Early Risers.

[newbryford]

2 hours ago, grandadbob said:

I've decided to splash out on a new large item.  All will be revealed if the deal is completed in a couple of days time.

 

 

 

Stand back.

GDB's gone 0 gauge..............

[Tony_S]

1 minute ago, newbryford said:

 

Stand back.

GDB's gone 0 gauge..............

I was thinking perhaps someone has sold him the Albert Hall. 

[tigerburnie]

G'night all

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. As I mentioned I had a haircut this afternoon and now I think my ears have just warmed up. Apparently Basildon has the highest Covid rate in tier 2 so we're only eight days away from tier 3 unless the rate decreases somewhat in the next week.

2 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

... and you might have to clone me ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2020/12/08/sounds-of-the-season-10/

Where do some of these people get their brains from, or for that matter whoever employed them. I've left a comment on the other point you raised as its not for these pages (politics).

[laurenceb]

Night awl

[simontaylor484]

My Grandad used to tell us tales of Artic Convoys on a Destroyer Hms Impulsive he was ERA(E) one thing that stuck in my mind was he sais sometimes he was just waiting fot a torpedo to come through the side of the ship. They had steam pipes from the boilers running round the superstructure to prevent icing but they still had to chip ice off with sledgehammers. 

 

[newbryford]

8 hours ago, Ashcombe said:

Some of you may be interested to know that several cruise ships (and the ocean liner QM2!!)  have been anchored in Torbay since the Spring! There just aren’t enough mooring spaces available in ports. They are regarded with great affection by the locals, not least because they have donated surplus food to our local homeless charities. Some landlubbers are planning to gather boxes of treats for the crews for Christmas. 
 

Today, there were six in sight as I walked over Babbacombe Downs! Earlier this year, some enterprising boat owners, who normally run ferries within the bay, organised trips for people to view the ships at close quarters. My son, grandson and I joined one such trip last month. 

 

 

 

 

I've been on three cruises (excluding those of the canal variety)

One of the vessels we sailed in is currently anchored in Torbay.

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-3.505/centery:50.438/zoom:13

Holland America's RMS Volendam 

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:264386/mmsi:245968000/imo:9156515/vessel:VOLENDAM

The stock picture on marine traffic was taken at Canada Place, Vancouver, where we disembarked from our Trans-Pacific Silver Wedding anniversary holiday. (Not my pic...)

 

The other two were short trips - first cruise was our honeymoon on Carnival Lines "Mardi Gras" - formerly name "Empress of Canada". Full of "spring-breakers" out of Port Canaveral -we felt very old at 27/30!

Third trip was the "Regal Princess" for Junior's 21st a couple of years back.

Cruise ships tend to run to US alcohol laws and her birthday was a full at-sea day.

We went to buy a drink at the bar and she had to produce her ID. When she explained to the staff that it was the first time she'd bought me an alcoholic beverage, it was on the house!

There was a complimentary cake in the restaurant that evening.

 

There is a brand demographic for cruises as I think there are only 3 or 4 major cruise line players.

For example: Carnival own:

 Carnival Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, Holland America Line, Seabourn, P&O Cruises (Australia), Costa Cruises, AIDA Cruises, P&O Cruises (UK) and Cunard.

 

Princess Cruises suited Junior for a family trip, but it would be Carnival if she was with her mates, Holland America is great for me and Mrs NB.

 

 

 

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

Even more fun for container ships

RORO* car carriers might be the worst for "loss of stability incidents".

 

* Properly roll-on/roll-off, sometimes more accurately roll-on/roll-over.

 

MV Cougar Ace (North Pacific, 2006, Mazda cars on board)

MV Golden Ray (Georgia, 23 minutes after casting off, 2019, Hyundai and Kia cars on board)

[tetsudofan]

2 hours ago, grandadbob said:

Evenin' each,

Been absent since Sunday as I've been a bit busy and possibly a bit silly for the last couple of days. In fact some may possibly say I'm completely bonkers and I wouldn't disagree but you only live once and I've decided to splash out on a new large item.  All will be revealed if the deal is completed in a couple of days time.

 

 

 

 

Wonder if what you did is what I did back in September?

 

Talking about cruises, a cruise is something that I have not done and have no intention of doing. My only experience on the water was a liner trip from Southampton to Hong Kong via the Suez Canal, Aden, Colombo, Penang, the port for Kuala Lumpur and Singapore on the P&O Chitral (weight 13.800 tons, speed 16.5kn) to take up my appointment with The Chartered Bank back in 1966.

 

Up until that time the only boats I had been on were the paddle steamers on the Woolwich Free Ferry.

 

Time for bed now, pleasant dreams.

 

Keith

 

 

[newbryford]

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

At one of the Vickers company meetings Brown Brothers (who designed and built stabilisers for large ships) showed a film of a liner with and without the stabilisers being active.  Not nice for those with a problem stomach when they were switched off.

 

Baz

 

 On our Trans Pacific crossing, one of the stabilisers was out of action for about 4 hours.

The worst consequence was the water sploshing out of the jacuzzi!

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

The second coat of tanking solution has now been applied and I’ll soon be ready to move things around so I can get to the next stretch of wall that needs stripping. I’ll need a couple of days to get things moved around to give me room to work, so probably just get the stuff moved in readiness and then leave the dirty work of stripping the paint off until after new year. 

 

Below is how the walls are looking at the moment, the darker bits are where it hasn’t dried out yet, unlike some of the smaller lighter patches at the top. It doesn’t look very pretty and definitely wouldn’t win any awards, it once the plasterboard is on and it’s all plastered, it won’t be seen anyway. 

 

 

 

This afternoon I was invited for a flu jab as I appear to fall into the 60-64 age band. Now I’ve been in this band for over 4 years now and this is the first time I’ve been offered a flu jab. Needless to say, I excepted and I’m due to attend on Saturday morning at 10:50. 

 

Neither Sheila and I fancy cruises or beach holidays, they just aren’t our thing, we’d both get bored very quickly and the onboard entertainment of a cruise ship just isn’t to our liking either. We don’t mind travel and we both like to visit museums and sometimes doing things on the spur of the moment, which just doesn’t sit right with a cruise etc. We also prefer not to be on a time limit.

Edited December 9, 2020 by BSW01

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[BR60103]

Correction to previous post: we are not in code red. Someone in the medical line said we ought to be.

 

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[iL Dottore]

17 hours ago, polybear said:

 ...Venice hates cruise ships.  Apart from the damage they cause, virtually all the passengers eat and sleep on board so apart from buying the odd "I love Venice t-shirt" and a cup of coffee they spend very little....

Not only that, but when they do buy a lunch then they insist on having pizza, lasagna or spaghetti with meat sauce - none of which being Venetian foods (Venetian food? think risotto, fish and seafood).  This means, of course, that those restaurants, snack bars and the like around the most popular tourist areas of Venice can get away with flogging really poor food to the clueless.  Something they would not dare to do when serving Venetian food (mainly because the locals would raise a stink and those stranieri who know enough to want to eat “proper” Venetian food would also raise a stink). One of the best meals I have ever had in Venice was in a small restaurant which had a hand lettered sign outside which read (in Italian) “we are too old and stupid to learn how to cook pizza or lasagna, but we do know a little bit about cooking fish“

I quite enjoy Venice, but must confess to only having been there “off season“ - still some tourists around but otherwise relatively quiet, especially if you go off the beaten track.

16 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

...because unloading cargo in the middle of the night doesn't - I think - happen on a cruise ship.   ...

Cargo? No. Bodies? Possibly. I would get quite worried if the name H. Poirot  was on the passenger manifest.

12 hours ago, polybear said:

..The Media are milking the first person to be vaccinated good and proper. ... 

I can understand why, with so many clueless morons about who will not have sufficient intelligence to understand why they need to be vaccinated, any positive news story promoting the use of the vaccine could only help persuade these individuals to actually do something positive with their lives and get vaccinated.

9 hours ago, Ian Abel said:

... Insurance companies get the bill, and you receive whatever you're not covered by as your portion.

So, folks will limited or "high deductible" insurance could face a staggering bill..

Interestingly, in Switzerland the health insurance policies also give you the opportunity for you to take a high deductible policy in exchange for lower monthly premiums. However, and this is a big however, the amount of deductible possible is fixed by Cantonal law and the yearly amount that you have to pay yourself for a chronic condition is also capped by the Canton. Although such amounts are not peanuts, they are very affordable (and prompt you to take care of yourself) and for the truly indigent there is a support from the Canton.

One surprising bit of news I got this year was that my health insurance premiums for next year have actually gone down!.

8 hours ago, polybear said:

 

I'm sure between the ER'ers we could've sorted it a lot cheaper:

iD on the scalpel

Bear with the IPA anaesthetic

Hippo on Security

etc etc.

Probably need PeterBB along as well

8 hours ago, Erichill16 said:

Drugs anyone?

Yes please! To sort out our ER friends problem, we would need fentanyl, propofol, a suitable muscle relaxant (I would suggest curare, but I know my  knowledge of anaesthesia is way out of date) and an inhalable anaesthetic like Halothane (again my knowledge of anaesthesia is rather out of date, not having looked at the topic in any detail since the 1980s). Oh, and before I forget, I’ll need a wide spectrum antibiotic for flushing out the abdominal cavity plus - post op - adequate analgesia (let’s use tramadol), a prophylatic antibiotic and some prophylactic heparin. We’ll also need a normal saline drip (KVO).

(current medical practitioners may have guessed by now that I haven’t actually dealt with patients for quite a while...)

7 hours ago, PeterBB said:

...blood pressure monitors relate to the arteries which 'expand and contract' in time with the heart beat...

That’s a very nice explanation of how sphygomanometer works for the layman.

7 hours ago, Andrew P said:

... helped calm things down, well that was until I went Train Spotting...

It seems that you really do have a deathwish, don’t you Andrew? I hope that you have now learnt that facing an enraged SWMBO is akin to taking on a Soviet Tank Army armed with nothing more than a panzerfaust...

 

Finally, in regards to cruising I have twice cruised on the Nile in small boats (about 100 passengers) - a story for some other time and, until I met Mrs iD, greatly enjoyed canal boat cruising on a regular basis (I did try to get Mrs iD  to enjoy canalboat cruising, but with limited success). As for the big, floating, gin palaces - no thank you!

 

Have a great hump day! 

Edited December 9, 2020 by iL Dottore

[jamie92208]

6 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

RORO* car carriers might be the worst for "loss of stability incidents".

 

* Properly roll-on/roll-off, sometimes more accurately roll-on/roll-over.

 

MV Cougar Ace (North Pacific, 2006, Mazda cars on board)

MV Golden Ray (Georgia, 23 minutes after casting off, 2019, Hyundai and Kia cars on board)

I think one rolled over between Southampton and the Isle of Wight not too long ago.  They are also some of the ugliest ships in existence.

 

As to cruising. We had several canal holidays when the kids were in their teens and loved them. We even went on one when newly wed with bil and sil. Both Beth and Ruth were in the early months of pregnancy so were forbidden to push and pull lock gates. This left Jim andcI doing them and the girls driving the boat. This nearly caused mayhem as other boat crews were so bewildered at thecsightbof women steering, that they forgotvtheirvown steering. This was 1979.

 

As to proper big ship cruises, we've done 4, 3 with Holland Amerca and one with P&O.  The latter was very different to thecother 3 with almost totally UK passengers. We didn't like that. However we loved the HollandcAmerica ones and I have even managed a good bit if train spotting in suchbdiverse places as, Panama, Costa Rica, Alaska, Fiji, Tunisia, Spain and even Greece, and survived to tell the tale.

 

Anyway enough of my ramblings, breakfast to be had then put dustvsheets down before the builder starts.thevironing is on today's agenda. 

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

[chrisf]

Greetings one and all

 

What an adventurous band of brothers surrounds me!  The expression "sheltered life" could have been made for yours truly.  I've been racking my brains whilst reading the past day's posts to recall the extent of my interface with the high seas.  There is not much to report apart from what I have already admitted.  The earliest that comes to mind is a short excursion in the Bristol Channel from Barry Pier on the good ship Glen Gower, pride of the P & A Campbell White Funnel fleet, circa 1956.  I recall little apart from proudly showing my Eagle Club badge to the purser and obtaining a modest discount.  Catching the train back from Barry Pier to Barry was a bonus.  In May 1967 I sailed from Felixstowe with three comrades to a point three and a half miles off Frinton to visit the MV Galaxy, home of Radio London.  The vessel on which I sailed was Offshore 2, quite a small craft when compared with the waves.  More conventionally, I had planned to sail overnight from Harwich to Hoek van Holland on 20th December on my tortuous way to Switzerland but, for this year at least, it was not to be.  Receding rapidly into the future is a sea crossing from Algeciras to Tangier.  One day it will be a key link in my journey to Marrakech but it's on indefinite hold.

 

What is in prospect for today?  Ironing, and either cooking or re-heating, depending on what I decide to have for lunch.  Never mind: I'm sure there is excitement round the corner.

 

Best wishes to all

 

Chris   

[TheQ]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

 

Yes please! To sort out our ER friends problem, we would need fentanyl, propofol, a suitable muscle relaxant (I would suggest curare, but I know my  knowledge of anaesthesia is way out of date) and an inhalable anaesthetic like Halothane (again my knowledge of anaesthesia is rather out of date, not having looked at the topic in any detail since the 1980s). Oh, and before I forget, I’ll need a wide spectrum antibiotic for flushing out the abdominal cavity plus - post op - adequate analgesia (let’s use tramadol), a prophylatic antibiotic and some prophylactic heparin. We’ll also need a normal saline drip (KVO).

(current medical practitioners may have guessed by now that I haven’t actually dealt with patients for quite a while...)

 

 

Have a great hump day! 

That's me dead then, Halothane Ethrane  is a definite No No for me, as is Ketamine muscle relaxant. both are on my list of killers for someone who is "Susceptible to Malignant Hyperpyrexia under Anaesthesia" or as they would tell you if you rang the number on the metal tag hung from my neck....

 

Mooring Awl Inner temple Hare, 725 / 454.

A very good nights sleep, which I very much needed after the night before. I had 7 hours solid sleep and no wake up to roll overs..

 

Chuckinitdarn it is, so I was surprised Ben the I don't like getting wet Collie wanted out, He did and he had a good snuffle around until he did everything... Then he ran back to the house leaving me out in the middle of the garden getting wet..

 

The roads were awash coming in and very little traffic, until I met the NDR, one thing I noticed no cats eyes for 100 yards either side of the roundabout and in the wet you can't see the white lines as the road splits into 3 lanes.

 

Two Cockwombles on the way in.. one as I reached the 300 yard countdown markers on the NDR passed me like a bat out of hell... under Heavy braking, which continued right until he had to turn for the roundabout.. just what sort of speed had he been doing in those conditions...

 

Second cockwomble was  on a local road, squeezed  past a cyclist where there was a parked car, then immediately turned left in front of him.. It wasn't as if he'd been following for some time, he'd only just come out of a housing estate in front of me...

 

This weeks major system is ready for cross check, as it was last night, but the only man who runs it had gone home..

So today three of my resistance Standards are going for a Christmas holiday to NPL, so this morning I have to measure all our secondary standards of the same value.. When that's done another of those High accuracy Temperature meters has come in. So that should keep me busy for most of this week.

 

Time to... wander down to the lab to get started..

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

At last! Today I have a haircut appointment  ..it means I should avoid derisive comments from the attendees !

 

Frabjoy! a £3.60 lottery win last night..and ..just think what chaos I could do if we were to win the £175 spondulucs!!

 

We have cleaning up duties to day today. Pah!

Sugar free lemon drizzle cake 1 has been finished..number 2 is in the freezer.

 

Looks like the 25th December has got closer very quickly. I need to wrap some items for her indoors..tried to get a card.. selection available..dreadful.

 

I visited moreasons yesterday. Very  busy but people were well behaved. A trip into Halfords to buy a battery charger was also successfully undertaken.  I do not like the event on the 25th dec..too many bad memories of the past but, hopefully, it will all go well for everyone.

 

Time to drink my mugatea!

Positive thougts to all ERs  especially the missing ones which includes @Gwiwer at the moment and not forgetting her Debshp @Debs.

 

have as good a day as you can!

TTFN

 

baz

[AndyB]

Morning all,

Not so keen on the high-seas variety of crusing - and as swmbo doesn't take well to ithe sea it won't happen - but we both rather like the idea of a river cruise in Germany. Something for retirement I guess.

 

To Mike's early mention of ships arrested or abandoned in UK waters we didn't see any cases of that in my time. We did have many many cases in other parts of the world where seafarers were essentially held in some cases for years. There weren't  many volunteers to replace crew on a ship where you'd not get paid or likely not leave it. This was quite common, whereas long-term hostage taking in the Gulf was higher profile but smaller scale by comparison. In those cases it was the cargo which was weighed in the negotistibg scales not the crew who were largely incidental. 

 

To Flavio's point about Venice. Definitely transformed out of season. Spent Christmas there once; very atmospheric.

But mon dieu he's now got me thinking about risotto - oh my waist line! 

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Still dark but not raining yet.  Chance of some showers though along with some bright spells later.

A few odd tasks to do today including some paperwork, money "laundering" and preparation for an event that may happen tomorrow.  One of you is just about right but it's not Tony.   I've got "Dumbleton" but not  "Albert." 

I also need a haircut so will visit The Boss's "salon" later.  This means I will then feel the cold a lot more.  It's surprising what a difference removing about 7 or 8mm of hair makes.  I have the clippers set to 0.5mm which I'm told by Herself results in me looking like someone on a "Wanted" poster.

Have a good one,

Bob.

 

 

 

 

[Andrew P]

[grandadbob]

No Andy, you're on the wrong track! 

Edited December 9, 2020 by grandadbob