Early Risers.

[Barry O]

Ey up!

Very damp outside. Garden is well awash. Pah! No wind here for the time being though.

 

Her indoors is off to see a friend to do a jigsaw swop this morning.  This means she has started the clea "you can do your bit when you can".. in other words getonwithit now...

 

I too have some crust earning today. I have a very nice S Gauge loco to be turned from pristine to slightly used.

 

Have a great day everyone!

Baz

[Barry O]

Apologies, forget to mention visits from Andyram and Robert to ERs and Dom called in as well......

 

 

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

there are lots of black balls on the floor.

Sounds like your bungies decided to vote on whether to hang onto your tarp.

Only the abstentions remained.

[AndrewC]

Morning all from day 1 of quarantine in the boring borough. 

Back from an extended trip to Brussels & Brugge. A very nice escape it was too. We had the best part of a whole Eurostar carriage to ourselves on the way out and no issues with travel. The return trip, was more annoying as usual. Eurostar has taken out about half the seating in the departure area at Midi-Zuid to make way for a massive post-brexit duty free shop. 2/3 of the remaining seating was marked out of use for distancing. Once trains are back to full capacity the remaining lack of space is going to be a nightmare. 

 

We were originally going for the BXL beer fest which was cancelled but we decided to still make the trip as everything had been pre-booked and paid for. Many of our favourite bars were still closed and others on limited hours but we still managed to enjoy far too many good beers and visited 3 breweries. 

 

The difference between how the Belgians and the UK are handling covid are like night and day. Masks on everywhere apart from parks and hotel rooms. 90%+ compliance. Spot fines. Signs everywhere. At tram stops and metro stations there are random mask checks as police walk the platform looking into the carriage windows to check that people are masked. 250€ is the spot fine. Forms & sanitiser at the door of every bar & restaurant, sanitiser at every shop. Even the beggars were fully masked. 

 

One annoyance we discovered is just how much our cat sitter was taking the p!ss. £10.50 a 20 min visit is what he advertises. Will feed, clean, play, water plants. etc. With a Ring door bell we were able to see that he averaged less than 8 minutes per visit. The garden cam showed he never went near the greenhouse, or watered anything. SWMBO has now lost several tomato plants and 3 hanging baskets. A rather curt nasty-gram to be sent after we get our keys back. The search for a new cat sitter for future trips is underway. 

 

Back to work. Coffee at hand. No latte today as milk delivery is tomorrow. Enjoy the day. 

 

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

I slept through bin placing hour but Aditi didn’t. I think if we had put anything out last night it would be over Norfolk by now. 
We are not going anywhere today. 

Tony

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

It’s still raining, but it’s not as heavy as yesterday. Once Sheila has finished eating her breakfast I shall start painting the bathroom woodwork. The bathroom is only small so it shouldn’t long and as I’m using white paint again, hopefully just one coat will do the job. 

 

Theres not much else planned for the day. 

 

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

 

Brian

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, AndrewC said:

The search for a new cat sitter for future trips is underway. 

I cat sit, but I'm never asked back after the first appointment.

[Coombe Barton]

After a windy night which had nothing to do with what I'd eaten, sun's trying to poke through light clouds, Still breezy, but no obvious damage as yet.

Getting on with the demolition

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-land. Still a bit windy here this morning but not as bad as last night. Whats more the bins etc. are still upright and where they ought to be, I might even do a bit of work outside this afternoon.

6 hours ago, pH said:

Some years ago, I did a bit of family history research. I went back to great-grandparents generations for both myself and my wife. We weren't interested in going further - we had some connections to that generation, but no earlier. I could not find a death certificate for one great-grandfather. We had pictures of him, had birth and marriage certificates, and I knew he was alive in 1915, but no death certificate. I know at least two of my cousins had also done some searching, and neither of them had found it either.

Over the years, I've gone back and looked again, when I had another idea about where to look, but never found anything.

 

Today, on "Scotland's People" (the Scottish national records website), I had another try. After a couple of hours of fruitless effort, and despite being absolutely sure of his surname, I tried selecting 'fuzzy logic' on the surname search. His death certificate turned up! The record has the surname as we have always known it, but it has been indexed under an incorrect name - "McCaferty" instead of the correct "McCafferty". I've sent a copy to the two cousins who have also been looking for it, and a report of the incorrect indexing to "Scotland's People".

 

I can't believe how irrationally happy this has made me!

When I started researching my family tree I had difficulty tracing one of my great great grandfathers in the 1871 Census. His first name was George and the surname was not common in Gravesend where he resided but he wasn't at home on census night. When I put his name into the search engine it came up with his father and his infant son (my great grandfather) who were both named George but he was nowhere to be found where you would expect it to be. I then went through the whole list and then I found him at the bottom of the list, his name had been transcribed as Georges. I obtained a copy of the original census return and a transcript, the transcript was full of errors, understandable perhaps as the documents had been transcribed in India and a lot of the original was hard to decipher even for an English speaker like me. It did reveal a great deal of information and not only that turned a family history story on its head. The story was that my great grandfather (the one mentioned above) had an uncle who was chief engineer on a steamship and was killed in a boiler explosion. I couldn't find any trace of this uncle, as far as I was aware my great great grandfather didn't have any brothers. The census revealed however that he was chief engineer on a steam tug named Rambler. I then discovered that he died later that same year (1871) at the young age of 32. His death certificate revealed that he was the victim of the boiler explosion not the fictional uncle. Further investigation revealed a report in the Times of the inquest which was only found by searching for the name of the vessel as they had spelt the surname incorrectly. 

[The Lurker]

Greetings all from Sidcup. There are both clouds and sun in the sky and the wind is blowing briskly.

 

Mrs Lurker has taken the Lurker boys up to Cambridge to see her sister and their cousins. I have been left in charge of making sure that both loads of washing get done, hung out to dry and don't blow away in the wind. And work, of course.

 

We seem to be taking baby steps towards making a plan to go back to work, trying to spend about one day in the office. But i think it will be a few weeks before we get anything more concrete than that.

 

One of my Mum's cousins has done quite extensive family tree work, back i believe, to the 16th century. I have not seen much of it but it would be quite interesting to look at; the work was done before the internet so it would have been quite a dedicated effort to get back that far. I seem to recall that the side of the family that was traced was from Stamford, so that might be an area with good extant records .

[simontaylor484]

Morning all

 

The district nurse has been all sorted for another week 

 

It's dry here now wind has dropped 

[iL Dottore]

Greetings, one and all!

 

All this talk about family trees makes me think of my late father. For although I have never had (nor do I have) any interest in genealogy, my father was very much interested in the family tree. In the 1950s, when my father was working in the Vatican library, he said that he was able to use the resources there to research his family tree. To prune this rambling and extensive tree down to manageable fundamentals, it is sufficient to say that my father was able to trace the family back to the ninth century and Southern Italy. Originally from Spain, once in Southern Italy the family split into two groups. The first group remained in the South, the second group – of which I am a descendent - spent the next few hundred years “wh0ring and fighting” (my father’s words) their way towards Northern Italy (and to about far North as you can get in Italy: right on the Austrian border). Apparently we were quite successful Condottieri and off shoots of the family tree seem to have included both the Borgias and the Medici (albeit very, very, distantly related). Finally, again according to my father, were I to have both the funds and fortitude to do so, I could negotiate my way through the labyrinthine and byzantine maze that is Italian bureaucracy and lay claim to a title and castle (probably now just ruins) somewhere in the Friul.

Comte iD. I like it, it has a certain ring about it. I wonder if the Italian nobility ever practiced jus primae noctis?  Although the infamous Droit du seigneur is apparently a historical myth, not a mediaeval custom, used in the French Revolution to demonise the nobility.

Well, time to go back to work... it’s tedious having to oppress and terrorise the peasantry, but someone has to do it.....

 

[tigerburnie]

My advice re chasing your ancestry on the internet sites is beware that a large amount of the information is gleaned from other amateur searchers and not always on written evidence that has been documented at the time. I have used several sources to cross reference as I am not able to actually visit the churches or town halls to see the original documents. One site I use will get copies of certificates, but it costs a fair bit more.

[AndrewC]

I have a few relatives that are into genealogy and have traced back on both sides of my family to the mid 1500s. Nothing exciting in any of them. I do know on both my paternal grandparent's trees there are many publicans. That makes a lot of sense. However, my older half brother did one of those silly dna ancestry things. It claims he (and therefore we) are distantly related to old Ben Franklin on our mother's side. (some American celeb supposedly)  Yea, right. Pull the other one. My biggest issue is keeping the family tree and history from the ex and her mormon coven of dingbats. 

[45156]

18 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

That was written in 2007. I remember cracking the joke when I drove back from Reading and encountered floods 'twixt there and Oxford (long before the M40) in 1979 or prior, as I left that company that had a Reading Branch in 1979.

It was actually first written back in the 1970s and appeared in the late Keith Waterhouse's column in "The Daily Mirror" or Mail - he wrote for both in that decade  way back then - it was also republished in his anthology "Mondays Thursdays" - the version that Rick mentioned is the one which comes up most often these days on an internet search for the piece.

 

 

[Coombe Barton]

4 minutes ago, 45156 said:

It was actually first written back in the 1970s and appeared in the late Keith Waterhouse's column in "The Daily Mirror" or Mail - he wrote for both in that decade  way back then - it was also republished in his anthology "Mondays Thursdays" - the version that Rick mentioned is the one which comes up most often these days on an internet search for the piece.

 

 

I'd never heard of it before.

[tigerburnie]

My ancestry goes back before the Battle of Hastings, it seems I am a direct descendent of Alfred the Great and I share a Grandfather with HRH Elizabeth 11........................................

[J. S. Bach]

On 25/08/2020 at 04:51, iL Dottore said:

 ...snip...

Wasn’t it de rigeuer in the 1940s/1950s that if you had gone to either Oxford or Cambridge and ended up in the security services, you’d also have a part time job with either the KGB or GRU?

 ...snip...

iD

That is the way that it seemed like over here.

[simontaylor484]

What a quiet and calm day compared to yesterdays drama. I see Boris has finally become involved in the BBC proms stupidity. I cannot believe what this year is disintegrating into.

 

 

[Gwiwer]

5 hours ago, AndrewC said:

The difference between how the Belgians and the UK are handling covid are like night and day.

And yet they still have a higher rate of infection and mortality there than we do here.  

 

Afternoon all.  A somewhat better day meteorologically speaking.  I have spent most of the past several days at the House of Fun training new staff and so it was again today.  I am, apparently, a sought-after trainer with more than one trainee asking specifically to be assigned to my tender care.  I do have a 100% pass rate of trainees when they take their first Rules & Regs exam and I managed to pass my own annual refresher last week with that same figure.  

 

We have observed a slight rise in passenger numbers during leisure hours but still the "business peak" is not one.  Very few people are travelling into central London at the traditional commuting times with perhaps only 50 on a train which might normally convey 1000-1200.  We are also observing a very mixed response to the requirement to wear facial coverings.  Many people wear one correctly.  A significant minority mis-wear one usually with the snozzle unprotected or they have the thing as a chin-guard.  A small minority, mostly construction workers and BAME youth, wear no covering nor are they willing to listen to requests or reminders.  It will take a random intervention by the British Transport Police (which do occur) before they do anything about complying.  

 

I have acquired some half-face clear plastic coverings intended as mouth guards but wearable with the base of the nose also covered.  That allows me to breathe unhindered, to be seen and lip-read as required and does not induce the coughing followed by the asthmatic panic which a fabric or paper mask does in my case.  I still sport my medical exemption badge but, as two managers have now observed, I am "at least wearing something" though I don't wear it all the time - only when it gets busy or I am working closely with a colleague.  

 

WARNING - The following may cause reactions in some people for which I am not responsible  

 

In other news there was a knock at the door just after lunch.  Neighbour (Upstairs) is starting to move out.  She is on her way to teach English in Taiwan but as the virus has caused a slight delay in her departure she has to go back to mummy for a month because the tenancy now ends before she flies away.   There had been loud sounds of furniture being bumped down the stairs before the door was knocked .....

 

.....  I answered the door to find Neighbour (24, female and of somewhat generous proportions) stood outside on the lawn in a bra and G-string asking if I had anything which might help her get back indoors.        Having single-handedly got a large desk down stairs (in her undies?!?!) she discovered she was locked out!!!  It's a good thing SWMBO was already back at her desk in the Working From Home bedroom   Neighbour was swiftly "rescued" with the aid of an old credit card and a screwdriver and didn't seem at all bothered that I had unexpectedly become very much more familiar with the benefits of knowing her   Taiwan's gain will be one less rhinoceros dancing upstairs   

 

It's muggertee time.  See you later. 

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, tigerburnie said:

My advice re chasing your ancestry on the internet sites is beware that a large amount of the information is gleaned from other amateur searchers and not always on written evidence that has been documented at the time. I have used several sources to cross reference as I am not able to actually visit the churches or town halls to see the original documents. One site I use will get copies of certificates, but it costs a fair bit more.

My father spent many years researching his family tree in pre internet days, after he retired. I think he got back to the 16th and 17th century in most branches. He did most of it on parish records. He did use the mormon library in Huddersfield  but said that you had to take a lot of their research  with a pinch if salt due to a) their motivation to do it and b) as a resultbof the former they weren't always very rigourous in cross checking. The filing cabinet with all the records ended up in Huddersfield  University  library and to my knowledge  has been used quite a bit. I did once spend a pleasant afternoon untangling his filing system for a Prof from Manchester.  The interesting thing for me was that I could understand  the filing system and would have used many of the same techniques.  The Prof was quite easy on the eye as well.

 

Jamie

[Rugd1022]

About a year before he died my Dad had a good old go at the ancestry lark and managed to confirm a few things we were already aware of, with a large chunk of his paternal relatives eminating from a particular clan in Scotland who had their own tartan. Further back he found familial links to occupants of the Mayflower setting off for places anew. Consequently, the US of A is now awash with Rugd1022 brethren!

 

On my Mum's side (a mix of German, Jewish, Austrian and good old West London blood) it's quite complicated as there were several infidelities, divorces and remarriages but we can piece together fair chunks of it. Her father had no mention of his father's name on his birth certificate but we do know from anecdotes passed down by others that his mother, a below stairs maid in Germany at the time, was enrolled in the pudding club by her high falutin' titled employer and promptly given her marching orders. Her older sister, also a below stairs maid but living in London managed to get her passage over here which is where she gave birth to my grandfather. We found out that all of her known living relatives in Europe were rounded up by the Nazis and either shot, gassed or just disappeared. Startling stuff, looking back!

Edited August 26, 2020 by Rugd1022

[J. S. Bach]

8 hours ago, pH said:

 ...snip... There is a phenomenon in chemical analysis called the ‘Lamb shift’. To try to make sure we retrieved all publications dealing with this, we had to include in any search for it the term ‘Lamb sh it’ without the space.)

So, were there any??

[J. S. Bach]

A rousing good morning owl from the Piedmont; yesterday was a "nothing" day, I did not even turn on this confuser! I can not believe that I survived a day without RMweb (ER) or Facebook. Soon today it is off to harvest the hay mow the lawn. It is literally going to seed; I wish that I could let it go until the seeds drop (free grass re-seeding!) but I have put it off too long already.

[Gwiwer]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

it’s tedious having to oppress and terrorise the peasantry, but someone has to do it.....

Or put another way : Someone has to do it.  

 

39 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

I'd never heard of it before.

It certainly isn't a recent piece but neither is it necessarily well-known.  It has always amused me and perhaps rather more so than some of Waterhouse's other pieces.  The anthology referred to was named "Mondays, Thursday" after the days his column was at the time being printed.