Early Risers.

[BoD]

Morning all.

 

After yesterday’s peak excitement of the parcel delivery today’s fun is brought by our weekly shop.  We do both ours and mum’s, as we have done for most of this year.  I hadn’t considered using this newfangled  ‘scan and go’ facility before this but it is very useful as you can pack the two shops separately as you go rather than trying to remember who has what at the checkout.

 

Life just continues to be one highlight after another.

[AndyB]

Morning all,

 

Our TV had started to make interesting popping sounds, accompanied by the screen doing unusual psychedelic morphations too.

 

That'll be the tube going, thinks I.  

 

So a new telly was proccurred and delivered this morning.

You can tell a railway modeller at 100 paces; he's the one that puts the new TV to one side and starts seeing what can be done with the foam packaging! 

 

Rectangular blocks.

 

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

Just to add to the general sharing of exciting moments, today is bin day.  Non recyclable bin bags, food waste and garden bins. I didn’t wake up early enough to put the bin bag out but Aditi did. We have to finalise our shopping order midday for delivery tomorrow. When I say “we” my job is to enquire whether or not “we” have remembered the things forgotten last week. We won’t be buying the salami and rocket pizza again. It was more like donkey and diesel in my opinion. Aditi thought I might like a change hence why she altered our normal order! It was “on offer” which didn’t surprise me. 
Only one of Aditi’s birthday cards still to arrive. 
I don’t think much else is happening this week. Next week seems to have a few medical appointments for both of us. 
Tony

Edited November 11, 2020 by Tony_S
Punctuation

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

Knowing nothing about Zoom or any othe various other party discussion thingies it's interesting, sirt if, to hear about them.  The lad uses various for Council meetings, pub quizes, and I think occasionally work and they all seem to work reasonably well.

 

Yet again the amateur Bruchmüllers chose yesterday evening for a spot of their own brand of fun and games.  Fortunately none of them were too near and the cats weren't phased by it all but I do wonder if the later mist was possibly assisted by smoke from all the explosions.  Quite why these halfwits carry on after 5 November i don't know but round here there are always some who are lacking in brain cells and full of self importance.  But this morning the mist has gone except down in the valley but it would be unusual if there wasn't any down there at this tme of year.

 

Tesco shopping/car park wandering yesterday managed two train arrivals passing by and only one departure so only a bit over 30 minutes.  There were several examples of the dumbos who apparently think a face mask is a chin rest and it doesn't have to cover their nose - leaves me wondering how much they understand about the human respiratory system although it obviously isn't much?

 

We laso have bin day and the food recycling bin has already bin done and judging by teh state of the bloke who was emptying it  think a n major dose of disinfecting of the lid and handle would be a sensible idea.  I o wonder if the bio-digester thingy where the food waste goes is any good at killing viruses?  The rubbish bin hasn't been done - yet.  I think watching the bins being emptied will probably be the highlight of today.

 

Incidentally one of the tv channels is promising a short season of Sean Connery films - three of them.  Starting with 'Time Bandits' (well he was in it) and judging by the trailing ads the other two are 'Robin and Marian'. (which has its moments) and - best of all, by a very long way,  'The Man Who Would Be King'.  Presumably which ever channel it is hasn't got 'The Untouchables' or any Connery Bond films but no doubt they'll appear on another freebie channel as 'The Untouchables'  comes up every now and then and there should also be one of the Indiana Jones films in there somewhere ('....the Last Crusade') which had some amusing moments from Connery.

 

Have a good day one and all and stay safe

[southern42]

‘ morning all from red dragon land.

Ah. Gas stove. The best thing out for that I’ve-just-started-big-school starter chemistry set! Pity the best experiments with the Bunsen burner tube connected to one of the hob pipes were in the box set stage two! Amazed dad was game for it! We sure would not have been with our kids! Doubt EU rules & regs would be either. Strictly electric these days. Independent hob and built in oven. 
Windy but so far dry. Contemplating some of the M word but do not get your hopes up!  Photos of granddaughters family just arrived in inbox for the annual calendar. I may be a bit distracted. 

Fitt  and    Effie playing tricks.

Take care and play safe.

————-

Best wishes

Polly

Edited November 11, 2020 by southern42

[tigerburnie]

Morning(just), done all the domestics, birds fed, ash from fire dumped, bin collected and stored away, chuckinitdarn it is too. Now in level 3 on the Covid scale, so glad we went to see our daughter and the grandsons yesterday, now confined to barracks, might go do some muddling, but waiting for the postie to arrive with some point rodding stuff. Stay safe all.

[TheQ]

5 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

Morning(just), done all the domestics, birds fed, ash from fire dumped, bin collected and stored away, chuckinitdarn it is too. Now in level 3 on the Covid scale, so glad we went to see our daughter and the grandsons yesterday, now confined to barracks, might go do some muddling, but waiting for the postie to arrive with some point rodding stuff. Stay safe all.

Just typed in my parents post code into the website for Scotland to see what level they are.. it's now showing 3, so they won't be happy.. Perhaps the elder of my sisters should talk the her boss about it... The chief medical officer for Scotland...

Edited November 11, 2020 by TheQ

[iL Dottore]

11 hours ago, Barry O said:

I have tried induction hobbs, old style electric hobbs and gas ones.. I will stick with gas as long as I can. We have a SMEG double electric oven.. the worst piece of kitchen equipment we have ever had.. you cannot get cakes to cook well in either oven.. absolute garbage...

Quite frankly, Baz, most domestic equipment is pretty much crap. Hobs never get hot enough, ovens not only don’t keep an even temperature but have hot and cold spots and so on. I have an electric oven that can do all kinds of things, is programmable and has a touch screen control - but it can’t bake bread or cakes properly (hot and cold spots). I want to replace it with a professional oven, but that will be difficult - not the cost (a basic, pro, electric oven can cost less than a domestic one - depends on the model) but fitting it in a fitted kitchen will be impossible. Sizes of pro ovens are not fitted kitchen compatible and Mrs iD won’t countenance a kitchen rebuild 

One of THE best bits of pro kit I have ever used is in my Verein’s (pro) kitchen: A 6 burner gas and electric range. The hob is gas (6 powerful gas burners) and the oven electric - thermally stable with no hot or cold spots (and it heats up fast as well)

Induction hobs are great (I have one) and give the same control over the heat as gas but, again, domestic ones are pretty badly designed and rarely powerful enough. My induction hob has touch controls and if I’m distracted by the doggies and something boils over (2 of the 4 cooking spots are fairly powerful - so really need to keep an eye on boiling liquids, especially when milk based) the entire hob goes into meltdown as the overspilling liquid flows over the touch controls and the hob shuts down.

The best induction hob I’ve ever cooked on was a pro bit of kit in a friend’s restaurant. 4 really, really powerful induction burners with control knobs on the front of the unit, separate to the cooking surface. My friend wanted to sear some meat, so placed a sauté pan on the hob, whacked the power up to maximum and within seconds the bottom of the pan was starting to glow red!

Serious Gear!

Respect!

11 hours ago, tetsudofan said:

 .... To cut a long story short arrived at the A&E just before 5:00pm, was triaged at 6:00pm, seen by the Doctor at just before 10:00pm, had a CT scan close to 11:00pm, got the all clear that no internal damage had been done to the head at 1:00am and was discharged at 1.33am and taken to the Observation Ward to await the Patient Transport home which got me home just before 2:00am. ...

I’m pleased to learn that all went well with only minor damage, but I’m appalled at how long it took for you to be triaged. Did you have to wait to be triaged because some cockwomble with a paper cut had to be seen first???
When I worked in ER (A&E) head injuries were immediately triaged,  then if non-critical and the patient was stable they may have to have waited an hour or two to be seen by the attending doctor, but certainly not four hours. 

11 hours ago, Tony_S said:

.... my family ... would have said something like “good job it hit you on the head, nothing to damage there”. ..... Aditi is much nicer than my other relatives. 

Good grief, Tony! If that is a Aditi being nice, I wouldn’t want to see her being nasty! (Or did I completely misread that paragraph?) 

10 hours ago, Danemouth said:

You keep thongs in the freezer :-)

 

Dave

If we are talking about the thong that is normally worn around the nether regions, then it makes perfect biological sense. In order for those generative organs ( I would like to be able to use the scientific T word to describe them scientifically but I know I would get censored....)  to function at their very best and produce viable generative fluid (again an euphemism for another medical term, starting with S, that I cannot use it because of the censoring software), such organs need to be cooler than the rest of the body (which is why they are outside, instead of inside and safe).  In the heat of the summer such a cooling garment would undoubtably assist in furthering the propagation of one’s DNA,  as opposed to, how can I delicately put it, overheating and firing blanks.

This probably explains why so many summer romances are, for want of a better term, “productive“ Hee Hee

9 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

....Back to the scooter scrote. They've saved his leg but its going to be a couple of inches shorter when they've finished. He must have hit the van door with quite a whack as its been taken away with the door laying in the cab. The lad has just turned sixteen and my informant tells me that his parents had said no to a motorbike of any sort.

 

One hopes that the young lad has learnt the errors of his way and has turned into a very much sadder and possibly slightly wiser individual. But that is me being optimistic, the reality is likely to be that the little scrote will probably claim to be a “victim“ and receive the largesse of the state to compensate for his “mishap” (which was absolutely, positively, definitely and unquestionably Not His Fault)

[Tony_S]

4 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

17 hours ago, Tony_S said:

 

Good grief, Tony! If that is a Aditi being nice, I wouldn’t want to see her being nasty! (Or did I completely misread that paragraph?) 

No, definitely a misread. Aditi would not joke about my getting a head injury. Others in the family would though! 
Years ago at a “team building exercise” at Aditi’s workplace,  people had to write a word on a piece of paper to describe a colleague and fold it and pass it on.  The most common  word used to describe Aditi was “nice”. She wasn’t happy about such a description! 
 

[PeterBB]

17 hours ago, AndyB said:

Just one additional thought from me on the gas vs electric. Where I live we get power cuts from time to time, sometimes lasting the best part of a day.

As we have a gas hob we can at least make a hot meal and boil water for hot drinks without relying on electricity. 

As I understand it the pressure of the gas is provided by electric pumps so potentially gas would also not work.

 

[Tony_S]

16 minutes ago, PeterBB said:

As I understand it the pressure of the gas is provided by electric pumps so potentially gas would also not work.

 

Interesting point but as I have never known the gas pressure to drop during an electricity cut I wondered what was used. According to a Wikipedia article the compressor stations for the gas network are gas turbine powered. 

[The Stationmaster]

7 minutes ago, PeterBB said:

As I understand it the pressure of the gas is provided by electric pumps so potentially gas would also not work.

 

Must depend on where the pumps are in relation to where the electricity is off. When we had out 'electricity free' Christmas Day back in the 1990s the gas fire still worked but at that time we didn't have the sort of cooker we have now with an electric oven and gas rings so 'Christmas Dinner' was bread., Stilton, and red wine.  The electric came back on in the early evening so we could at last make a cuppa - after that we kept a small camping gas stove thing in reserve.

 

Here we have a considerable power mix available - gas for the cooker rings and boiler, electric for the twin ovens, lighting and fridges & freezers, wood burner as a supplementary heating source for a reasonable part of the downstairs area, and oil lamps in case the electric goes off plus a good stock of lamp oil.  I originally wanted a wood burning stove with a proper 'grill' area on top but the heat output was far too much so we'd have been baked too.  So the idea of a supplementary food heating source from the wood burner was dropped - but we do have a few of those instant bbq things so something could be cooked.   As we also have solar panels for hot water we could at least wash in reasonable comfort if the gas went off for any reason - the hot water cylinder can be heated in three ways, off the solar, off the boiler if there isn't enough solar energy, or with an electric immersion heater but of course the thermostats are all electric.

 

My biggest complaint is that the solar panels for electricity are not legally allowed to supply the house if the mains power goes off - for safety reasons as they could feed back into the mains when they were being worked on.

[Barry O]

Excitement for the day? Walking to the sub Post Office to post a letter and a parcel.. and then walking back..

 

Herself has been to the tip to recycle some electrical items - these never reach the skip as they are inspected by the team and put into areas for recycling/repairing/etc by a team working for charities.

 

Time for a Mugadecaff then.. lunch!!

Baz

 

Edited November 11, 2020 by Barry O

[TheQ]

1 hour ago, PeterBB said:

As I understand it the pressure of the gas is provided by electric pumps so potentially gas would also not work.

 

I worked at Bacton Gas terminal, I can confirm Gas is pumped into the grid at a maximum 1200psi using gas turbines powered using waste gas (too dirty for the grid)  the grid then distributes it.

 it then gets reduced to a max of 7 bar for local mains networks, then to 30mBar to houses.. (roughly 1/2 a PSI). There are gas turbine pumping stations   are used in the  system to keep the network flowing, they use the supplied gas..

all the sites have their own back up electricity supplies for keeping control functions working..

Edited November 11, 2020 by TheQ

[AndyB]

1 hour ago, PeterBB said:

As I understand it the pressure of the gas is provided by electric pumps so potentially gas would also not work.

 

 

That's interesting. Local power cuts don't seem to have affected gas supply in the past. So perhaps the pumps are not local - or they have backup generators for resilience. 

[AndyB]

Did anyone mention solar hobs? Work of the Sith, are they.

 

I have one in my holiday home and it drives me nuts. Forever switching itself on/off and lurching from simmer to boiling over based on no observable logic. 

[Gwiwer]

14 hours ago, Erichill16 said:

Sorry to here about your domestic predicament Rick, I hope you get it sorted sooner rather than later.

Thanks.   Worse things happen at sea.  I know because I have lost three friends to Davy Jones over the years.  It's only hot water.  We can boil filled kettles and pans as required.  And minutes before writing this I received an email confirming that the gas-person concerned was not the one testing positive for Covid - he has tested negative and will be resuming his work-list from tomorrow.  

 

The new phone has arrived and is being set up as we speak.  It seems to be a time-consuming and complex process for something which was once as simple as pressing a button.  

 

In other news Current Neighbours (Upstairs) are in isolation as one has tested asymptomatically positive.  We don't interact a great deal at any time and have had no contact within the past three to four weeks so should be fine.  The other two are negative.  It's a bit of a concern given the proximity of our front doors but we have been very careful all along to spray anything which has been handled by someone else, to wipe door handles and to wash hands first thing after we come in.  Neighbours (Top Flat) who share a common entry and stairs with (Upstairs) are all negative.  At least, having interacted with other students, they can get tests.  We couldn't unless we developed symptoms.  

 

It is in slow retreat; these things will pass and we shall return to a normality sooner rather than later now.  

[J. S. Bach]

4 hours ago, AndyB said:

 ...snip...

You can tell a railway modeller at 100 paces; he's the one that puts the new TV to one side and starts seeing what can be done with the foam packaging!

Rectangular blocks.

Cast concrete tunnel portal for me.

 

Seriously, I almost went to the manufacturer/distributor (conveniently just twenty or so miles down US-321 from me) to see about getting some packing pieces!

Edited November 11, 2020 by J. S. Bach

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Gwiwer said:

 

The new phone has arrived and is being set up as we speak.  It seems to be a time-consuming and complex process for something which was once as simple as pressing a button.  

It is quite quick if you have the old phone but of course if like yours it doesn’t work it can be a palaver. I was impressed how easy it was to set up another iPad from an existing one. Copying stuff from my old Android phone to a new one wasn’t difficult either. A lot of stuff was on assorted “cloud” storage anyway. 

[J. S. Bach]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

 ...snip... My biggest complaint is that the solar panels for electricity are not legally allowed to supply the house if the mains power goes off - for safety reasons as they could feed back into the mains when they were being worked on.

Easily cured with a transfer switch, either manual or automatic.

[southern42]

17 hours ago, southern42 said:

 

I stuck such a label (British, naturally) In the centre of the apple on the lid of my MacBook. Couldn’t resist the temptation! 

 

Apple label put to good use!

Edited November 11, 2020 by southern42

[Gwiwer]

32 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

It is quite quick if you have the old phone but of course if like yours it doesn’t work it can be a palaver. I was impressed how easy it was to set up another iPad from an existing one. Copying stuff from my old Android phone to a new one wasn’t difficult either. A lot of stuff was on assorted “cloud” storage anyway. 

As you say Tony it is very straightforward if your previous phone remains in working order.  Mine does not.  I had to go "the long way round" to get it started but once I had it initiated and synched with my AppleID account the rest was easy enough.  It synched via the cloud which seems to have secretly backed up everything on the old phone except passwords.  I didn't know that was happening.  But it saved me a lot of trouble in reloading and restoring apps and accounts, contacts and settings.  It means I still have all my custom ring-tones too.  But I did have to re-set all my passwords manually which is probably a good thing.  And probably a good thing that many are held in the desktop's keychain and all which are required at all often are also committed to memory.  

[petethemole]

12 minutes ago, southern42 said:

 

Apple label put to good use!

 A Bramley, no wonder there's only one bite out of it.

[Ian Abel]

HUMP day - muffled yay!

 

All kinds of report kerfuffles all day yesterday and already into the early part of today <yawn>. Finance departments should be disqualified form thinking about stuff once they've settled on a process 

 

That's about it around here - sh!t-for-brains continues (though more quietly than usual) an assault on the senses and media regarding voter fraud, in spite of todays reporting that at least 45 states official representatives contacted have reported, by BOTH PARTIES representatives, that no documented cases have occurred!

Interestingly, the house and senate REPUBLICANS who have been elected/re-elected, have so far, to a person, not resigned their position given the massive fraud that's supposed to have occurred - seems that if the head TURD was fraudulently voted AGAINST, surely ALL the down-ballot TURDS are also subject to, and therefore fraudulently elected, right?!?!

 

Weather has, as predicted, taken a turn for the "winter". Can't saw "worse" here as it's actually the normal...

-7 first thing retrieving the newspaper, but sunny at least. High expected to make a whopping +1. About 3-4 inches of wet snow overnight.

 

Carry on.

 

[Rugd1022]

5 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Morning all,

 

Knowing nothing about Zoom or any othe various other party discussion thingies it's interesting, sirt if, to hear about them.  The lad uses various for Council meetings, pub quizes, and I think occasionally work and they all seem to work reasonably well.

 

Yet again the amateur Bruchmüllers chose yesterday evening for a spot of their own brand of fun and games.  Fortunately none of them were too near and the cats weren't phased by it all but I do wonder if the later mist was possibly assisted by smoke from all the explosions.  Quite why these halfwits carry on after 5 November i don't know but round here there are always some who are lacking in brain cells and full of self importance.  But this morning the mist has gone except down in the valley but it would be unusual if there wasn't any down there at this tme of year.

 

Tesco shopping/car park wandering yesterday managed two train arrivals passing by and only one departure so only a bit over 30 minutes.  There were several examples of the dumbos who apparently think a face mask is a chin rest and it doesn't have to cover their nose - leaves me wondering how much they understand about the human respiratory system although it obviously isn't much?

 

We laso have bin day and the food recycling bin has already bin done and judging by teh state of the bloke who was emptying it  think a n major dose of disinfecting of the lid and handle would be a sensible idea.  I o wonder if the bio-digester thingy where the food waste goes is any good at killing viruses?  The rubbish bin hasn't been done - yet.  I think watching the bins being emptied will probably be the highlight of today.

 

Incidentally one of the tv channels is promising a short season of Sean Connery films - three of them.  Starting with 'Time Bandits' (well he was in it) and judging by the trailing ads the other two are 'Robin and Marian'. (which has its moments) and - best of all, by a very long way,  'The Man Who Would Be King'.  Presumably which ever channel it is hasn't got 'The Untouchables' or any Connery Bond films but no doubt they'll appear on another freebie channel as 'The Untouchables'  comes up every now and then and there should also be one of the Indiana Jones films in there somewhere ('....the Last Crusade') which had some amusing moments from Connery.

 

Have a good day one and all and stay safe

 

Film trivia alert : When Connery played Harrison Ford's old man in 'The Last Crusade' he was only twelve years older than him!