Early Risers.

[PhilJ W]

We had a clear view of the “Super Moon” last night. Looked like a regular moon to me... It was very bright but then the air was clear and dry and everything looked sharp.

 

I had a peek at the Daily Mail online just now. Can someone please tell them that the mystery light flashes in the sky around the NZ earthquake were high voltage power lines shorting out. Thanks.

 

Best, Pete.

Lightning is a common feature with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. IIRC its all to do with the rapid changes in air pressure and temperature.

[Horsetan]

When Aditi speaks German people assume she is French.

Vichysoisse rumours?

[Tony_S]

Tell him to come to Ealing (a.k.a Little Warsaw), where there's plenty of Polish here, all of it unfathomable to me.Unless they are the ones asking the questions?

We went to a Baltic restaurant in London and Matthew asked something in Polish. This amused the waiter. He was the only Hungarian there, all the other staff were Polish.

When we were in former East Germany a few years the tour guide suggested that most of the people who would have been "asking the questions" still were. There may have been changes in political party names but the politicians were often the same people. Perhaps she was just a cynic.

[Horsetan]

....When we were in former East Germany a few years the tour guide suggested that most of the people who would have been "asking the questions" still were. There may have been changes in political party names but the politicians were often the same people. Perhaps she was just a cynic.

I think you should introduce yourselves to Bernard Lamb on this Forum and, more particularly, Mrs. Frau Bernard Lamb, who I understand hails from that region and is more than familiar with the bad old days.....

[trisonic]

Lightning is a common feature with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. IIRC its all to do with the rapid changes in air pressure and temperature.

 

Not the lights filmed in the Daily Mail. I have seen lights caused by ground compression and they are quite faint and look like bouncing sparks, similar to the rare ball lightning.

 

It is fairly obvious they are high voltage lines coming down - particularly in another paragraph it is said that high voltage distribution has collapsed in the earthquake area. Volcano lightning is essentially the same as regular lightning and is caused by charged dust particles “shooting” upwards through the volatile air. I’ve been in five earthquakes over 5.0 and have never seen such an effect although I’ve seen plenty of flashes from power lines coming down.

 

Best, Pete.

Edited November 14, 2016 by trisonic

[Tony_S]

Vichysoisse rumours?

What is really amusing is when she speaks Punjabi. That really confuses Punjabis. Not due to accent but confusion about how someone they don't perceive as Punjabi can understand and speak the language. There is then a predictable conversation that goes "were you really born in India? Are both your parents Indian etc?" . I always suggests she turns sideways so they can admire her nasal profile!

Edited November 14, 2016 by Tony_S

[PhilJ W]

Not the lights filmed in the Daily Mail. I have seen lights caused by ground compression and they are quite faint and look like bouncing sparks, similar to the rare ball lightning.

 

It is fairly obvious they are high voltage lines coming down - particularly in another paragraph it is said that high voltage distribution has collapsed in the earthquake area.

 

Best, Pete.

I try to avoid the Daily Wail as much as I can.

[Horsetan]

What is really amusing is when she speaks Punjabi. That really confuses Punjabis. Not due to accent but confusion about how someone they don't perceive as Punjabi can understand and speak the language. ....

 

That's almost up there with the old line: "That's funny, you don't look Jewish".....

[trisonic]

I try to avoid the Daily Wail as much as I can.

Well, it is usually the only British newspaper I can read without being bugged by demands for payment. It is rather sensational nowadays.

I subscribed to one British newspaper when a) I still received payment demands and b) was bombarded by ads that had no relevance to me, so cancelled the subscription.

 

Best, Pete.

[Horsetan]

....I subscribed to one British newspaper when a) I still received payment demands and b) was bombarded by ads that had no relevance to me, so cancelled the subscription.

 

That sounds like The Times....

[Gwiwer]

Morning all.  Can you spot the deliberate error?

 

 

Good to hear all known Noozillanders and associates check in safe if shaken and stirred.  What has Christchurch done?  Who has it in for the poor place and why?  Thoughts with all those out there.  Just being used to living on an unstable rock doesn't make it any easier to bear when it shakes.

 

Report received from the parents, via sister, assuring me that all has returned to its recent level of normality.  Mum has been told very firmly to pack her Superwoman mode away at the tender age of 91 and Dad has a fizzy o'therapist (well she was described as having a bubbly personality) visiting to check how mobile he still is.  Not very, by all accounts, even with a frame and hand-rails in the house.  He hasn't the strength to support himself.

 

Returned to the Palace amid cold rain.  Some dude with a jack-hammer chose this morning to start breaking out a large bluestone step creating much loud noise and a cloud of dust five metres from my assigned duty point.  Some dude had full protective gear.  I had an orange hi-viz jacket.  I declined the polite offer of staying at my post for six hours on the grounds of harm to my well-being. Ten minutes later Station Master had issued a Stop Work Forthwith order to jack-hammerer and while the dust remained all day (as did my nagging cough) it did at least fall much closer to silent.

 

I missed a nasty incident on Friday in which a younger woman quite deliberately walked into the path of a train having instructed her three year-old to "wait here" with my colleague on the platform.  Naturally a large number of passengers managed to see all or some of what took place and several staff have been badly affected.  She didn't make it despite being recovered still alive.  I have numerous appointments in my diary as unofficial counsellor and friend and have offered to spend as much time as is necessary with anyone knowing that reactions can be delayed sometimes by weeks, months or longer, or can be triggered by other quite unrelated events.  

 

Back to natural phenomena and lightning is associated with volcanic eruptions more so than with earthquakes but can occur around both.  Flashes seen during and after earthquakes are more often than not power lines either falling or making contact with each other due to damage or the tremors themselves.

 

By the way did you spot it?  It'n not Ringwood's Old Thumper in the glass - it's St. Austell's Proper Job!  

 

Edited November 14, 2016 by Gwiwer

[The Stationmaster]

Yo-ho-ho - the G word can be forgotten furno.  

 

Very nice lady Doctor duly instructed me to drop my trousers and had a good feel of my nether regions, then asked me to lie down so she could have another feel of said area - at which juncture I should add that Mrs Stationmaster was also in the consulting room so you can forget what some of you might have been thinking, sorry.    Doctor duly concluded a couple of bits of body weren't where the were supposed to be and that she needs to sort out another Doctor of the surgery practicing kind who can put them back and secure them with some sort of mesh (I wonder if it's any good for scenic use on layouts?).

 

Now awaiting contact details once she's sorted out the right surgeon -'it has to be one I know about' she said (reassuring was that bit).  So is the hernia (medical name for bits that aren't where they should be) due to using the leaf blower, carting and stacking the logs, or cutting back shrubs?  Doesn't really matter but it definitely isn't down to going to Wycrail or the POS hence I'm firmly attributing it to the G word.  And I wonder if it's safe to use a vacuum cleaner - drat, I should have asked about that?  And clearly I can't tidy the dining room either as that involves lifting piles of books.

 

So here's an amusing little question - what happens once every 66 years?  Answer - bits of Stationmaster going where they shouldn't (no sniggering at the back).

[Gwiwer]

German?

 

Ja.  I studied German.  It was a six-month long "option" under the heading of General Studies.  I probably use it as much as my seven years-worth of mandatory French.  Definitely more than my three years-worth of mandatory Latin.

 

And this.  Still a favourite.  And featuring a few words from one of the greatest radio personalities of all time.   

 

[Killybegs]

I did two years "studying" German, but didn't shine. The teacher, Dr Wolff, was a Pole, which helped account for his hatred of Hitler, whom he nevertheless credited with abolishing the Gothic script. It is, after all, one thing not to make sense of a foreign language, quite another not to be able to even read the letters. Yes, nations further from Britain still have that knack. I think German defeated me not least because the requirement to put the verb at the end of the sentence literal translations difficult made! And a syntactical requirement for sentences to be constructed in the order time, manner, place was implausible. Any excuse, eh?

 

I didn't get on at all well with German at school. Was it something to do with the fact that the teacher had a soft spot for Hitler. We often wondered how he got on with our French teacher who's brother was a French resistance leader during the war.

 

Back in the nineties we were working on a joint venture with a German Architect and all the design team had to have a crash course in German. Mind you, we didn't really mind having an hour after work three days a week with a gorgeous young German lady!

[Horsetan]

I didn't get on at all well with German at school. Was it something to do with the fact that the teacher had a soft spot for Hitler. ....

 

Well, they do say you get more right-wing as you get older....

[roundhouse]

Rick

 

I was about to type  ' its the wrong beer in the glass' before I got to the last photo

 

Not that I could have told the difference in the two!

[TheQ]

I would have typed,  there's beer left in the glass.

[Oldddudders]

 

Back in the nineties we were working on a joint venture with a German Architect and all the design team had to have a crash course in German. Mind you, we didn't really mind having an hour after work three days a week with a gorgeous young German lady!

 

Curiously enough one of my last jobs included liaising with just such a young German architect on designs for a station on the West London Line. My brief included conducting her to a modern station to see how ticket offices were laid out. The station subsequently opened, so we must have had some effect. 

 

OTOH, some 51 years ago I had a different sort of liaison with teenage Christina from Hamburg. There is a small piece of Ashtead Common in Surrey that will forever be German to me!

[Tony_S]

That's almost up there with the old line: "That's funny, you don't look Jewish".....

Aditi's sister is married to a Jewish chap of Russian/Polish (the border moved a lot in the 19th and 20th centuries) descent. One of their sons is a mathematician and the other is a doctor. No stereotyping there then!

Edited November 14, 2016 by Tony_S

[Oldddudders]

I mentioned Sherry's cousin Mark and his Remembrance Day role. Herewith online

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/13/remembrance-sunday-veterans-march-past-the-cenotaph-in-memory-of/

[Ian Abel]

Morning/afternoon all...

 

Where to start???

Currently 32,000 over Ireland winging my way back home, Far too short a visit even though I knew that at the start.

Brilliant meeting Duncan and grandad Bob for the first time at Tolworth, sorry I wasn't there longer to meet others who had to depart before I got there. What a delight to spend some time with ERs, I can thoroughly recommend it!

Excellent meeting Ian again and Banbury is a MUST SEE if you've not seen it, even though for my ageing eyes "N" is rather a challenge, and I couldn't do it myself.

Also thanks to Ian for pointing me in the direction of the folks selling the new Economic generic UK sound decoder. Whilst not purist enough for some they work for me, the demonstration was great and I purchased one and certainly will order a couple more.

 

Next trip I hope to run into more ERS as it was very special to chat for a while.

I appear to have something in my eyes as a result, so will provide a weather report instead.

 

Now at 35,000 feet just west of Ireland sunny and -53C apparently current temp outside

Edited November 14, 2016 by Ian Abel

[roundhouse]

Good to see you again Ian.

 

 

Not sure of our next Summer trips plans just yet but if its via Minneapolis I will give you a bit more notice than last time. Hoping to go to Denver if we can get on the Cheyenne Frontier days UP excursion.

[45156]

Afternoon All

 

Finally online after a few days away, and a load of other work which tied up the computer.  I have no chance of catching up 14 pages, so all I can do is to wish generic greetings to those who are or were celebrating, ailing, etc....

 

Lily needs a trip to the vet's tonight, and when I came over the tops from taxi run for 30747, the fog was pretty thick, so it is likely that it will be even worse when I turn out again later. 

 

Back tomorrow

Regards to All

Stewart

[The Stationmaster]

 

 

 

Now at 35,000 feet just west of Ireland sunny and -53C apparently current temp outside

 

Best stay inside then Ian

[jamie92208]

Best stay inside then Ian

As long as he doesn't have to use the outside loo.......

 

Jamie