Early Risers.

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

It seems quite pleasant out this morning. Shopping delayed from yesterday may happen today.

Otherwise a quiet day I suspect.

Tony

[Donw]

Mention was made of record shops the other day. The were two I visited regularly in London late 60s One was Dobells the other was Collets. I remember popping into Dobells one afternoon. Ray behind the counter said I am on a late lunch fancy a drink. This was well after closing time but Ray knew a basement Drinking Club nearby. In Collets Hans was more likely to offer you fudge he also introduced me to Cousins Folk Club nearby. There were a lot of great performers on at Cousins. If you got thirsty and called in the pub opposite you would often end up drinking with one of the Acts.

 

Don

[DDolfelin]

I need to get the ladder out again today to adjust the new security light as after taking a walk around the corner earlier I noticed that it could possibly cause annoyance to a couple of neighbours.

Bob.

 

Has this been thought through?

[lightengine]

Mention was made of record shops the other day. The were two I visited regularly in London late 60s One was Dobells the other was Collets. I remember popping into Dobells one afternoon. Ray behind the counter said I am on a late lunch fancy a drink. This was well after closing time but Ray knew a basement Drinking Club nearby. In Collets Hans was more likely to offer you fudge he also introduced me to Cousins Folk Club nearby. There were a lot of great performers on at Cousins. If you got thirsty and called in the pub opposite you would often end up drinking with one of the Acts.

 

Don

Great story Don, that kind of thing must be long gone now. Not only those record shops but also drinking clubs. I know two that we used to frequent on Sundays after the 2pm pub closing have long since gone.

 

I heard Bohemian Rhapsody being played on Radio One, probably it's first airing on there and went into Newton Abbot to buy it at Zounds. The owner had never heard of it and had to order it in for me.

 

When living in Worthing, The Stranglers were recording at the Pebble Beach studios in the town about 79/80. At lunch times they frequented the Central Hotel opposite the station. I spent one lunch time session playing pool with Jet Black

[Happy Hippo]

Has this been thought through?

Yes,

 

GDB will mount the ladder and carefully adjust the security light so that it causes maximum grief to the nayburs when activated.

 

He will then remove his armoured gloves, hiviz jacket, earmuffs, safety glasses, steel toes capped boots and the climbing harness before tripping over a sweet wrapper and spraining his nose!

[Oldddudders]

The Golden Hind again, this time en route home. Currently crossing the data badlands in what I suppose is Wiltshire, with the 4G in short supply and even 3G struggling. Two ladies bumped into each other having joined at Taunton, and haven't stopped talking since.

 

"Dawn in my mirror" said the Q. "That's not dawn - that's Manderley!" says Maxim de Winter in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. The family pile is indeed well-alight. This was one of the films that convinced me at an early age that I just don't like films, in case they give me the screaming hab-dabs! Not many years later I discovered that I'd been cleaning windows at a real country house where it had partly been filmed. And Sherry lived within calling distance.

 

SUNWACD. The rivers of Yorkshire. Swale, Ure, Nidd, Wharfe, Aire, Calder, Derwent. Useless things one recalls from skool!

 

Neil's foot looks terrible. At one time I would have found the pic hard going, but Deb's accident and the mess her limbs were in afterwards made me get real. Sherry's new hip scar is a bagatelle by comparison. I hope that time will truly heal all and get you back to normal living and comfort levels. The trivial figure eight of wire in my left knee from 1992 is no longer an issue. May you be as lucky.

[Purley Oaks]

When living in Worthing, The Stranglers were recording at the Pebble Beach studios in the town about 79/80.

I think my cousin, Jon Kennett used to work at Pebble Beach. He recorded an album under the name Sonny Worthing

Mal

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Bright and sunny this morning though the seaweed twirlers said it wouldn't be until later. Slept like a log again last night despite not getting to bed until after 2. Commiserations and congratulations where neccessary, be back later.

[Smiffy2]

Morning all.

Neil - oh, mate! What a consequence such a trivial slip can have.

 

Cold here, and miserable. Wood arrived yesterday, and Julie is currently splitting logs with one of her favourite toys, a 2.5 ton log splitter. She loves it. I'm sitting indoors having had a visit from The Goat. Both ankles, which is weird, and not very pleasant. Waiting for the medication to kick in, it's been decided that today is a slob day. Much reading (I do love my Kindle). And some painting, but I slept on my hand and it's still a bit numb, so not yet!

 

Have a good day, all. Remember that Tuesdays are made for living.

[Coombe Barton]

Working at home today. What happened yesterday (a job finished for someone else) means that I can get on with being really creative.

 

Or sleeping, whichever strikes first.

 

Awaiting GDB's next report with a mixture of trepidation and forthcoming hilarity.

[AndyB]

Morning all,

 

I believe that £20m of the £21m came from the Libor fines. Somewhat fitting to see those who abuse their position fund a memorial to those who gave their all. 

I'm not sure how one thinks about VfM when it comes to this kind of thing. I assume the Commonwealth War Graves Commission will have been looking at a variety of quotes for the work. 

But if you could separate the significance of what it is there to commemorate from the cost of the physical installation then it works out at ~£1000 per name inscribed. 

 

I do accept that spending a fraction of that money on other things would have saved a few lives in various parts of the system - whether it is extra treatment in a hospital or better kit for soldiers....there will always be a need for more money and an excess on what to spend it on. 

[Neil]

Good morning everyone; it's reasonably bright and sunny here in Tywyn.

 

I'm a bit of a Newsnight junkie. I'm particularly taken with Evan Davies' measured presentational style which lacks none of the bite that Paxman brought to the show; it's just done with less of the bark. Last night I enjoyed a piece by Gabriel Gatehouse (a quietly thoughtful chap always worth listening to) about how the mood in the Netherlands seems to be changing. He grew up in Amsterdam and visited his old school and talked to its architect. One comment the architect made seems to chime with what we're experiencing in the UK, that when he was a young man the hope that the future would bring better things was borne out in practice; these days it seemed that the best that the Netherlands could hope for was to maintain the status quo. It set me thing about my children's generation and how this compared to where I was at their age. I was born in 1960 and by my late twenties I'd bought my first house, a small one but I was on a small wage having spent a couple of years on the dole. These days property prices have climbed so far beyond those on modest wages that buying is all but impossible. I thought I'd check how much houses on the same street as my first home would cost these days, using the Rightmove sold house price function it appears that house like the one I bought for £13,000.00 now cost between £165,000.00 and £190,000.00. Shocking, not sure how we got here as the ratio between property and wages seemed to be stable between my parents generation and mine yet has spiralled upwards since.

 

Edit:  Newsnight piece here on the I-player at 23.30

Edited March 7, 2017 by Neil

[lightengine]

I think my cousin, Jon Kennett used to work at Pebble Beach. He recorded an album under the name Sonny Worthing

Mal

Was he known aka Mr Chips?

[Tony_S]

We recorded the Newsnight programme last night as we were too tired to stay up for report on the Netherlands.

When we got married in the 1970s we were considered to be a good risk, both employed in education and could get a mortgage that could enable us to buy a small house out in Essex or a small flat in East London. We did worry about bills though and thought we would never be able to afford a car. However for someone like Matthew nearly 25, probably working in HE in research I am not sure where in this area he could purchase property ( not that he seems to want to) . Matthew seems keen on working/studying in Ireland anyway so who knows.

Edited March 7, 2017 by Tony_S

[lightengine]

Overcast day in sunny Teignmouth, precipitation expected soon.

 

Interesting programme on tv last night about the Brinksmat robbery years ago. It was interesting to see that despite fairly careful planning the thieves made mistakes that were almost "accidentally" discovered.

Pretty soon they were being rounded up. All except 1 got caught but a large amount of money is still missing.

 

Bon voyage to the Golden Hind traveller. By the time you return Ian, some things WILL have been resolved I am sure. (If you know what I mean)

[AndrewC]

Morning all from the boring boring borough. Although it seems that some wag at the Substandard Evening Standard thinks the residents are genteel snobs. He's not just havin' a giraffe, but the whole bloody safari park. Genteel my ar$e ! This all stems from a couple of upwardly mobile property speculators complaining their shabby chic homes in Abbey Wood will drop in value if their parliamentary seat gets joined to Plumstead and renamed "Woolwich". Bunch of greedy arsebadgers. The author (and I use that term loosely) then paints the whole borough as snobby suburbanites.  

 

Neil, I still think those X-rays are faked with someone having spilled half of a B&Q on your foot before taking the picture. The other picture.... well just ewwww. Neil of Borg comes to mind.

Just hope it continues to improve.

 

Almost recovered from the weekend of playing trains. Some lessons learned for next time and a lot of codeine + naproxen consumed. The dodgy knee is deteriorating far faster than predicted. Cortisone injections next I think, now that it's no longer responding to physio and the drugs aren't working too well.

 

Work is still a big bucket of lower primate poo. The sh*t gibbons have truly taken over. Still only 8 days left on these 2 projects. Trouble is each new project seems to be getting progressively worse. End of the financial year in a couple of weeks and that means the annual reorganisation begins. I'm positive they have a whole department that justify their existence on dreaming up ever more stupid changes. Really shouldn't affect me as I'm so low on the totem pole I get p1ssed on by Marmots.

 

 

Enjoy your day.

[Tony_S]

Marmots. I seem to have driven huge distances in the past for the opportunity to see Marmots.

[New Haven Neil]

Morning, from the Borg capital of Fraggle Rock.

 

Had a lie in this morning, recovering from yesterdays excitement.  Tramadol helped.  I'm much more comfortable with the stitches out, the foot feels less like it is about to explode, 'Alien' stylee.  Getting the K-wires out is the next step, I get the feeling I won't much enjoy that as they are removed by the method of 'Wow, look at that up there - what?' - YANK - AAaaiieee!!

 

Ian, sorry if it brought back memories - I am conscious there is always someone much worse off than I am, the Ward was full of them, I was somewhere in the middle.  It's good to see Sherry's recovery going well.

 

Dick, funny you should mention your good lady likes the log splitter so much, as Debs loves ours hers too. I'm only allowed to pass wood to her after I cut it to length with the chainsaw.  Won't be doing much of that for a while.

[PhilJ W]

Morning (again) from Estuary-Land. I found about an hour ago that someone had pulled the plug on the Virgin server, so no e-mails. Fortunately other sites and RMweb seem to be OK, except Facebook who started scattering my groups to all points of the compass again. I will go back to Facebook later to see if things are back to normal. Just checked my e-mails, still getting the 'server unreachable' notice but I can open and read e-mails.

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

Judging by the time stamp on his post OD was in Berkshire not Wiltshire and I'm amazed he was getting any Gs let alone 3 or 4 of them as the masts are few and far between down in that end of West Berks - ah well at least the weather's nice for now.

 

Laddo made a  punctual return from the land of the Belgae yesterday evening - just in time for lasagne but alas, and strangely, Waitrose lasagne pasta isn't anywhere near as good as the Italian made stuff now being sold under Tesco's brand.  And Belgium was apparently in something of a state with many of the locations listed in the Good Beer Guide found to be closed and mussels unobtainable in any of the eateries visited - very odd, maybe the Belgae stop eating mussels during Lent?  (Although I can't really conceive of them foregoing moules et frites at any time of year judging by my past experience of the country.

 

Highlight of the day thus far has been the delivery of 500g of 'dried meal worms' and 2.5 kg of 'insect suet' to be gradually fed to the local avian population.  Interesting to see their various habits - the blackbirds will cheerfully hang around waiting for some grub to be put out if they happen to see human activity in the from garden and will duly commence helping themselves provide we're no closer than about 8 feet from them; the robins do much the same; the various tits and finches time their arrival just after delivery and carry on until they've had their fill seemingly not being too concerned about human comings and goings as long as we don't head towards them while the pigeons and doves don't appear until there is no human activity and take fright & flight the instant the front door opens or if somebody comes in through the front gate.

 

have a good day one  & all

[Donw]

Neil I am torn between admiration for the work of the doctors and horror that such damage could be so easily done. Very worrying for someone who does a lot of walking over rough ground I have tripped and fallen headlong before now.

I suspect recovery will take some time so arranging things so you could do some modelling while the foot is rested would make sense. Watching daytime TV would drive me nuts! as would not going for a walk. I think something to keep your morale up is vital.

 

Don

[tetsudofan]

Morning from a warm and sunny south east - Spring is certainly on its way. Tete-a-tetes are out in abundance and tulips are just starting to appear..

 

 

If you look carefully at the track you can just about see the new brass track joiners that I have been assembling and installing during the last couple of weeks or so.

 

Weather permitting maybe a train ​might appear later this week.....

 

​Keith

 

 

[Tony_S]

Morning from a warm and sunny south east - Spring is certainly on its way. Tete-a-tetes are out in abundance and tulips are just starting to appear..

 

Garden-TeteaTete-01.jpg

 

If you look carefully at the track you can just about see the new brass track joiners that I have been assembling and installing during the last couple of weeks or so.

 

Weather permitting maybe a train ​might appear later this week.....

 

​Keith

Aditi (resident gardener!) thinks your garden is amazing. Though we won't be getting one like it. Edited March 7, 2017 by Tony_S

[AndyB]

Tony, I think I'd mark your post as "agree" and "bad luck, mate."

 

Brave of Keith, however, to post his photo - she's never far away! 

[Horsetan]

.....Interesting programme on tv last night about the Brinksmat robbery years ago. It was interesting to see that despite fairly careful planning the thieves made mistakes that were almost "accidentally" discovered.

Pretty soon they were being rounded up. All except 1 got caught but a large amount of money is still missing.....

 

That's a bit like the Hatton Garden thing. All but one were caught, and the "one" (known only as "Basil") got clean away with his share.