Early Risers.

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl Inner Temple Hare,

6.5 hours sleep then some unspecified dozing..

 

That ship collision is something I've seen on the broads quite often but that's by unqualified tourist who may have been at the help for less, than half an hour..

 

During our regatta some of our rescue boats have boards to show to the tourists, "Keep right" boards and "slow down" Boards, something the black ship was not doing. Unless there was a hidden obstruction behind the Red ship , the black ship should have just kept right. The red ship, seems a little far out in the channel, but may have (as in our regs words) Been constrained by their size or draft and unable to come closer to the near bank.

 

As for our Regatta It's off.. The club could not find a way round the virus  regulation no more that 30 people on the premises at once.. At a normal regatta there's about 100 boats with the mix of single handers and 2 or more handers that's around 200 people+ 3 line crew, + 8 rescue boat crew morning and 8 afternoon + 12 galley crew in shifts through the day + parents of minors. That's without the traditional visits by old members and just curious visitors.

So the club will restart sailing this weekend with up to 30 boats up on the broad, that's people arriving and leaving at different times, plus locals with boats sailing from their own houses, all entries all pre booked by email..

 

Talking of which ChriS F just tell the surgery you don't have a computer...

 

Both married quarters and the Single Accommodation at all the camps I was stationed at (6 of them, plus 4 I visited ) all accommodation and work places was painted magnolia . Often old, crumbling, paint pealing etc.

 

Time to.... go get started on this weeks system..

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 13, 2020 by TheQ

[jamie92208]

7 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

Czech out some of the grades on Pittsburgh's former trolley system. When they got some new (read really ugly) cars to replace the old PCCs, 12% was specified; the manufacturer questiooned that as they thought it was a typo for 1.2%. No said PAT, we really do mean 12%.

I don't know about 12% in thecUK but Church Bank on Bradford's system was 10% And my mother hated being in the top deck coming down there. I believe that there are some very steep sections on Sheffield Supertram.

7 hours ago, NGT6 1315 said:

Here I was just wondering: If someone from the Midlands wants to tear down a building, do they use a wrekin ball?  

 

Nite awl...

AndyY, where's that groan button.

 

Morning all from down here. It's sunny again and last night the boss decreed another day of doing not a lot.  I will continue getting water to drain from the pool liner. It's nearly done, just about 1 sq metre of water that's about 6cm's deep. This is draining out of the original hole as I keep rolling up the liner. I don't want to cut a larger hole in case of garuntee problems.  

 

The Guinea Fowl was sacrificed and slow roasted to a good cause last night and thevplum crumble went down very well. A friendvwas with us and the subject if medical receptionists came up.  Chris's Checkpoint Charlene was mentioned to much amusement.  However the main conversation was about the excellent service by a receptionist at the Pain Clinic in Niort. No this is not some reinvention of the Inquisition, nobody expects that, but a service that Beth needs badly after Leeds NHS abandoned her 5 years ago.  Our GP had done a sort if back door referral after meeting the specialist at a conference.  All I had to get an appointment was a scribbled note with a phone number on it. Initially the receptionist said it was most iregular in and I had to go back to the GP.  However I told her the history and she has been brilliant. She rang the GP whilst I was there, Fax's have now been exchanged and Beth now has an appointment for August. Initially I was told that it would be November at the earliest. All in all very good service.  At the end of the conversation Beth happenned to mention that she had been the secretsry and receptionist to a well known surgeon and then told us how, in the days of card index's, people would mysteriously move up or down the waiting list depending in whether or not they were rude to her on the phone.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

 

 

[Ozexpatriate]

3 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

I will continue getting water to drain from the pool liner. It's nearly done, just about 1 sq metre of water that's about 6cm's deep.

Would a hose, acting as a simple siphon not have helped? 

 

(I realize that the simplest method of creating suction for a siphon isn't necessarily fun where a long length of hose is needed.

[jamie92208]

12 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

I have done a bit more testing and it appears that bunging (apologies for the techno-jargon) tags on the images allows the search to work rather well. With a solid state drive the relevant icons appear instantaneously. It's also possible to select multiple image files (press shift or control) and apply a particular tag to all of them e.g california, year, etc. Then you can add more tags like people's names, location, etc, etc.

 

The only snag is that Windows prefers that you put all the photo folders under "Pictures" which doesn't seem too unreasonable. I tried searching on folders that were in a USB attached drive and Boolean operators won't work. I suspect it won't work with a mapped network drive either but I have not tried that yet.

 

 

 

 

Thanks to everyone who has responded to my request about photo indexing. I spent some time last night googling various products. Then found that there is a builtbin database function in ACDSee that I have already got. I now need to learn how to get the most out of it.  I also need to start adding Metadata to the images that I'm scanning, 4500 so far and counting. At the moment these are all shown as having been created in 2020.  Thanks again to everyone.

 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

Just now, Ozexpatriate said:

Would a hose, acting as a simple siphon not have helped? 

 

(I realize that the simplest method of creating suction for a siphon isn't necessarily fun where a long length of hose is needed.

I did consider that. The problem is that the water is shallow and the max drop I could get on the syphon is about 3" with a 4' pool wall in between.  Fortunately I've still got a few days to sort it out and I only need to check things every few hours Thanks for the suggestion. 

 

Jamie

[Ozexpatriate]

1 minute ago, jamie92208 said:

max drop I could get on the syphon is about 3"

Water will find it's level. The problem is that starting the siphon sucks. (Literally.)

[TheQ]

57 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Water will find it's level. The problem is that starting the siphon sucks. (Literally.)

at least it's not the old days of sucking petrol or paraffin from a can...

Edited July 13, 2020 by TheQ

[NGT6 1315]

Cheerio everyone. Still caffeinating, so not a lot happening here yet!

 

I just noticed I have some paperwork to file which has been accumulating on my desk. Then, probably get some bark chips and perhaps something or other else for the garden, after the GP, that is. Sounds menial, but hey, a it might just be what I need right now!

 

Later...

[Dave Hunt]

Good morning from a dullish North Salopshire. Just finishing muggocoffee before tackling today's routine orders and setting about my bathroom cleaning duties.

 

On the subject of maritime rules, when we were in San Diego on the 80s, Jill went sailing with an American friend in the harbour area and while he was below and she was steering the boat she drifted across the bows of the USS Vincent, then I think the largest warship afloat. When the boat's owner came back up on deck and took in the situation at a glance he rapidly took the helm and got out of the way. "But," said Jill, "I thought steam has to give way to sail." It was later explained to her that for a start they were in the Navy channel and in any case something like 80,000 tons or more of aircraft carrier doing about five knots is not the most manoeuvrable of objects. As it slid past Dave, the owner (not me) ducked down out of sight and someone came out onto the Vincent's flying bridge (if that's the correct term) and through a bullhorn yelled, " Get out of the f*****g way d******d," then, seeing Jill by the wheel added, "Sorry ma'am, please obey the rules." Chivalry obviously still ruled in the USN.

 

Have a good week people.

 

Dave

 

 

[iL Dottore]

Morning all,

 

Firstly, I wonder how The Lurker managed with his Chorizo and Lentil Tagine? I know that fenugreek is an acquired taste, but used in very small quantities (as in this dish) it does add an interesting new flavour.

 

All these posts about railways in Japan make me remember fondly my one (and so far only) trip to Japan. Although it was for business, I did manage to see a little bit of the country and, after having used both the Tokyo underground and the Shinkansen, I remain incredibly impressed by the Japanese public transport infrastructure. In fact, one of the programs I watch on a regular basis is “Japan Railway Journal“ from NHK (the Japanese equivalent of the BBC World Service). The seriousness and dedication that the Japanese put into the railways is eye-opening and at the same time mind-boggling. One of the most “mind-boggling“ episodes of the program was the one that featured the training that the Tokyo underground train drivers have to go through - specifically the test they had to do of driving the train to each station to the nearest one or two seconds on the timetable just by looking at the visual cues within the tunnels and without instrumentation. I think very few underground railway systems can match that.

Another thing that impresses me about Japanese Railways is their ability to marry the very latest technology with passenger comfort and economy for the railway operators. Some of these newly introduced rolling stock look very elegant as well as high-tech. Additionally, many of the second and third sector railways are being very innovative in their ways of raising funds and increasing railway income. Everything from rail tours of Tokyo’s dedicated freight lines to special tourist trains with on-board catering and stops at points of great beauty for photo opportunities. Not to mention the very high end, very luxurious and very expensive hotel trains (a number of which are booked out for the next few years, despite tours costing a few thousand pounds or more). As a poster opined on another forum (his web name was ASLEF1234 [I don’t recall the number exactly]) “Japan privatised the railways the right way, unlike Britain“.

 

I think that ChrisF is among a dwindling minority of technophobes as the PC Revolution, and all its’ spinoffs and sequelae, continues to gather steam. A number of years ago, I think it was in the early 2000s, someone observed that the PC revolution will be as impactful on the world as the industrial revolution - harnessing the power of steam - was a few hundred years earlier. They have not been proved wrong. For my line of work, the PC/Computer Chip Revolution has completely and totally changed the entire landscape; analyses that formerly would have taken months by a team of people, can now be done by a push of a button by one person and so on.
 

Of course one of the problems with modern computer based technology is how competently it is applied. When it is applied well (as with the on-line banking of my bank) it is a great boon; when it is incompetently or sloppily applied (and I’m sure that you can come up with plenty of examples) then it can be a nightmare. As to resisting the march of technology, the old fable of the mighty oak and the humble reed is most illuminating in this context.

AI (artificial intelligence) will be, I think, the next quantum leap forward for technology users. But, again, a lot will depend on how this technology is applied - for good or for ill (actually, come to think of it, with all the various sensor technology available, if this was married to AI couldn’t that result a wearable device to replace Guide Dogs for the Blind?)

Well, I’m off to study for my Turing Test and to find a decent recipe for a chicken and mushroom pie

 

Cheers

iD 

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

at least it's not the old days of sucking petrol or paraffin from a can...

I used to lock folk up for that. Possession of a length ofvpipe and a can was classed as "Going Equipped",

 

Jamie

[chrisf]

4 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

 

 

I think that ChrisF is among a dwindling minority of technophobes as the PC Revolution, and all its’ spinoffs and sequelae, continues to gather steam. A number of years ago, I think it was in the early 2000s, someone observed that the PC revolution will be as impactful on the world as the industrial revolution - harnessing the power of steam - was a few hundred years earlier. They have not been proved wrong. For my line of work, the PC/Computer Chip Revolution has completely and totally changed the entire landscape; analyses that formerly would have taken months by a team of people, can now be done by a push of a button by one person and so on.
 

 

 

That's not quite what I said.  Thinking sometimes that I am a technophobe is not the same as being one.

 

Chris

[TheQ]

That Ship collision, that's the Welland canal in Canada, the black ship lost power and therefore steering.  the question of whose fault therefore becomes:

Did the black ship notifiy the red ship in time for the red ship to stop.

Did the red ship try to stop,

and

I've had it confirmed the red ship was more out in the river than it should have been, But I think there would still have been a collision  even if it had been closer to the bank.

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

A dull start here in the northwest of England, we’ve had some overnight rain but it’s dry at the moment, but there’s a possibility of rain again later. As for the day ahead, I shall head downstairs to the cellar and continue painting the bench, I’ve got another 6 slats that need to be painted and the inside of the 2 ends. I should get 1 coat on that lot today and hopefully, I’ll get some gardening done, during the dry spells. 

 

On the subject of prescriptions, both Sheila and I fill in a paper repeat form, hand it into the pharmacy, they email the request to the surgery, who then email back the filled in prescription, I return a week later and collect the drugs, simples!

 

Stay safe, stay sane, enjoy whatever you have planned for the day, back later. 

[tigerburnie]

Morning, some of the "G" word has already taken place, but with some angry looking clouds beating there way, I might just have to retreat to TOSH and see if those parallel bits of metal still conduct around 15 volts or so of dcc. Stay safe all.

[81C]

Morning All from sunny Canvey Island 

I decided to throw the PC into a bag and cart it down to Essex Having yet another holiday away from Sh!ty Farnborough happy with the way thing are going with the flat 

just some tiles to go on the wall in the kitchen 275 of then I felt they could wait the Arthurritearse has calmed down in the thumbs since being here for 5 days I'm going 

back home in a weeks time, the new motor is a bit more comfortable getting in and out I didn't realize how small the Fiesta was till getting something with more room,

I've been planning my new 009 layout it was a bit to fragile to transport when I moved so that will be my main project through the winter it depends on the amount of

time I spend here I had to get permission to have Elaine's dogs stay at my flat so I can spend more time there getting the layout and other things sorted out.

 

Stay safe and mind the gap the knuckle draggers in the part of the world

seem to have forgotten social distancing few words have said to some of them.

                                                                                                                                              E.S Sexmann 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Busy afternoon and for the next few days. Booked in for a haircut this afternoon, in Tesco's. Not actually Tesco's who just lease a small part of the floorspace to an independent business. Tomorrow the printer repair man is due to call and Wednesday the car goes in for a service/MOT. I received a package this morning from Hong Kong, a diecast model. Delivered via Deutsche Post, Frankfurt with no mention of Hong Kong anywhere on the labelling. I,m not sure what the arrangement is but it means the goods arrive in three weeks not three months as they usually do at the moment. 

5 hours ago, TheQ said:

UK personal allowance today £12,500, UK Average pay, roughly £36,000 therefore today's personal allowance is about 1/3 rd of average pay.

UK minimum wage rates for an adult mean they pay no tax. (7% of the population) .

 

For those of us between minimum and average,  it's considerable percentage of pay,   since the lowest tax rate came down from 33% to 20% in my tax life time I'm considerable better off than back in the 1970's. 

Thats changed a bit since I retired 12 years ago then, just before the banks crashed so thats probably the reason for the changes. They still haven't sorted out another anomaly, if you have a private pension tax becomes payable on your state pension. If your private pension is small you can find nearly all of it going on tax.

[southern42]

' morning all from red dragon land.

 

Wet and murky, drying up by lunch time.

 

Sun most of the day, yesterday, but rather breezy but toot on the flute, bike ride on the terrace and some shrub pruning ready to fill the garden waste bin after today's collection took place.  There followed some cutting with scalpel and sticking, self-adhesive this time but still fiddly.

 

More of the same planned for today, except the G stuff.  The day will be busy with other stuff, anyway.

Waste collection tomorrow so recycling bins will be seen to and the chicken carcass will be detached from the rest of the meat and binned ready to go.  Then it will be making a yummy chicken pie.

 

Fitt  and  Elfie getting by.

 

Take care and play safe.

_________

Best wishes

Polly

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all;,

 

S8D the G word -  Saturday's G activities k-nackered my back and it has not yet unk-nackered and i get get a Chiropractor appointment until Thursday.  No doubt I'll survive but it might be a less than comfy few days.

 

Compared with what I read on here our GP surgery is almost a paragon of virtue.  The original coven of gate guardians, aka 'receptionists' were got rid of a few years back following a multitude of complaints and the Patients' Group finally did for them.  Hopefully they were burnt at a stake somewhere or other but no tickets were available to make sure they were.  Oddly the lockdown made it easier to actually talk to one's GP although not necessarily to get to see him - but being able to talk within a few hours was a big advance on having to wait 5 weeks for the pleasure.  Appointments for tests of the red stuff also seem more readily available although by past standards the locations where they are conducted can be distinctly unorthodox - but they are done.  The prescription thing comes of course with big changes; paper prescriptions and notes dropped with the pharmacist were totally and irrevocably banned from early March and those of us living in the real world were forcibly transferred to the electronic one - which in fact works far better than the old way.   Every prescription request I have made has been actioned by the surgery within 24 hours so is within the pharmacists hands on that timescale and provided the latter isn't over busy (which seems to happen a lot in lockdown etc conditions) the necessary is ready to collect on Day C and sometimes even on Day B.  The only , big, problem has been the ban on issuing a script for a period longer than 4weeks (now eased out to 8 weeks) and not knowing if that has been done as the dates on the ordering system are rather confusing.  This has led to one severe shortage with less than a week's worth of pills on hand to the opposite extreme where I have enough of some of mine to last 12 weeks.

Overall not a bad system, provided all the electronic gizmos keep working - no alternative seems to exist to deal with gizmo failure although presumably we resort to BoTToMS (Back OnTo The Old Manual System)?

 

As for the taxation of our incomes it seems largely that generations of apparent political largesse have involved the considerable use of smoke and mirrors.  Thus while everything a has been subject to inflation not all elements of personal taxation have enjoyed that benefit - literally because as far as Benefits In Kind are concerned the level was frozen many years ago and is now way below the regularly inflated Personal Allowance (which of course has also been eroded as far as older pensioners are concerned because it too was effectively frozen until overtaken by the standard Personal Allowance.  Reducing the Standard Rate to 20% plus the inflated Personal Allowance has benefitted many people but it has in effect been paid for by not altering the starting point of the 40% rate in line with inflation.  The effect of the latter, coupled with general salary inflation, means that far more people are now paying tax at the 40% rate than used to be the case although the most recent increases have led to some easing.  Throw in then the 'benefits' side of things where some of that has moved to means testing (which no doubt costs more than it saves) plus the ludicrous complex system, and individual implementation, of the pension savings tax trap and apart from the smoke and mirrors element the bureaucratic cost has been increased to little or no fiscal advantage for Govt.  Rant off.

 

So no G word today, or for the coming few days irrespective of what the weather might do, so no doubt much time will be spent on more leaisurely pursuits - if I can sit comfortably.  As far as the Welland Collision is concerned the official report - when it arrives - is going to make interesting reading.

 

Havea good day one and all and stay safe.  Now to try and make jessops website actually allow me to buy something, which it wouldn't yesterday, grr.

 

 

[chrisf]

1 hour ago, BSW01 said:

 

 

On the subject of prescriptions, both Sheila and I fill in a paper repeat form, hand it into the pharmacy, they email the request to the surgery, who then email back the filled in prescription, I return a week later and collect the drugs, simples!

 

That is how it used to be at my practce.  I quote from the latest renewal form: "The Practice is working to reduce the amount of paper that is handled by our staff.  Therefore we would ask that your request is made via Online Services or emailed to [blahblahblah].  Paper requests will be quarantined for 72 HOURS therefore increasing the processing time to 6 working days."  The e-mail that was promised for 11 am at 8.45 has yet to materialise.  He who expects nothing ...

 

Chris

[Coombe Barton]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

find a decent recipe for a chicken and mushroom pie

Recipe for chicken and mushroom pie (adapt as necessary)

Chicken

Mushroom

Pastry

Other stuff to taste

Is that sufficiently detailed?

[TheQ]

The surgery here is the pharmacy, they stopped telephone reordering some time ago long before covid.  Paper only required. claimed it was a government order.

North Norfolk is now supposed to be the oldest aged population in the country, therefore I suspect the lowest computer take up. So I don't suppose the surgery / pharmacy  will take up emailing for some time..

[Simon G]

Morning all (just!)

 

I finally gave up waiting for the dentist to get back to me about refitting my crown onto the implant and called them this morning.  They didn’t say as much, but had clearly forgotten about me.  Appointment arranged for three weeks time, so I will have to put up with the metal stub sticking up for that time.

 

Part of the morning has been spent repairing the toilet that I tried to repair a few weeks ago.  The syphon needed a new diaphragm and when I fitted it before, it seems I cut it too precisely when trimming it to size.  Job has been redone, and this time it has but trimmed with some overlap on the piston part of the syphon.  On first use, it seems fine this time, so here’s hoping!

 

Weather is carp this morning, hence doing the toilet job, rather than anything outside.  It is forecast to improve later, so we will get out then with a bit of luck.

[iL Dottore]

41 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

Recipe for chicken and mushroom pie (adapt as necessary)

Chicken

Mushroom

Pastry

Other stuff to taste

Is that sufficiently detailed?

As about as detailed as my recipe for beer (water, hops, malt, etc). But the kind thought is appreciated.

The three recent posts about experiences with their GP in regards to prescription renewal is so completely at odds with my experiences with the health services here in Switzerland. My new GP (who took over from my friend, who was at one point also my GP) is extremely approachable. If I need an appointment, I call the receptionist and there and then we agree on a mutually acceptable date and time (fortunately, so far, I have not needed to see him very urgently). Should I need a refill of my NSAID prescription, I call the GP’s receptionist, state what is needed and in a day or so I can drop by and pick up the medication (yes, the medication, not a paper prescription).

 

My interactions with my orthopaedic surgeons’ practice are equally smooth going. For my Yuletide knee surgery last year, a date and time was mutually agreed upon (and due to my circumstances I had to postpone the surgery by a short while – which was not a problem and did not impact on having the operation). A consultation with the anaesthesiologist occurred a few days before surgery (again at a mutually acceptable date and time) and on the day of surgery I turned up, disrobed and laid back to enjoy the drugs....  
 

I don’t think I could return to having medical care doled out to me by a monolithic and inflexible organisation (don’t get me wrong, I have worked with colleagues within the NHS and they have all been extremely top-notch clinicians, sadly they are too often let down by the institution they are working for).

 

Interestingly, what I found when I moved to Switzerland was the seemingly all pervasive attitude towards taking exercise: it was (is) something you just did (do) with what seemed (and seems) the entire population of the country perambulating through the countryside every weekend. Many walks and parks also have something called a fitness parkour on the side of the walk or the park. These are a series of frames and equipment where you can interrupt your healthy walk with even more healthy exercise-such as pullups, walking along balance beams, etc. Cycling is ubiquitous (although not yet to NL levels) and the local swimming pools always busy. Compared to what I have observed in the UK, the Swiss seem to be both fitter and healthier. And it is only now that we are starting to see chubby (not obese) teenagers, probably due to the fact that even Switzerland has not been immune to the inrush of Mickey D, Burger K and the like (although Dominos Pizza didn’t last long around here and KFC is unknown).

Edited July 13, 2020 by iL Dottore

[The Stationmaster]

12 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

. They still haven't sorted out another anomaly, if you have a private pension tax becomes payable on your state pension. If your private pension is small you can find nearly all of it going on tax.

That's not right, looks like you've got it the wrong way round.

 

Your Personal allowance is first applied to the State Pension, so depending on the size of your State Pension some allowance may or may not be left over to apply to any other pensions.  As I was contracted out for much of my working life I get a reduced State Pension so some of my £12,500 Personal Allowance remains but I think that even if you are on them maximum State Pension your Personal Allowance will cover it.  The basic State Pension takes up little more than half your Personal Allowance but if you have any enhancements it could take it up to or above the Personal Allowance level

 

So deduct State Pension from Personal Allowance and the amount left is your Tax Code (subject to any other allowances being applied - such as the Marriage Allowance).    So in my case after taking account of the State Pension I have part of my tax free Personal Allowance leftover (plus the Marriage Allowance) - that gives the Tax Code which is applied to my main employment pension so part of that is not taxed and the rest is taxed at the Standard Rate (20%).   As my Tax Code is exhausted by my main employment pension my third pension has no numerical Tax Code against it and is coded 'BR' so it is taxed at the Basic Rate, i.e. 20%.  My pensions come from three completely separate sources as my State pension is paid direct and not via a past employer whiel each of teh employment pensions is paid separately

 

If your enhanced, for whatever reason, State Pension exceeds your Personal Allowance any income from that pension in excess of £12,500  will be taxed at the relevant rate (20%) on the amount from £12,501 upwards.   Any other pension you might have is then in the same category as my third pension, i.e. there is no numerical Tax Code to set against it so it will be coded BR and taxed at the Basic Rate.   There is provisions in the tax arrangements for your employer to deduct the tax in respect of both State and personal pensions and in that case HMRC will ask your pension provider to take the tax off your state pension and in that case both pensions will be paid from the employer.   This sounds rather cock-eyed to me as that is the opposite way round to they way your Tax Code is generated because it always first deducts the state pension!  It could perhaps be something which applies to some Govt etc departments?

 

But however the tax is levied there is a very simple answer as your P60 will show your income and how much tax has been collected.  And it is very easy to work out if you have paid the correct amount of tax - simply deduct your Personal Allowance etc from the total income and that will tell you how much of your income was taxed.  Deduct 20% from that figure and you will know how much you should have actually received and then check that against what is shown on the P60 - if you have been over-taxed contact HMRC and tell them about the errior.