Early Risers.

[New Haven Neil]

A'noon.

 

Took the limping Mrs NHN to her field archery as she can't drive due to the knackered leg.  Clutch leg, she should get an auto...  ;-)  She hates mine! 

 

Only went to get a signature from the club responsible person for her insurance, it's a new hobby for her for which she appears to have a flair for.  Her tutor is a bit good....

 

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-sport/success-for-sleight-at-english-champs/

 

 

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

Afternoon awl, 

I think it's 81C that will Need NBC training,  he is after awl going to Salisbury and could very well be going through Porton Down.... 

 

Beards... In the Army!!!  There will be RSMs spinning below ground... And not in an NBC shelter... 

 

 

Things are changing on the facial hair front. 

 

I suspect a lot of it boils down to the fact that soldiers were encouraged to grow beards on deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan for various reasons.  Lack of water for shaving, and the fact that the locals seem to see the beard as a mark of 'manhood'.

 

During my time in the Army in the dim and distant past, QRs forbade full facial hair except on medical or religious grounds. 

 

I once served with a Major who was a Sikh and sported a full beard and a terrific head of hair, neatly coiled into his turban.

 

There are exceptions such as being a Pioneer Sergeant.  This being an infantry  soldier appointment, and not a member of the Pioneer element of the RLC.   There are other exceptions, such as soldiers engaged on covert ops, but in my time, members of the then WRAC were discouraged from growing a beard when under cover!

 

Band and Pipe majors are also permitted a full set on parade, as are Goat Majors, although they probably have to grow one just to match their four legged charge!!

 

Both the Dukes of Cambridge and Kent can be seen sporting a full set when in Army uniform, but this is at the express permission of the Sovereign

 

I suspect that another more pertinent reason for not having a beard was the introduction of chemical weapons, as a beard can render the wearing of a respirator (Dave's S6 being an example) ineffective.

 

The Q's various SWOs will also be spinning, as with effect from 01 Sep 19 the RAF is to allow full beards, although I suspect that fast jet crews will probably just stick to the WhackO* style in order to breathe whilst inverted at 7G!

 

There appears to be no changes to QRs with respect of the Army, although beards are becoming more commonplace, but this will be a local policy agreed by the  Unit's CO and the RSM.

 

For the younger readers, Whack O was a comedian by the name of Jimmy Edwards.

 

Prior to his career in entertainment, he had served in the RAF as a Dakota pilot during WW2. and was awarded the DFC.  He was shot down at Arnhem in 1944 and received severe facial injuries that required extensive plastic surgery to repair.  His trademark moustache was grown further to hide his facial scars.

 

[Coombe Barton]

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2019/08/18/sandys-treatment-day-243/

[BoD]

Evening all.

 

Very busy but enjoyable day playing trains for The National Trust.

Bet Chris’s leg hasn’t had this much attention in years.

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

suspect a lot of it boils down to the fact that soldiers were encouraged to grow beards on deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan for various reasons.  Lack of water for shaving, 

My father was always clean shaven and  would need to shave twice a day. He said the only time he had a beard was when he was in the Army. It was during the Battle of the Bulge as it became known. It was very cold. Liquid water didn’t seem to exist for long enough to shave. 

[Tony_S]

2 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2019/08/18/sandys-treatment-day-243/

Matthew didn’t have dyslexia or dyscalculia but his dyspraxia caused quite significant problems mathematically. In the early infants children were given exercise books with quite large squares. Matthew could just about get a single digit number in the square. In juniors they had paper with small squares. He had no chance of getting hundreds , tens and units to line up. The teacher flatly refused to allow him to use the paper with big squares on expense grounds. I did offer to buy him an exercise book but this seemed to infuriate her even more. Writing down equations with powers or symbols became a problem later. However he found software solutions and became a great fan of qualitative methods. Until he was 16 and went to sixth form college his inability to hold a pen or pencil got him treated  as stupid or lazy. So different at sixth form college and university. He said at Leicester Uni the learning difficulty staff were very good. 

Edited August 18, 2019 by Tony_S

[Barry O]

Happy belated birthday Brian. Hope you have had a great day.

 

Jimmy Edwards.. yes he was on the same base as my father for Arnhem.. Down Ampney. Luckily my father came back.. lots of RAF Dakota crews didn't.. something rarely mentioned in articles/books/films about Arnhem.

 

Curry for tea... very nice at the Palace of Mirrors (aka the Sheesh Mahal) on Kirkstall Road.

 

Baz

[Barry O]

Goodnight all!

 

Baz

[Kingzance]

The quiet day turned out to be just that although I couldn’t leave the cricket once we had returned from Costco and unloaded, two very good days of real test cricket in my book, I hope Mr Bishop felt the same.

Fuel at Costco was even lower than I expected, diesel at £1.204 today. Whilst it may be a little light on detergents and additives, it will save me enough to run an occasional tankful of super-diesel. SWMBO is watching some serialised bodice-ripper so I snuck off to check digital content. Now to test my BP for today’s final entries as I have been sat here relaxed for twenty minutes, then I might look at some golf coverage.

[Gwiwer]

Apparently the cricket ended in a draw as the daylight ran out but not enough Aussies had been run out.  If golfers can play after dark using luminous balls ..........

 

It must be time for bed.  Where's that little moustache-twitching spring-mounted chap who used to boing into view just as I was enjoying Magic Roundabout?????  5.55pm was much too early.  Something approaching 22 o'clock is eminently more sensible when one's alarm is set for a bit before sparrowfart.

 

Sleep well.  

 

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Purchased a few items at the swap meet, all none railway items then went to collect my parcel which was the item I expected, a book on a Thames tugboat company, of particular interest to me as my dads family were from a long line of Thames watermen who ended up in the towing business. Belated birthday wishes Brian. Chris I hope your leg improves but if I were you I'd have it checked out, in the local papers a few months ago there was a report of a young woman who had a painful leg and she waited far to long to have it checked and it resulted in amputation due to diabetes which she didn't know she had.

[tigerburnie]

Evening all, bits of rain on and off all day, a pain really as it barely damped down the dust, still had to water the pots and raised beds with a hose pipe. Spent a bit of time playing with the new loco, I really must get on with actually doing some muddling and make some buildings...…….toot toot

G'night all

[bbishop]

1 hour ago, Kingzance said:

The quiet day turned out to be just that although I couldn’t leave the cricket once we had returned from Costco and unloaded, two very good days of real test cricket in my book, I hope Mr Bishop felt the same.

 

 

He did.  Just home so report tomorrow.

 

Bill

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone

 

Thanks to all those who sent me birthday wishes, very much appreciated. I’ve had a very relaxing day here at BSW towers, I’ve done absolutely nothing and enjoyed every minute of it. I’ve sat and read for most of the day, interspersed with completing a couple of sudoku puzzles as well. Tomorrow if the weather is good, I intend to spend it in the garden doing a bit of weeding, dead heading and general tidying up. 

 

Tonight’s tea was a very quick one, as all I had to do was raid the freezer yesterday and take out something, (a chilli in this case) to defrost. Which meant that it just needed popping it in the oven to reheat before sitting down at the table and enjoying it, simples as those Russian rodents would say. The evening was rounded off with a nice bottle of Shiraz. 

 

Goodnight all. 

 

Brian

[laurenceb]

Birthday greetings Brian

Thoughts with those in need

Night awl

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[AndyID]

This is the fluid clutch I was rabbiting on about.

 

 

This one has seven cylinders but there is no upper limit to the number of cylinders. Each cylinder has a piston (only one installed here) that bears on a flat of a cam. The entire assembly will be filled with liquid fluid. When the clutch is disconnected, as the eccentric rotates relative to the cylinder body, the pistons are pushed out in sequence. as they move outwards they displace fluid which returns to the central chamber through the hole visible in the last pic.

 

The other things that are not shown are the plugs/caps at the top of each cylinder (it won't work for toffee without them.)

 

To engage the clutch (lock the shaft to the body) the fluid is prevented from exchanging between the cylinders. The more the fluid is throttled the more torque is transmitted.

 

 

 

 

 

There's a needle bearing between the cam and the eccentric - visible in the last pic. The "throttle" to engage/disengage the clutch still has to be fitted. The tricky bit is arranging for some sort of axial control to act on a rotating body. It's a bit like the thrust control mechanism in a conventional clutch.

 

What is happening here is when the clutch is disengaged a constant volume of fluid is reciprocating between the cylinders. When the clutch is engaged the fluid cannot reciprocate so the pistons lock the cam and eccentric in place relative to the body/housing.

 

To get it to work the volume available for the fluid has to be constant at all times and that only happens if the pistons move with sinusoidal motion.

 

There's nothing wrong with the theory but there are a gazillion issues to sort out to take it from a model that proves the theory to a practical, reliable device.

 

 

[pH]

We had a 'car free' day in the town today. Cars were diverted from 5 blocks on the main street and booths and stalls for city departments, local organisations, food companies, a music stage etc. set up in the street.

 

A sign of the times - I'm told this is now required for all such events locally - a 'blockade' of two heavy vehicles, in this case garbage trucks, at each end of the 5 blocks. They're set up so that, if hit, they will come closer together. The view is towards the 'car free' blocks and the gap between the trucks is narrower than it looks in the picture.

 

[chrisf]

Greetings

 

Mrs Lunn, my biology mistress between 1962 and 1964, would have said “For shame!” if she had known that I had referred to the calf when I meant the thigh.  She was, and hopefully still is, very Welsh in an electric sort of way and got me from a standing start to passing O level in two years.  I was very lucky with my teachers at what was then Huntingdon Grammar School, though the jury is still out on whether schooldays really were the best days of my life.  Anyway, the bits of my legs which hurt are the thigh and not the calf.  They stood up well to the ironing yesterday morning but then an ironing board makes quite a good surrogate zimmer frame.  On the subject of muscles, many thanks to all who have proffered good wishes.  I am conscious of being on the sick list far too often!  For today, first impressions are good as the leg is much less hot to the touch and did not throb nearly as much when first swung out of bed and the foot placed gingerly on the floor.  Today I go through the rigmarole of dialling the surgery at 8 am sharp and pressing redial as often as necessary.  Oh joy.

 

I caught the piece on same sex marriage on Songs of Praise yesterday.  Well done to all concerned.

 

Yesterday tea-time I finally completed and sent the message to the problematic one about the state of our friendship which has taken me over a week to write.  I cannot predict the outcome and in any case I’m not really sure what I want it to be.  He has not yet read it.  Tissues are at the ready.

 

Best wishes to all

 

Chris

[Robert]

Morning All,

 

Weather wise, we seem to have the calm after the storm this morning!  A rather large storm, which may also have included a Tornado rolled through yesterday evening.  We were lucky enough to only catch the edge of it at home, but here in Langen and the neighbouring Mörfelden they caught it full on.

 

The road between Langen and Mörfelden is going to be closed all day to remove fallen trees and stabilise an electricity pylon that has been damaged.  I was fortunate enough to hear about it on the news before I left for work, so I was able to divert around the problems.  However, I suspect some people are going to have a certain amount of trouble getting in today.

 

Time for a coffee!  Have a good day everyone...

[TheQ]

12 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Things are changing on the facial hair front. 

 

I suspect a lot of it boils down to the fact that soldiers were encouraged to grow beards on deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan for various reasons.  Lack of water for shaving, and the fact that the locals seem to see the beard as a mark of 'manhood'.

 

 

 

It's actually a requirement of most branches of Islam that's why the locals wear them in Afganistan..

[BoD]

Good morning one and all.

 

May each day in your week be a good one.

[jamie92208]

Good morning to all and sundry, and good, whatever time of day or night, to others.   It's sunny here but distinctly cool.  However we had a good day yesterday, doing not a lot.  he market was visited, coffee was drunk and Young Ryan entertained us.   We did look for leaks in the pool to no avail but Ryan and his mum enjoyed helping.  The water temp was down to only 24 degrees.   Positively balmy for Brian but cool but pleasant for us.   

 

The cock has been crowing for a few hours now but only about half the household are awake.   I  have been informed that a wine buying expedition is planned. I'm not sure what else will take place but at least the weather is better than yesterday.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

[Stubby47]

Re the garbage/refuse wagons:

Truro centre is often closed to traffic for some event or other.

We seem to make do with a temporary, folding road sign and a drafted in 'security' bod on each road.

Are the trucks parked that way because they are expecting someone to try to drive through ?

[Barry O]

Ey up!

Sunny with small fluffy clouds here at the moment.

 

Bit of housework/gardening to do today. Later we are hosting the early music group ..i will go up to work room (hopefully it will be ok).

I have a coach to complete along with some repairs to do before Swindon and Hartlepool shows.

Chris ..good news on the cellulitis. It is very painful. 

Rick ..hope arthur and his itis depart, peonto.

To all other who ail or are missing, hope you have a great week.

TTFN

Baz