Early Risers.

[Andrew P]

And still the big Seven Owe Birthday wishes keep rolling in, 

 

Cheers to all once again.

[Barry O]

Happy birthday Andy P.

 

Been a weI'd sort of day. Items missing for ages have been found..and other items have gone AOL.   Must be the elves and pixies!

 

Baz 

 

 

[Erichill16]

And a Happy Birthday from me to

Andrew P.

 

[roundhouse]

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

..and other items have gone AOL.   Must be the elves and pixies!

 

 

 

 

I wonder if my AOL account is still active

[Ozexpatriate]

13 hours ago, Barry O said:

Today will see the first appearance of weetibangs. The "things"sold in Oz look like a  solid biscuit so I didn't try them this year.

 

7 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

They are not as enjoyable as the British ones being harder, flakier and less keen to soften in milk.  The Aussies claim they are better because they are square meaning you get a full breakfast rather than having rounded ends wasting space in the box. 

Nasty things either way when served as directed. Thankfully, I have no experience with the British ones. The Australian ones get soggy enough with immersion and time, disintegrating into a nasty unappetizing slurry.

 

Having said that, I liked them dry, though they are messy. They are not really solid, being essentially loosely packed flakes. Adding jam is recommended. We had a home recipe for rum balls that involved deliberately crushing them into their constituent flakes. Now that application I genuinely enjoyed.

[Ozexpatriate]

8 minutes ago, roundhouse said:

I wonder if my AOL account is still active

"You've got,    mail."

 

"Your mail box,    is full."

[leopardml2341]

AOL - America On Line?

 

Been very busy today, why is it hat working from home seems to mean longer hours than working from office - maybe it's that I have a conscience.......

 

Have read and rated, hopefully appropriately, will try to remember to check in tomorrow. In the meantime, stay well stay safe and bye for now cos I'm off to finish my visit to the show that did not happen

[Ozexpatriate]

7 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

Ever looking for the worst-case in things she came across an article suggesting that obesity is a primary cause of Covid-19 morbidity. It may contribute in a few cases but that wasn't enough to reassure her.

Obesity was not a category in the original Chinese summary from Wuhan.

 

It was however anecdotally a feature of what felt like every New York doctor / nurse interviewed about what they are seeing with the least successful COVID-19 patients. This may not be a unique variable by itself but is frequently accompanied by other reported factors like diabetes and hypertension. It's not uncommon to have all three at once, and is frankly quite frightening.

 

Awareness is a positive. Panic is not. It puts me in mind of the novel Dune. "Fear is the mind-killer".

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, Andrew P said:

And still the big Seven Owe Birthday wishes keep rolling in, 

I'm glad you're enjoying them. Here's another.

 

Happy Birthday Andy!

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Virgin Media seems to be behaving itself so now to tackle Farcebook.

[New Haven Neil]

And another!  Happy Birthday from Fraggle Rock, Andy!

 

Weird day at work, garnished by having a delivery from 'supplier x' which consisted mostly of things we didn't order, and not enough of the things we did.  Words fail me.  They'll want paying of course. 

 

Another supplier staffed by an ER has done much better, that delivery having a funny green non-paneer tank loco arriving at NHN Towers, and it didn't even get the thumbs down from my chief critic.

[J. S. Bach]

2 hours ago, Barry O said:

Items missing for ages have been found..and other items have gone AOL.

Baz

I think that you meant AWOL.

[Gwiwer]

27 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

non-paneer tank

 

No cheese then

[TheQ]

Evening awl, 

The day went grey a few times but rain did not precipitate.

 

The motor scooter started second try,  which was good after all this time.  It had a couple of laps up and down the garden,  and was left to reach operating temperature before parking in its new temporary home. 

 

Much discussions of tying the look of the garage, the boat shed , the motor cycle shed , and the entrance walls to some semblance of continuity.. It looks like I'm building a lot of planters and shelving for plant pots. I have enough timber decking to make a start on the garage tomorrow, weather permitting.. 

Though I should look at clearing the rest of the junk hiding in the bike shed first. 

 

Muggacoffee is consumed,  time for more reading on parallel bits of metal to the left of Inverness.. 

 

[TheQ]

3 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

I think that you meant AWOL.

I thought AOL was AWOL. 

[brianusa]

15 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

but in the US, this feels like intentionally manufactured controversy where the so-called 'merely differing viewpoints' are not quite the open exchange of ideas they claim to be, but are calculated to provoke outrage.

 

What I do see in the US is politically weaponized willful ignorance dressed up as an expression of liberty. Much is made of anti-elite rhetoric, yet the five justices appointed to the SCOTUS by conservative presidents aggregate three doctorates in Jurisprudence from Yale and two doctorates in jurisprudence from Harvard, which I find discordant from "anti-elitism". 

 

The saddest part of this whole sordid presidency, is the fact that there are those in positions of power and a substantial number of MAGA supporters who go along with the whole thing.  Hopefully they will be all outvoted and normalcy restored to the US and indeed the rest of the world.

    Brian.

[polybear]

Yet another day spent gardening; the weather for the next few days (esp. tomorrow) is looking decidedly iffy so it could be the last for a few days.  Besides, my patented method of garden wheelie bin compaction (i.e. climbing in and jumping up and down) seems to have worked a little too well on this occasion - the weight is something else.  I'm hoping the binman doesn't red flag it, and if it does get the green light then I hope the mechanism on the back of the truck lifts from underneath the bin as well as from the plastic bar on the top of the bin.  I'm gonna keep my head down.....

This is my last week of employment - early retirement on Thursday, so now 3 days to go, with a quick (1 hour) visit to The Empire on the last day to sign off and check the desk is truly empty.

Will I miss the place?  Not one bit* - the days of interesting, fun jobs are long gone, and the B.S. level has gone thru' the roof (and some).  I reckon I've baled out just in time...

 

* I'll miss some of The Lads though

[J. S. Bach]

2 minutes ago, polybear said:

 ...snip... and the B.S. level has gone thru' the roof (and some).  I reckon I've baled out just in time...

I prefer to say that the Bravo Sierra meter has pegged.

[jamie92208]

3 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

Wot? No pipe cleaners, one of those multi-tool gadgets for packing and unpacking the baccy, and a reamer for cleaning out the carbon buildup?

I was in lodgings once with a retired miner and his wife. Jack had lost the end of his right forefinger in an accident darn't'pit. The stub made a marvellous tamper for his pipe.  I better not tell you all what a pipe is slang for in France.

 

Bon Anniversaire Andrew from La Belle France.

 

It has rained rather a lot here so I'm glad we got the grass cut yesterday.  

 

Bon nuit.

 

Jamie

 

Edited April 27, 2020 by jamie92208

[polybear]

11 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

This is a story to gladden many of the hearts that frequent this section of RMWeb.

 

Yesterday I was informed by the Obergrumpenfuhrer that I was to cease my moratorium on railway modelling!

 

Action is now required to get back on track and things have now got to be built: Physical evidence will be required to verify any constructional claims.

 

However, I do not think that going out into the workshop, hitting a metal sheet with a hammer, followed by general sawing and drilling noises then my triumphant return to the Command bunker a mere  45 minutes later with a Heljan 7mm scale Hymek under my arm, is likely to be considered feasible. 

 

I am going outside now, and I will be some time.

 

 

 

Congratulations - you've fallen for it....

It's called "lulling into a false sense of security".

There's a shitstorm heading your way, you mark my words....

 

1 minute ago, brianusa said:

 

The saddest part of this whole sordid presidency, is the fact that there are those in positions of power and a substantial number of MAGA supporters who go along with the whole thing.  Hopefully they will be all outvoted and normalcy restored to the US and indeed the rest of the world.

    Brian.

 

It never ceases to amaze me that there are so many clowns in the Big House that are prepared to work for The Brainless Bozo.  Are they under his spell, or simply prepared to sell their souls to the devil?

[Ozexpatriate]

10 minutes ago, brianusa said:

Hopefully they will be all outvoted and normalcy restored to the US and indeed the rest of the world.

The ascendancy of the King of Oranges was an outcome, not origins.

[Ozexpatriate]

19 minutes ago, polybear said:

... there are so many clowns in the Big House that are prepared to work for The Brainless Bozo.  Are they under his spell, or simply prepared to sell their souls to the devil?

I had to read that twice to make sure I knew to whom you were referring. The same could be said of many governments.

 

Flavio @iL Dottore mentioned Hanlon's razor the other day ("Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity / incompetence") but "never underestimate the power of ambition" is a reality of governmental underlings, everywhere, in every age. Some seek to serve, some seek to serve themselves.

 

Edited April 27, 2020 by Ozexpatriate
Link added

[Coombe Barton]

Is there a new species we're seeing?

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2020/04/27/getting-it-wrong/

[Ozexpatriate]

My Monday's excitement.

 

I see that Microsoft Word will now flag two spaces following a sentence as a grammatical error.

 

Helpful, or draconian? Discuss.

 

(Honestly I don't expect you to discuss it.)  

[Mike Bellamy]

10 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

 

Congrats are also due it appears to Mr Roundhouse who has won 'something' in the virtual SWAGday raffle - something being whatever might be left to choose from by the time the remaining goodies reach his name on the list.  The raffle strikes me as a potential starting gun for the winners to find themselves entering a very new and different era or scale of modelling so could be even more fun than it at first appears.  I recognised no other names on the list as being relevant to ERs.

 

 

4 hours ago, roundhouse said:

 

And thanks Mike as I heard it here first and recently had the email from Andy Y.

 

A suitable item from Kernow selected that I had toyed with getting but with no invites for the foreseable future for our friends layout there wasn't much chance of giving it a run till I built the high line test track.

 

 

4 hours ago, BoD said:

I’d better keep quiet then.  

 

 

I'm number 12 on that list as well - Accurascale O Gauge HUO wagon for me as I am starting to build up a 7mm collection, thanks mostly to Chris Klein, Dapol and Ebay!

 

Does this mean ER readers are luckier that the rest of RMweb or more generous in buying more tickets . . . . . ?

 

Another Mike

.