Early Risers.

[iL Dottore]

3 hours ago, polybear said:

 

If flavio had lost it then surely he'd have reported it?  Unless he shouldn't have had it, of course.....

Now what have you been up to flav??

 

 

I thought chocolate was poisonous to dogs?  Unless you cut the crusts off, of course

To answer question 1: nothing illegal (immoral or fattening? Another story.....

Regarding question 2: Yes, chocolate IS toxic to dogs, they poorly metabolise theobromine which then builds up to toxic levels and cause anything from an upset stomach (best case scenario) to seizures, internal bleeding and myocardial infarcts (worst case).

As with all toxicity it is a mg/kg (or μg/kg or even a ng/kg) issue; so a Great Dane eating a square of white chocolate will probably suffer no ill effect, whereas a chihuahua that eats a whole bar of 75% cocoa solids bitter black chocolate is a dead dog walking (unless promptly seen by a vet, and even then......)

Bottom Line: NEVER give a dog chocolate of any kind (and ignore those stories that go “Fido always shared my chocolate bar......” [a] they’re anecdotal and thus unreliable, and “Fido” was incredibly lucky and probably got a low theobromine content chocolate - such as white or milk chocolate - and probably was big enough to metabolise the theobromine before it built up to toxic levels - lucky puppy!).

Theobromine in chocolate elevates mood, increases alertness, may have a hypotensive effect and an anti-inflammatory effect and tastes good, hence the billion££££/year chocolate industry. Although humans metabolise theobromine extremely well, too much in one sitting can make you ill. I suppose that you could always try and commit suicide by chocolate: the LD50 of theobromine is estimated at about 500mg/kg (roughly) which means a 60kg person would need to eat over 8.9Kg of chocolate at once to kill themselves (all figures estimates based on theoretical considerations). I certainly do NOT suggest anyone tries to put theory into practice.

iD

p.s. As an interesting aside, did you know that the strong and distinctive taste of chocolate, especially dark and bitter varieties, are a perfect vehicle for masking the taste of poison (as some unfortunate murder victims have found)

Edited June 15, 2020 by iL Dottore
Typo

[tigerburnie]

Morning, we still have the damp and fog, I'll be glad when the summer comes back and not what we have now(which is often what passes for summer up here....if you know what I mean). No muddling has taken place, mojo seems to have been distracted by the Artur Itis I think, we've not been out of the house for days apart from daily visit to the greenhouse to water stuff in there. We are hopeful that it might be possible for us to travel more than 5 miles after the lockdown latest info on Thursday, not that we plan to mingle much or indeed go for miles, a visit to the family in the garden will be fine. There's a real chance the fire might be lit in a bit to warm our bones a bit, thankfully Sainsbugs delivered our order, so we have goodies to keep us going on the comestibles front. Take care all.

[Shedman5]

Morning, Sun is shining and its very pleasant outside with a thunderstorm possible this afternoon. Its going to be a muddling day in the shed as the one job I had for today has been done.

One of the water buts has sprung a leak at the tap some of the plastic collar has cracked off so a new one has been ordered ( can't be bothered to go to the orange shed or places of similar ilk) aided by plumbers PTFE tape and a extra washer  I have bodged a temporary repair filling the but to just above the tap to check. Seems ok at the moment. We will see.

 

Other than that not a lot to report.

 

Take care and enjoy your day

[Happy Hippo]

26 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Theobromine in chocolate elevates mood, increases alertness, may have a hypotensive effect and an anti-inflammatory effect and tastes good, hence the billion££££/year chocolate industry. Although humans metabolise theobromine extremely well, too much in one sitting can make you ill. I suppose that you could always try and commit suicide by chocolate: the LD50 of theobromine is estimated at about 500mg/kg (roughly) which means a 60kg person would need to eat over 8.9Kg of chocolate at once to kill themselves (all figures estimates based on theoretical considerations). I certainly do NOT suggest anyone tries to put theory into practice.

The answer to the question 'How much chocolate cake does it require to kill a Hippo?' is:

 

Not known as they've never been able to find enough cake.

 

After about 60kg I feel comfortable, pushing 90Kg and I'm contented. At 100Kg+ Flatulence occurs.

 

Then it all starts again.............. Or I choose a different type of cake.

 

Today's thoughts are leaning towards Millionaire's Shortbread.

[Happy Hippo]

10 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Evening all,

 

95 degrees and humid today, so very unpleasant to be outside. But of course I was outside, not voluntarily mind you. I’ve made a design for the condenser in the Stuart Plant, but still need to get materials. Spent about an hour polishing up a brass canon my grandfather made while at sea around 1962, I don’t think it has been polished since! As for accents, my mom is American, but my dad is from Liverpool and grew up in New Zealand. I was born in the USA, but until I was about 9 I had a weird Irish-London-American accent thing going on, which really made people stare at you in Starbucks. I still pronounce my O’s like someone from Britain though, and occasionally someone will ask me where I’m from.

 

stay healthy,

Douglas

Douglas, do you want a proper condenser or a trap for emulsified steam oil?

 

The trap is very simple to make and consists of a tube standing vertically with an exhaust pipe to the top and bottom.  Exhaust steam is fed into, the side of the vertical tube. ( I put mine in the top 1/3) Positioning is not hyper critical.

 

It's fully automatic.  emulsified steam oil falls to the bottom of the trap and once enough has been collected is automatically ejected as the tube starts to overpressure.  On a small steam loco, the waste then falls onto the ballast.

 

In a marine application the bottom pipe would lead to a tank here the sludge can be collected and disposed of after the run.

 

A true condensing unit where the water is reused is more complex to build as you have to put in extra separators to get rid of the steam oil, as getting it over the inside surfaces of the boiler is not a good idea.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 15, 2020 by Happy Hippo
remove typo

[TheQ]

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

 

On the subject of accents etc. In the far-off days when people still communicated by telephone and wrote with pens, a now well-known extract from an RAF officer's annual confidential report (it remained confidential as the subject was never named) stated, "He has a broad north eastern accent and his writing resembles that of a doctor in a hurry; we therefore have no effective means of communication." Along with other extracts such as, "He constantly sets himself low standards that he generally fails to meet", this sort of thing died out when the system changed and the subjects of reports were given copies rather than just being debriefed by the officer doing the reporting.

 

Have a good week each and every one.

 

Dave

I remember those days, we had a OIC mark the entire flight down so low, that within a week of him leaving, we all had a second set of annual reports done. In the Interview he had told everyone they were doing wonderfully well..

For those that had been due promotion, it really stuffed some of them to have 2 sets of annual reports made by him during his 18 month tour.

 

Edited June 15, 2020 by TheQ

[grandadbob]

 Good morning all,

Warm and sunny here and it should stay that way although there is the threat of a shower or two later.

Firstly, in case I've missed anyone, huge thanks to you all for the good wishes and congratulations to Chris and myself.

We've had a great and busy weekend with lots of visitors at various intervals and garden celebrations with kids and grandkids Saturday and our friends from next door yesterday.  Only just getting over all that and it's taken me a while to catch up on here.  Whether or not we now do the big party next year is under consideration.. Chris and I are not that bothered but the kids and everyone else think we should still do it.

 

On 13/06/2020 at 17:00, iL Dottore said:

Some data I have seen suggest that the older you are when you get married, the longer the marriage will be and the more successful it will be. I wonder how many of the long serving husbands on ER were enlisted into service early (say early to late 20s, and how many joined up at a later age (anything over 30 years of age).

 

 

Not sure about that Flavio.  Chris and I were 21 when when got married as were a few of our friends. Some were even in their teens.  Some of those have fallen by the wayside but we still know quite a few who  married young and have served a 40+ year sentence! 

 

18 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

Stanley Road is in Manor Park E12 and a good distance north of East Ham E6.  Manor Park was considered "posh" when I lived and worked there while East Ham was thought of as "OK - not rough like Canning Town"    

 

 Oi Rick, I resemble that!  Mum and her family all came from Canning Town and lived there until bombed out and evacuated to WGC where I was born.  Dad was born in Camberwell  but you'd never know from listening to them where they were from although Mum could revert to pure Cockney at the drop of a hat.  Wouldn't call her rough but she was just as good as Dad at ejecting undesirables from their pub(s).  Grandad was an ex sailor/docker/railwayman(briefly)/security man and various other things and could handle himself and taught her well.   Taught me as well, as did my Dad.

We moved to Bedford when I was 3 and my first school (aged 4) was Rushmoor and I developed (I'm told) quite a posh accent and was instructed to call Dad Father and Sir!  Mum soon put a stop to that.  When I was 5 we moved to another pub in Brampton and I suppose as Jamie said earlier I imitated my peers and developed a bit of a pseudo Fenland accent.  Then we moved South to Morden (briefly) and Sutton.  I started at Mitcham Grammar school a couple of weeks after everybody else and there were some there who thought that it would be fun to push "The Yokel" around.  That didn't last very long  (about 2 days) as the lessons from my Dad and Grandad came in quite useful.  Never had any more problems.  That accent disappeared quite quickly and I suppose I've ended up with quite a boring South Londonish accent.

Enough rambling for now,  pension has gone in today so some financial stuff needs dealing with.

Have a good one,

Bob.

 

Edited June 15, 2020 by grandadbob

[The Lurker]

Greetings all from the fold in the hill which is currently basking in sunshine. The approaching binmen can be heard through the window and there is a brief lull in the work. There were far too many pages to catch up but I did note that it was GDB's 50th wedding anniversary so belated congratulations.

 

We are back to a week when Younger Lurker and Mrs Lurker are at school so I dropped him off earlier, hurried back for a work call and will take the car over again later. Irritatingly someone has put a call in for when I planned to do that but the call is actually important to completing a transaction so I won't be able to skip it.

 

have a good day all

[polybear]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Bottom Line: NEVER give a dog chocolate of any kind

 

Bears are fine, by the way, should you feel a desire to do so.

As for a Bear's ability to scoff vast quantities in one hit, well I've never put it to the test.  But a challenge is a challenge......

 

In other news, a bit of a sh1tty day today

My buddy next door cleared off to their Apartment in the south of France this morning (orders from SWMBO - he's less than happy about the idea) and also to a rented apartment in Spain for a week or two, which means I'll not have anyone to talk to over the back fence anymore, perhaps until October.   Turdycurses.

On top of that, I woke up with mild sore throat (it was a bit iffy yesterday), a very slight headache at times and on checking a temp of 39, though I don't feel rough and have no other symptoms.  Going thru' the .gov website checklist resulted in a call from a 111 doc, who concluded that a test was required (though wait until tomorrow to arrange it - too early can result in a higher risk of a false negative, apparently).

On the bright side I have a drawer full of both chocolate and twix, so all is not lost.

[Happy Hippo]

6 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

Turdycurses.

 

Might one suggest you head for the nearest wood, and find a rabbit?

[Barry O]

Baz 2 painting 1...

 

Emulsion applied. Glossing to do tomorrow 

Baz

[Tony_S]

Afternoon all.

I had a slightly disturbed night (coughing, not COVID coughing though), fell asleep during the Today programme and have just woken up. I missed breakfast and Aditi insists that I need more than toast now. Can’t have black pudding in the FEB as that went in the dinner a couple,of days ago. Something that had chicken and black pudding with Marsala as ingredients. Probably a Telegraph recipe. 
It would appear to be a nice day.

Tony

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

The sun is shining and little rain is now forecast so some of the water butts will need to be replenished from the mains.  Looks like there are more spuds to dig too and there should be some carrots before long.  Lamb chops for dinner this evening so maybe some fresh dug spuds would be nice although they're pretty small despite gallons of water being landed on them over the weeks.

 

Ozex the main thing i remember from the film in regard to his behaviour is Hawtrey repeatedly 'conducting' whatever he was listening to on his headphones.  And that takes me to 'The Radio Times' which, I agree with ChrisF, seems to have a considerable knack of getting things wrong.  On several occasions I have tuned in to watch a film only to find it is a totally different one from that stated in the RT and that also applies to other programmes.   It's been reported that the current format has put lots of listeners off 'The Archers' and having occasionally heard it I can't say that I'm surprised.  But they also face strong competition as ITV 3 is repeating the entirety of 'Downton Abbey' in a direct clash with 'The Archers' and at least it tells a sort of continuing story whereas 'The Archers' does come over as somewhat disconnected at times.  Maybe R4 would have been better off to simply repeat a series of old programmes to create a continuing story even if it was an out of date one - far better than their earlier mélange of repeats where Jo Grundy was dead on Monday but alive and cheery on Wednesday and Kenton was married to Joleen before he'd proposed to Kathy - and so it continued, atrocious selecting and editing.

 

Incidentally, although it hasn't in Mrs Stationmaster's case (but she lived in Plymstock anyway), some people's Plymouth accents really do stick.  A cousin of hers, now in his 90s, who moved to Canada not long after the war still has a fairly 'pure' Plymouth accent and it was similar with many folk I knew on the railway who had moved up from there.

 

Enjoy your day folk and stay safe while all around are jammed together in queues for the likes of Primark.

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Not much of the G word today, the pollen count is almost off the scale. The only thing that has to be done soon is to make sure that the access for the shed erectors is clear, some shrubs may require pruning but as I haven't got a delivery date yet I'm not too concerned. Mention was made about accents sounding different over the phone. This got a former colleague of mine sacked. He wasn't a very pleasant person, politically somewhat to the right of Genghis Khan and somewhat racist. Apparently he was talking to a West Indian gentleman, who had no discernible accent on the phone when he made a racist remark. This was reported and he was out.

5 hours ago, roundhouse said:

 

 

 

 

We may not like Amazons tax / employment ways but many other companies do similar where they can  and its way less stressful and easier to get hold of many items but I will order from smaller suppliers once I find good ones to deal with. Currently I am after a supplier that can cut perspex into 3 inch strips. Once I can get that done I can order more N scale track from a particular rock. Without the perspex there is risk of the N gauge stock falling off the High Line to the floor (7 feet drop) as it will be much nearer the edge than the currently laid OO /HO tracks.

 

 

For your perspex why not try the laser cut specialists such as Tim Horn?

[Erichill16]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

I suppose that you could always try and commit suicide by chocolate: the LD50 of theobromine is estimated at about 500mg/kg (roughly) which means a 60kg person would need to eat over 8.9Kg of chocolate at once to kill themselves (all figures estimates based on theoretical considerations). I certainly do NOT suggest anyone tries to put theory into practice.

iD

p.s. As an interesting aside, did you know that the strong and distinctive taste of chocolate, especially dark and bitter varieties, are a perfect vehicle for masking the taste of poison (as some unfortunate murder victims have found)

With the LD50 dose there is a 50% chance of survival if you do want to try it!

[roundhouse]

34 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

 

For your perspex why not try the laser cut specialists such as Tim Horn?

Thanks. I will contact him.

 

I went to the builders merchants this morning after ringing them and confirming they had 40 slabs in stock. However after paying for 10 and waiting by the car for half hour they couldn't find any so back inside for a refund and home. Now wont bother using them as its the second time I have been there and paid only to have to get a refund.

 

Our nearby Travis Perkins was great when building the shed last year as I cold just walk across the main road and collect long lengths of timber. Nowadays you have to order online and wait up to 72 hours for a collection time slot so a real pin when you want say just a box of screws. Today Travis have announce closure of 160 locations and I bet ours will be one of them.

 

SO some modelling instead of laying paving today

[jamie92208]

2 hours ago, TheQ said:

I remember those days, we had a OIC mark the entire flight down so low, that within a week of him leaving, we all had a second set of annual reports done. In the Interview he had told everyone they were doing wonderfully well..

For those that had been due promotion, it really stuffed some of them to have 2 sets of annual reports made by him during his 18 month tour.

 

We had an Inspector with 5 yrs service having been on the accelerated promotion scheme. He was well belowcthe then height limit at 5' 5" (father on the police committee or something similar).  Several of us probationers noticed that thevtalker younwere the worse your 3 monthly reports were. I had no chance. However when a new Supt arrived and saw his rear view, he asked "Whose the new cadet". We all had a great laugh.

 

45 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

For your perspex why not try the laser cut specialists such as Tim Horn?

I would suggest looking up your nearest water jet cutter and buying a large sheet yourself. Most plastics companies will sell to anyone.we had one in Leeds called Amari plastics.

 

Jamie

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

Bears are fine, by the way, should you feel a desire to do so....

 

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but chocolate IS very much toxic to bears (fam Ursidae. e.g. U. americanus [black bear], U. arctos [brown bear] etc.)

There is one bear, of the sub family plastae cessent ferriviaria, which CAN eat chocolate and that is the U poly ursi (the greater British Polybear).

 

iD

 

I'm actually being serious about real bears. Chocolate will kill them

[Happy Hippo]

25 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but chocolate IS very much toxic to bears (fam Ursidae. e.g. U. americanus [black bear], U. arctos [brown bear] etc.)

 

I think if I was being chased by a really cross bear, I'd prefer to shoot it rather than throw chocolate at it

[TheQ]

6 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

I think if I was being chased by a really cross bear, I'd prefer to shoot it rather than throw chocolate at it

just get back into teh muddy hollow, I'm sure hippos have the advantage in the water..

[jamie92208]

5 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

I think if I was being chased by a really cross bear, I'd prefer to shoot it rather than throw chocolate at it

When I was cycling in Colorado, I left Breckenridge and thectracknwent through a forest. I suddenly  saw a large and a small bear on my right. Oh sh1t I thought and started to pedal faster. Then I realised they weren't moving. Some joker had placed liesize metal bear cut outs just beyond his boundary fence.  Fortunately I did not need clean underwear. One that we saw in Canada did rather like M and S chewy sweets.

 

Jamie

 

 

 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

17 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

 

I was waiting for one you lot to point that out!

I just disassembled the gauge and moved the needle to there, it came out of Florida but was made in Manchester by Budenbergs. Eventually it’ll go up on the wall behind the desk. 

Edited June 15, 2020 by Florence Locomotive Works

[iL Dottore]

22 minutes ago, TheQ said:

just get back into teh muddy hollow, I'm sure hippos have the advantage in the water..

They also have the advantage on land.

 

Hippos are considered amongst the most dangerous animals in the world as they are highly aggressive and unpredictable, they can gallop at 30 km/h, the bite force of an adult female hippo has been measured as 8,100 newtons (1,800 lbf), furthermore due to their aggression and size, adult hippos are not usually preyed upon by other animals.

 

Thank goodness, our (semi-) domesticated Hippo can be placated by cake. There's only one thing to remember, just as you shouldn't get between a Hippo (H. a. capensis or variant) and water, nor should you get between a Happy Hippo (H. beatus hippocentaurum) and cake, as in both instances this could lead to severe injury or, frequently, death.

 

You have been warned

[45156]

Afternoon All,

 

Not all posts yet read and rated - perhaps later, but just a quick check in here, and the usual generic greetings to all fellow ERs.

 

Trip to town, where there was a bit of life queueing - and many of the shops were open, but with very long waits to get in.  Probably about 30 outside TKMaxx.  Also a very long queue outside of Barclays, as they were allowing one out, wait while everything was sanitised, then one in.  and their systems were running very slowly, so I gave up and came home.

 

To find this in my inbox - cheered me up no end.

 

 

 

Regards to All

Stewart

[Florence Locomotive Works]

3 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Douglas, do you want a proper condenser or a trap for emulsified steam oil?

 

The trap is very simple to make and consists of a tube standing vertically with an exhaust pipe to the top and bottom.  Exhaust steam is fed into, the side of the vertical tube. ( I put mine in the top 1/3) Positioning is not hyper critical.

 

It's fully automatic.  emulsified steam oil falls to the bottom of the trap and once enough has been collected is automatically ejected as the tube starts to overpressure.  On a small steam loco, the waste then falls onto the ballast.

 

In a marine application the bottom pipe would lead to a tank here the sludge can be collected and disposed of after the run.

 

A true condensing unit where the water is reused is more complex to build as you have to put in extra separators to get rid of the steam oil, as getting it over the inside surfaces of the boiler is not a good idea.

 

 

 

 

I think a better term than condenser for what I’m building would be an “exhaust collecting tank”, as that’s about as extreme as my resources will let me go. It’s just a piece of copper tube on a brass base, with the exhaust feeding into the top. Since I’m to lazy to solder in bushes, I’ll just empty it with a large syringe. It looks like more the style of a water tank, but my engine is so minute that a proper condenser would be wasted on it.