him a chance to calm down - I think I'd have stayed at home.

[Ian Abel]

Afternoon all...

 

Mal sorry to hear about your mum, thinking about her and you.

 

Busy yesterday afternoon charging around getting MiL, attending Mrs nieces 50th birthday, then back for the evening party across the street - earl(ier) to bed after all that activity!

 

Jemma reported in from Salt Lake, all appears to be continuing well, though she did report that many flights were pear-shaped and running late due to cascading minor maintenance issues with equipment/gates etc. Seems to be back in good form though, yay!

She left Salt Lake a couple of hours ago this AM, headed for San Antonio, 4 hour layover there, then back here, I'm picking her up around 9PM. Rest of the week she's in the pilot recruiting role at the HQ!

 

Mrs is taking two great-nieces to a Christmas (I DARED SAY THE "C" word) tram ride today, leaving me to have some hobby time. That WILL be nice, except I can't decide what to do. Build another Ratio wagon, more wiring, more point motors, scenery, tune/play the piano, lounge around confused as to how to best use my time???

Bugger, I need about a year vacation so I can get some of this carp in hand

 

Overcast and 3C, continuing to be depressingly NOT WINTER - in Minnesota we do need a real winter otherwise it just feels like a wasted effort . Snow we got last Monday pretty much completely gone.

 

Enjoy the balance of the day folks - evening already for many of you I know.

Edited December 6, 2015 by Ian Abel

[lightengine]

You can ring the police with the registration and report a possible drunk driver. A police mate of mine positively encourages it. Whether they respond or not is down to available resources.

 

Cheers,

Mick

Been in bed about 20 mins the other night when at about 00.30 we heard a speeding car and then there was a humungous bang. Shot out of bed to have a butchers. The speeding car had hit a left side traffic calming kerb. He had eventually stopped 40 metres past it. The 2 occupants couldnt manage to move the car so it was still in the middle of the road when the police arrìved ten minutes later. As they arrived matey boys oppo legged it and he was breathalysed and then arrested.