Early Risers.

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[BSW01]

Duplicate 

Edited January 22, 2021 by BSW01

[BSW01]

Another duplicate 

Edited January 22, 2021 by BSW01

[Erichill16]

It’s past midnight so,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICK

Enjoy your day.

 

[Two_sugars]

The first "big band" I saw was The Who at The Rink in Sunderland in 1969 . . . .I took my hearing a week to recover. . . . start-up act was . . . . Rod Stewart . . I think.

 

The last Lemon Drizzle cake I had was  . . . LACED . .with weed . . . I slept well that night.

 

Diabetical eye test and foot inspection is done every year at Peterlee Hospital . . just an out-patients walk-in centre, whereas my eye inspection is done annually because of a cataract. Doesn't seem to be getting any worse, but he's keeping it  under review.

 

Snow lasted till lunchtime.

 

Good night everyone, sleep well.

 

John

Edited January 22, 2021 by Two_sugars

[pH]

We’ve just had a substitution on the evening TV news. The anchor was having obvious problems suppressing coughs. Coming back from a commercial break, there was a different person announcing. He regularly does the late evening news and I presume he was already in the building. 

[Ozexpatriate]

5 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Maybe, if he was planning to marry her.

Much more likely for beauty pageant contestants.

[Ozexpatriate]

5 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Last week a certain Spanish tennis player was on Twitter complaining about being put into 14 days of quarantine on arrival here instead of being allowed out to practice hitting a ball over a net.

 

Today same player announces she has just tested positive to coronavirus.

Vika Azarenka's response to the whiners seems to have been well received.

[monkeysarefun]

11 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Vika Azarenka's response to the whiners seems to have been well received.

I see other countries are belatedly introducing quarantining for arrivals, so it would be funny if they returned home and had to quarantine again.  

 

Though since there is no community transmission currently here, I guess they might be excused.  Damn.

[TheQ]

 Mooring Awl, inner Temple hare,

3/4 hour sleep book fell off chest and woke me up, couldn't sleep for ages, now had about 3.5 hours more. Pink pill taken.

 

Hearing very sensitive to sound levels, not fabulous to high frequencies, having never attended discos or gigs there's no damage that way, but radars often give high frequency whines . I can hear the calibrators we use when they go to 10k Hertz high current but I've never been able to hear the 20kH setting. We don't test at 15kHz. if I get the time it might be worth manually changing the frequency in steps to see how high I can hear.

 

Brain still working on details of trailer changes, the major changes are fixed, it just tie down fittings and the odd joint reinforcement.

 

Time to get another hours sleep.

 

 

[pH]

48 minutes ago, TheQ said:

 Hearing very sensitive to sound levels, not fabulous to high frequencies, having never attended discos or gigs there's no damage that way, but radars often  give high frequency whines . I can hear the calibrators we use when they go to 10k Hertz high current but I've never been able to hear the 20kH setting. We don't test at 15kHz. if I get the time it might be worth manually changing the frequency in steps to see how high I can hear.

Like all senses, hearing deteriorates with age. When in high school, I could hear 25kH. No chance of that now. But I remained ‘aware’ of higher frequencies for some time. I used to be able to tell if a shop was using high-frequency anti-rodent systems - my balance would be disturbed. (And no - that didn’t just happen in pubs.)

[pH]

I've posted pictures of 'nurse stumps' here before. These are stumps of trees which have either been cut or have fallen naturally. The seed of another tree lands on top, starts to grow in the decay on top of the stump and then puts roots down the outside of the stump into the ground. The original stump can rot away, leaving the new tree with spaces between the roots.

 

Here's an unusual nurse stump. The dark mark on the old stump is a groove cut by loggers to insert boards to stand on, allowing them to saw the trunk above the 'buttresses' at the bottom of the trunk. That's done because these buttresses aren't useful lumber - they wanted the long parallel boards that could be cut from the parallel-sided trunks. It's not common for the nurse stump to be well enough preserved to still see these marks.

[iL Dottore]

19 hours ago, jonny777 said:

.... I prefer sausage rolls, scotch eggs and pork pies...

As do I. I enjoy sausages and have the good fortune to live in an area of the world where sausage making is taken seriously.  Unfortunately, although the German and Swiss sausages are excellent, I have yet to find any butcher that can make even a halfway decent version of a proper British banger.

As for porkpies? Well, all I can say is that they are the food of the gods!

17 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

...pork pie from the Pangbourne butcher who makes an excellent job of such delicacies....

What an enjoyable light lunch! Does your butcher export? As Switzerland is not in the EU,  it may be possible to export such foodstuffs...

15 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

...Pimlico Plumbers, to my mind, are already coining it.  Their rates are significantly above those of some others for the trades in question...

But a lot would be dependent on how reliable they are, the quality of the materials they use, the guarantees they issue and the follow-ups they provide. If all these boxes are ticked, and are ticked in the right way, then I am perfectly happy to pay more than for an only adequate service from a low cost competitor.

I certainly believe that it is a truism that - in general - the more you are able to pay for something, the better quality that something will be (of course, this is not always true but is generally a good guide to where to spend your pennies!).

14 hours ago, polybear said:

.... (warning to iD:  look away now) various microwave puddings (chocolate, treacle, spotted dick) that come as a pair.  Half a (another warning to iD.....) tin of custard and you're well away. 

Far from looking away, I was with you until you mentioned tinned custard! As another poster pointed out, for a quick and proper “skoolboy custard“ nothing beats Birds Custard (which you can also do quickly in the microwave),  although a proper Crème anglaise (to give custard its formal name) is fairly easy to whip up.

Ready-made sweet puddings, such as Spotted Dick and Treacle, are more than an acceptable substitute for the busy Captain Cynical on the go. Unfortunately,  I now have to buy them from a Swiss shop specialising in British produce at eye wateringly exorbitant prices, given that mercantile acquisition expeditions to the UK are currently off the cards for the foreseeable future...

8 hours ago, BoD said:

...for spotting the ocular hypertension (ooh, there’s posh) in the first place and referring me.

That’s not “posh”, that’s “proper scientific”, that is. If you want to talk “posh” (a nasty little invidious word) then having separate silver salt and pepper cellars and a small silver pot for mustard on the breakfast table is “posh”.

But what is it about the Anglo-Saxons (mostly, but not always, the British) and “posh”? There are good quality and poor quality things, formal, semi-formal and informal settings, but “posh”?????

I suppose that I would be considered as “posh’ as I own my own evening wear (“Dinner Jacket” a.k.a “Tuxedo” or “Smoking”), but I certainly don’t think of myself as such...

7 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

I do have a meter and self test regularly - I learned very quickly what causes issues, but the NHS don't think it important (ie too expensive) for T2's to have one - I'm sure it would save a lot more money further down the line.

Without getting into politics, I think it’s safe to say that a fault with the NHS is that it tends - on the whole - to be reactive rather than proactive. In other words “fix instead of prevent”. And, as always seems to be the case, the blame is down to political leadership. To be utterly cynical, I suppose there is less political publicity mileage to be had from announcing the issuing of monitoring devices to T2 patients than in opening a shiny new hospital wing full of whizz-bang technology for fixing things...

6 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

...Last week a certain Spanish tennis player was on Twitter complaining about being put into 14 days of quarantine on arrival here instead of being allowed out to practice hitting a ball over a net.

Today same player announces she has just tested positive to coronavirus.

There IS a God.....

3 hours ago, Two_sugars said:

...The last Lemon Drizzle cake I had was  . . . LACED . .with weed . . . I slept well that night...

Hmm, I think I have found a way to neutralise the Bear threat to my cake stocks: leave a slice of lemon drizzle cake that has been laced with some suitable soporific in a slightly difficult to get to place (mustn’t make access too easy, or he will get suspicious). Once Bear has eaten said slice and is anaesthetised, Bear can be safely netted, transported and released into the wild (and boy, will he be wild when he wakes up! Heh, heh).

And on that dastardly note, I bid you a happy POETS day, I’m off to deworm and then walk the Wolfpack before settling in to a busy day working for my crust of bread.

 

Cheers

iD

[chrisf]

Greetings one and all and Happy Birthday to Mick

 

I can’t help thinking that BT Openreach are trying it on.  When I reported the problem with my landline phone, on Wednesday, I was promised an engineer.  Yesterday I received a text telling me that my line had been tested and found OK.  Oh no it isn’t.  The fault which I reported is still present.  I texted MEND to Openreach and called the fault line again, just to be sure.  This is not the first time that I have had to insist on what had been promised.  If the engineer has not appeared or got in touch by 1 pm I will raise merry hell.

 

“It’s A Sin” starts tonight, on Channel 4 at 9 pm.  This is the latest drama from Russell T Davies, perhaps best known for bringing “Dr Who” back to life and for creating “Queer As Folk”.  This time he deals with the AIDS epidemic of the mid 80s.  The programme has been heavily trailed and I rather hope that it lives up to expectations.

 

Best wishes to all

 

Chris

[Barry O]

Ey up! The seaweed wranglees reckon it will be dry today. Yippppeeeeddddooo! I need to try and dig a sump in the garden to help to drain our boating lake. Could be a lot squishy.

 

I hope Mick has a great birthday today.

 

The loudest concert I have attended recently was Fleetwood Mac at the Leeds Arena. It was loud but very clear.

 

With the reduction in flights and road traffic I can detect overflying aircraft flying at 35,000 feet. However, some of the sound on tv programmes can defeat my hearing (working in some very, very noisy engineering works has had an affect on my hearing), of course being a cricket umpire doesn't  help!

Stay safe! Positive thoughts to all!

 

May need to defrost my no sugar lemon drizzle cake....

 

Baz

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl, Part two,

A further hours sleep was obtained..

Ben the good boy Collie, did his alarm clock duties, went for his patrol with out problems, then came running back to the house..

 

 This is one of the gate posts at the entrance to Black Horse Broad (officially AKA Hoveton Little Broad), for many years a little tree of maybe 2 foot tall used to grow out of the top of that retired telegraph pole / gate post..

 

Gates closed from the end of October till Easter when it's open for a fortnight, then closed again till the first May bank Holiday.

 

 

Further vaccination News, my brothers wife... Extremely vulnerable, has been vaccinated.  Their daughter who took a year off for a gap year after school, will be vaccinated next week, because when her plans were scuppered, she took a job as a carer..

 

Looks like my MRC show in October is going to be cancelled, personally I think they're being a bit previous again, there being a very good chance all restrictions being lifted by then...

 

Time to get on with the next measurement..

 

 

 

[NGT6 1315]

Mawnin‘ awl. Happy birthday, Mick!

 

Weather set to change rapidly over night from balmy 10°C-ish today to around freezing tomorrow. That might partially explain the foul mood I was in for much of yesterday, I guess.

 

One piece of news that seemed relevant this morning was an assessment that neo-Nazis and Reichsbürger (short version, people who insist the German Reich never ceased to exist but is being kept from exerting power by the German republic, which in their view is an illegitimate commercial business) groups attempt to enlist esoteric and anti-COVID measures activists as allies, fomenting further radicalisation and affinity to violence not unlike that which happened among QAnon and similar ranks in the U.S.. Frankly, I do share this concern.

 

Stay safe and sound, everyone.

[polybear]

8 hours ago, Erichill16 said:

 

 

Dribble.....

 

7 hours ago, Erichill16 said:

Just remembered a disappointment regarding a a concert.

I'm not a fan of tribute bands but I do like to go to off the beaten track venues so when a Sex Pistols tribute act were booked to play at Sharlston Miners Welfare I couldn’t resist. Unfortunately  I ended up going on holiday at the same time so had to miss out. I’d have loved to see what the  locals would have made of it.

 

Dunno about the locals, but if Bill Grundy's viewers were anything to go by they were none too pleased.  It didn't do BG's career any good either.....

 

3 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

I see other countries are belatedly introducing quarantining for arrivals, so it would be funny if they returned home and had to quarantine again.  

 

Though since there is no community transmission currently here, I guess they might be excused.  Damn.

 

The big problem is that the UK trust people to self-isolate, with very few (if any) checks being carried out.  And make the first fine £10K - that'll focus their attention a bit more.

Bear was also surprised (and a bit miffed) to see that the Police don't have a power of entry to check if rules are being broken - a TV report showed Police attending a report of a party.  No music was heard etc. etc. and when the Police asked to come in they were refused and could do no more.  If they see or hear signs of rule breaking then maybe they do have the right?

 

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Hmm, I think I have found a way to neutralise the Bear threat to my cake stocks: leave a slice of lemon drizzle cake that has been laced with some suitable soporific in a slightly difficult to get to place (mustn’t make access too easy, or he will get suspicious). Once Bear has eaten said slice and is anaesthetised, Bear can be safely netted, transported and released into the wild (and boy, will he be wild when he wakes up! Heh, heh).

 

Deliberate poisoning?  Now that is skullduggerous.  Fortunately Bear is equipped with a truly most sensitive snozzle and ultra-fine tuned taste buds, such that the merest hint of a suspicious molecule being present is detected instantly.  The last victim to try that stunt discovered - eventually - that his entire cellar (and boy, was it a cellar) of vintage wines....very expensive wines..... was laced with Moviprep.  Boy, was that messy.  I did hear that he first discovered an "issue" when he was out driving his prized possession, a vintage Bentley - and didn't have time to pull over.....

The second time he'd been invited to a high-brow party, and took a bottle with him.......

He now leaves cake out every night for any Bear which may be passing, and I usually do.

[jamie92208]

Good moaning. It looks grey and damp outside but at least it isn't blowing a hoolie.  We had a good day yesterday. The Livebox (Orange internet hub) was disconnected and taken with us. It was very efiiviently exchanged at the parcel pick up/drop off point. I was most impressed that the outer packaging was designed to becreused and even had the return address label on it.  Thecwe carried on to Niort. Beth browsed in Action  while I waited in the Orange shop. As I was still waiting after some time, I nipped back and picked Beth up. Then  a young man who spoke excellent English sorted outbour mobiles. For a mere €4.99  per month extra, both our French mobiles are now on contract and both now work. We also possess a box that allows us to access French TV.  Good service.  I also ysed my Carte de Sejour as official ID for the first time. Ours say article 50 on them and it was the first time that the guy had seen one. It turned out thatvhe lives with an English girl and they have a 14 month old daughter. However, rather worryingly  his partnervhasn't even started the process of obtaining a residence card. I suspect that after our conversation that may change.

 

Anyway we got back home in time for lunch.  The fire was relit, first things first, then the new Livebox was installed.  It worked first time and has been pre-programmed to have the same ID and password as the old one. That was great work as it meant thatvwe didn't have to re registercall our devices.  After that I updated the maps on Beth's cars satnav.  The French TV box was then installed and worked. All in all a successful day.

 

Today I've gotva bit more work to do in the bathroom, then we are off to some friends  forvlunch.

 

Happy birthday Mick.

 

Regardscto all.

 

Jamie

[leopardml2341]

Mornin' folks.

 

Happy Birthday Mr. NewBryford 

 

Not sure what today will bring -feeling a bit, shall we say 'less than interested' so I'm just going to go with the flow and see what floats my way rather than pro-actively trying to solve things.

 

Hope all are well, or as good as can be, hopefully I'll be able to check the river again today to see if it is higher as is expected.

 

Stay well, stay safe and enjoy the day.

Edited January 22, 2021 by leopardml2341

[grandadbob]

Good morning all and Happy Birthday to Mick,

Frosty start here.  I know this because I was awakened at 4.45 by a neighbour scraping ice off his windscreen.  Three others have since followed suit.  It should stay dry with sunny periods today and temperatures reaching a maximum of 7°C.

Not been to many gigs/concerts but the most memorable were Eric Clapton, Beverley Knight, Elkie Brooks and The Everly Brothers.  The first (and worst I ever saw) was The Dave Clark Five at Bournemouth in the mid 60s.  They were so bad that we walked out.

Still much aching in the undercarriage but will be trying a walk today to see if I can loosen it up.

Following that the plan is to visit The Shed and do something.  Anything!

Have a good one,

Bob.

 

 

[The Lurker]

11 hours ago, tetsudofan said:

 

You're lucky where you are. I'm just 75 and a bit and have not received any communication about a jab.

 

Spoke to one of my neighbours last week, he's 95 and his wife is 87 and neither of them has received a communication let alone the offer of a jab.

 

Was looking at the death rate statistics for the local area a couple of days ago, at one stage we had the highest death rate per 100,000 in the country beating Barnsley  according to what they said. Our MP puts it down to number of care homes and OAPs.

 

Keith

My parents are up the line from you. My Dad who is 83 had his done on Sunday, but had to travel to North Tonbridge to have it.  My Mum who is 77 has heard nothing yet. 

[The Lurker]

Greetings all from Sidcup where we have awoken to blue skies and a heavy frost (well actually it was still dark when I got up but it's blue now!). 

 

Happy Birthday to Mick.

 

Ocado have delivered fully and on time. They have continued to be reliable. John Lewis delivered something a day early. They sent an e-mail saying I would get a text when the package arrived - but we already had it!

 

I saw 3 bands in 5 days in my student days - one of them was the Ramones at what was reputedly the loudest indoor gig in the UK at the time. The reasoning ran thus: the Ramones were the loudest band on the circuit: Leeds Uni Refec (where The Who "Live In Leeds" was recorded) was the largest indoor venue on the circuit; ergo it must have been the loudest in the UK).

 

I saw the Pogues in the same venue. That was a very hot and sweaty gig; my jeans steamed like a racehorse when I stepped out into the cold Leeds night afterwards; most disconcerting. As was usual in those days, I walked the 4ish miles back to my hall afterwards, no doubt acquiring a kebab on the way!

[jonny777]

A bright and frosty start in North Somerset. Hooray. At last.

 

The vaccinations arrived at my Dad's care home yesterday. All 90 inmates were due to be jabbed, but 3 refused; and guess who one of the refusals were? That's right, my Dad. 

 

I despair, but there is nothing anyone can do as he has not been clinically diagnosed as having full blown dementia and so cannot be forced to do anything.