Early Risers.

[Tony_S]

How do they know Uranus smells of rotten eggs? Simples, the atmosphere contains a lot of Hydrogen Sulphide.

When I worked in Corringham we used to to get gas alerts when the refineries had a hydrogen sulphide leak. I think our students usually noticed before the official warning though.

[Tony_S]

How do they know?

Spectroscopy.

[Barry O]

Night All!

 

Baz

[BSW01]

Evening everyone

 

Well it’s been a very odd afternoon, sunshine, rain, hail, sunshine, rain, hail, sunshine ………etc.

 

As is now the norm for a Wednesday, we had Ava, Evie and Max round here for tea. Pizza was tonight’s menu and they went down very well with everyone. After tea, once we’d been informed by Vickie that she was home, we took them back and stayed for quite a while as it’s Vickie’s birthday.

 

Once back home I raided the beer collection once again and enjoyed a bottle of dizzy blonde

 

Image curtesy of Robinson’s

 

Goodnight all

[laurenceb]

Night awl

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[BR60103]

We had an eMail form last week. Yahoo taken over by OATH (does nobody check these names?) and we had to agree to their new terms. Terms seem to be similar to what Facebook is being interrogated about in the US Senate. One clause says (roughly) I have already informed my contacts that my email may be inspected and my friends may be sent spam related to the correspondence. (sure, I couldn't get into my mail unless I agreed)

We are upset; there was a half page on it in the newspaper but no suggestions. I'm wondering where my eMail collection actually resides and how I can preserve it if I move elsewhere.

[Robert]

Morning All,

 

Oath is just the latest owner.  Yahoo have been circling the drain for years!

 

I am not going to comment further on the home office, B***** or HM Government - let's just say it really winds me up, and leave it at that.

 

We have a nice bright sunny morning, but quite chilly (9°C).  However, given the time of year that is perfectly seasonal.  Showers are forecast for later.

 

Have a good day everyone...

[chrisf]

Good morning one and all

 

On a whim yesterday afternoon I googled 'War Horse On Tour', found a short season in Milton Keynes and booked for an afternoon performance in September.  It's upwards of £40 even with an old gits' discount and I expect I will get all weepy again but what the heck!  Today I visit Poorly Pal, taking with me the wok and the makings of a stirfry with prawns.  Some m*d*ll*ng should get done. 

 

I'm in the middle of a situation on Messenger which is best decribed as 'don't call me, I'll call you'.  This is less than handy when arrangements need to be made.  The other party claims to be 'not really busy' but chewed me up on Monday for messaging him in Budapest!  We have a long history of one-sided conversations but when one is asked for help it is churlish to say No straight away.  Irritations are bound to arise but let us hope that they can be resolved without the dog of a certain colour slipping the leash.

 

Warm thoughts to Tony and Aditi, Debs, Simon, Mal, Andyram and anyone else who needs them

 

Chris

[pH]

You're able to check births online for both the Republic and NI, then order the appropriate long-form birth certificate.

 

How far back can you go, Mal? I haven't had any success in the past looking for Irish records from the 1800s. I understood the centralised records were destroyed by fire about 1920. If you wanted to go back beyond that, you needed to know the specific parish you were interested in.

[AndyID]

 

I am not going to comment further on the home office, B***** or HM Government - let's just say it really winds me up, and leave it at that.

 

I'm "taking the fifth" (a popular option these days it seems )

 

Weather here is extremely pleasant. Unfortunately the grass is growing now and all the ********* garden service characters are disturbing the peace with their ********* noisy lawn-mowers.

[TheQ]

Mooring awl, Inner Temple Here,

A short nights sleep although I do't feel short of sleep .... for the moment.

 I know my Father when working on the family tree hit the brick wall with the Irish side of the family due to the fire  and also some parish records being destroyed in the various  troubles...

 

Hydrogen Sulfide, at 100parts per million it's an immediate danger to life, below that it's still not good, if you can smell it you are Ok if the level goes too high it does your nose in, so you don't know it's there but can kill you...

 

How do I know? 

 I worked for a year at Bacton and one of the North sea gas pipelines brought in sour gas, it also was a dirty pipeline bringing in some oil. The majority of the oil was syphoned off, processed to remove the H2S, and then piped away into tanks for eventually sending to refineries.

The gas then had to go through filters to remove any remaining oil.. Before going on itself to be processded to remove the H2S.

Yours truly was going out every couple of hours to the filters. After ensuring no one else but my partner in crime for the job was around. First we pulled the levers over to change to the new set of filters. then got a huge spanner out to undo about 20 two inch nuts,, then hooked the hand crane onto the top and lifted the top off. in the tube was a seathing bubbling mass of oil and about a dozen 4 foot long filters covered in oily slime. Each was removed and put into the tubes the new filters had come in. The new filters inserted, the top put back on, bolted down and pressure tested. then left for us to come and switch back to at the next change over.

The old filters were then placed in an area for disposal.

 

Myself and my partner in crime were of course togged up in rigger boot, plastic disposible suit, rubber gloves respirator and hard hat...

 

Then we got taken over, the entire staff were sacked and they only reemployed about half of us. Me being there only a year didn't stand a chance.

 

Still my knackered old self these days, would not fancy wandering around at unearthy hours in the morning, 5 stories up in a gale on a steel frame work, on a cliff above the north sea, in the rain, doing the regular equipment checks...

 

Time to ... go do some work...

[Barry O]

I am off to do a cricket ground inspection today and......its chuckinitdarn! Pah!

 

Lots to do today so, best wishes to all that mail!

C u later

Baz

[beast66606]

Morning all,

 

No trains today so a lie in - although awake at 06:00, having needed to get up around that time for many years, it's incredibly difficult to sleep beyond the time, occasionally I will doze for another hour or two but not very often.

 

Wildlife camera to check, last night I used it's settings so it was only active overnight - at least that was the theory, I'll find out soon !.

 

Still fighting with Mr Mole to get him to b*gg*r off, he seems to enjoy the sonic scarers and last night pushed up right next to one, we are persisting in the hope that he gets fed up and moves away - we don't want to move to more extreme measures.

 

Sunny at the moment.

[jamie92208]

Morning all from a rather damp village, Baz has obviously sent the rain down from the Northern Heights. They are obviously being generous to the poor in the South of the metropolis. Yesterday various things got put in the car and a well as dropping one off at my daughter's I managed to visit one of our club members who is in the Coronary care Unit in Wakefield after a heart attack and having a 4th stent fitted. He seemed in good spirits and it was good to be able to have a chat. Then in the evening I took another car load of stuff to the container and spent half an hour or so assembling a complete pallet load of stuff. A bed base, several boxes of railway books and 18 fold up crates of photos/slides and dare I mention, modelling items, were carefully stacked. I now know that one pallet can hold 2.4 Volvo estate loads of boxes etc. My cunning plan is to assemble, rack and strap at least 3 or 4 pallets in the container then to move them to the warehouse ready for eventual shipment to France. All good stuff.

 

Today I hope to take another car load over and build another pallet.

 

Regards to all in their various battles especially those with dark canine problems.

 

Jamie

[Purley Oaks]

How far back can you go, Mal? I haven't had any success in the past looking for Irish records from the 1800s. I understood the centralised records were destroyed by fire about 1920. If you wanted to go back beyond that, you needed to know the specific parish you were interested in.

Yes, you're right.

Records go back as far as 1864 - I'd assumed that Mad McCann's Irish granny had been born after 1864, but you never know.

As you say the 1922 Public Records Office fire destroyed a lot of legal documentation, but parish records are still there.

Mal

[PeterBB]

The Q - let's use the proper English spelling for Hydrogen Sulphide which I am sure that the spell checker changed.  Well remember producing hydrogen sulphide in a Kipps Apparatus in a fume cupboard over 60 years ago ... the smell stays with you for ages.

 

Edit = spelling correction!

Edited April 26, 2018 by PeterBB

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

Breezy here, quite cool compared to last weekend.

I spent some time at the Santander Branch in Benfleet. We had a letter telling us the branch was closing. Matthew had a letter too. We didn't know he still had an account there so I went down and processed that. Only a small anount but their process and people were efficient and kind.

We went for a walk at Hanningfield Reservoir in the afternoon. We saw a swallow. No shortage of insects for it to feed on. Saw some birdwatchers too. I think they had vivid imaginations about what they were seeing.

Saw Mr Mole too.

 

Tony

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone

 

It’s another dull start to the day, but what’s new?

 

Sheila is busy getting herself ready for her Zumba class, once she’s left I’ll make a start on bringing up all the bits to the radiator covers so that they can then be assembled before I fit them both. There’s no point in doing anything until she’s gone, as we will both be in each other’s way, so I’m quite happy sitting here surfing the web until she’s gone!

 

Back later.

[45156]

 Well remember producing hydrogen sulphide in a Kipps Apparatus in a fume cupboard over 60 years ago ... the smell stays with you for ages.

We didn't use such sophistication in what was then called science (as we did all three of the main discipines with the same teacher).  The teacher heated iron filings and sulphur in a crucible to demonstrate a chemical change, and then poured concentrated suphuric acid onto the ferrous sulphate mix to generate H₂S, no safety glasses, no lab coats, and no fume cupboard involved, and no real safety of any sort about handling conc H₂SO_4.  We also handled mercury phosphorus and sodium with the same regard to safety.  As far as I am aware, nobody was harmed.

 

Morning All

 

Just about sunny here, and no more rain forecast today. 

 

Again, there is much water under the ER bridge since I last posted, and all I can offer is the usual generic greetings and commiserations, and the hope that those black dogs are all being kept securely in their kennels.   Also a special thanks to John for the update on Debs, which is, as ever, greatly appreciated.

 

Creative writing course this morning, and also the writing group yesterday. 

 

Back tomorrow before the fodder run.

 

Regards to All

Stewart

[Horsetan]

How do they know Uranus smells of rotten eggs? Simples, the atmosphere contains a lot of Hydrogen Sulphide.

I had Brussels sprouts.

[jamie92208]

We didn't use such sophistication in what was then called science (as we did all three of the main discipines with the same teacher).  The teacher heated iron filings and sulphur in a crucible to demonstrate a chemical change, and then poured concentrated suphuric acid onto the ferrous sulphate mix to generate H₂S, no safety glasses, no lab coats, and no fume cupboard involved, and no real safety of any sort about handling conc H₂SO_4.  We also handled mercury phosphorus and sodium with the same regard to safety.  As far as I am aware, nobody was harmed.

 

 

 

Stewart

Little Willie is no more,

what he thought was H₂O

Was H₂SO₄

 

The things that stick in your brain when you had a chemistry teacher for a father.

 

Jamie

[AndrewC]

 

That is all. 

[bbishop]

The Q - let's use the proper English spelling for Hydrogen Sulphide which I am sure that the spell checker changed.  Well remember producing hydrogen sulphide in a Kipps Apparatus in a fume cupboard over 60 years ago ... the smell stays with you for ages.

 

Edit = spelling correction!

 

Why not use the traditional name - Sulphuretted Hydrogen.  As given in my university textbook, "A Classbook of Chemistry. on the basis of the new system".   Dated1876.  And, yes, I got a degree!

 

Bill

[TheQ]

The Q - let's use the proper English spelling for Hydrogen Sulphide which I am sure that the spell checker changed.  Well remember producing hydrogen sulphide in a Kipps Apparatus in a fume cupboard over 60 years ago ... the smell stays with you for ages.

 

Edit = spelling correction!

Sadly the proper UK spelling is now with an F, it was officially changed in the last couple of the years. (It was on Pointless they must be right )

I also worked for an American company so all the documentation was with an F anyway..

I've a feeling Tungston will turn into Wolfram soon

 

 As for moles I gave up with those sound producer things, all they did was chase them round the garden, I'd of needed hundreds to make an effective "wall of sound"