Early Risers.

[Barry O]

Hurrah! Sense has prevailed.. no cricket match today!

Bugggrrrr! Her indoors has decided "we" can use this "spare" time doing some work on a curtain rail.  PAH!!!

Baz

[TheQ]

Just waiting for paint to dry...

 

It's not dry outside, just after my last missive the heavens opened, bug piddles out there already.

 

Valerian contains a substance on my banned list.. it would make me sleep well... too well .. permanently..

 

Traditional timber framed houses covered in concrete,  would have conservators having kittens.. it traps damp against  the wood and causes rot..

They don't like concrete over the lime mortared walls either. Lime mortared walls and come to that timber framed walls move, that cracks the concrete, in comes the damp...

 

I can hear from a roaring the winds arrived as well..

 

 

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

Oops, nearly forgot.

I always understood that Valerian was captured by the Persians and their king Shapur used him as a living footstool. When Valerian died he was stuffed and mounted and continued to be used as a footstall. 

It seems that there are a number of accounts, depending on which history you read: one account states that he was executed by having molten gold poured down his throat, another said that he was flayed alive and his skin turned into an exhibit and, of course, the account you mentioned above of Valerian being used as a living footstool.

 

One thing is for certain, during the days of the Roman Empire punishment may have been “cruel and unusual“, they certainly weren’t interested in rehabilitation but they were very hot on offenders not reoffending (and made damn sure that offenders were in NO position to reoffend).

 

It may be sobering to note that the sort of punishments that today would have “Incensed in Islington” writing angry letters to the Guardian or “Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells” writing an equally apoplectic letter to The Times, really didn’t fall out of favour (or more accurately into disuse) until the early Victorian era. Furthermore, if I recall what I read accurately, it was only recently that certain mediaeval punishments-long fallen into disuse-were removed from the statute books.

 

Edited May 8, 2021 by iL Dottore
The iPad selfposted the entry before it was finished

[JohnDMJ]

For it is still morning...

 

Messers Chopin and Liszt have been despatched to the checkout.

 

My apologies in advance for it is not too often that I 'go off on one' but:

 

Elsewhere on this interweb thingy, I have been disturbed by a post from the BBC which I offer you for INFORMATION (not comment) as https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-56544429.amp?fbclid=IwAR3pdHRR98Z6fbKJuKj_Q-NLGZ_drfbeS1uz1-pTwA_Aj-NRMA9y_FTbbMY

 

Then I came across this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/08/killing-machines-humble-british-hedgehog-causes-havoc-in-new-zealand?fbclid=IwAR2MwTaspPXlJ5ek_Yy33iRzBWgZaoVM1yQl9wKF2XaA_tNXE8cZpvhBhLY reminding me of many other (probably well-intentioned) introductions to the UK such as mink and various fauna which have run rampant destroying in their path the natural ecostructure in which we try to live.

 

IMHO, what various kinds of mankind have done to transport indigenous species to other climes in the belief that "mankind knows better" has been detrimental to the global environment! The disrespect for the long-departed and well mourned Mr. Common Sense has much for which to answer!

 

Normal service will be resumed at the next opportunity!

[Gwiwer]

2 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Settlement is typically 6 weeks after contract exchange

My experience is with Victoria where settlements are typically 30 days but can be 60 or 90.  The process is relatively quick in most cases.  

 

We actually bought through a "private sale" i.e. via the real estate agent (UK readers may delete "real" and US readers may substitute "realtor") very much more like the normal British method and not at auction.  Both parties agreed to a 60-day settlement.  Had we been obliged to go to auction the price asked might well have been far more than we paid and possibly more than we had available.  Listed at £205k we offered a cheeky $195k knowing that the vendor was keen to move to a retirement location and down-size.  We were amazed when not fifteen minutes later our offer was accepted.  Another ten minutes and we had the deposit transferred and we were on the way to owning a tiny piece of a very large Southern Land.  Even in 2003 it was quick.  It's sometimes lightning-fast now as others have mentioned.  

 

G'morning all.  In fact it is not a good morning at all.  It is cold, grey and damp.  It is not a good morning for customers of GWR, LNER and Hull Trains nor for the inspection and maintenance staff, let alone the financiers, of Hitachi.  Neither is it a good morning for a good many hopefuls who have failed to win the seats they hoped for in the elections.  It is not a good morning for the folk of Helston in Cornwall who for the second year are unable to celebrate Flora Day - something which has never occurred in peacetime before.  The gent on the right early on who sets off in front of the second band, and who then appears with the collecting bucket much later, is well-known to some of us.   

 

 

But it is a good morning inasmuch as I remain upright and breathing, fed and watered and in reasonable health.  And it is a good morning in the context of me not stanking over to Helston, ending up in the pub before lunchtime, forgetting to eat whilst having too much of an otherwise good time and spending the afternoon feeling the effects somewhere in the fairground.  Been there - done that - wearing the T-shirt!!!

 

 

Happy Flora Day.  Hellys a'gas Dynergh.  

 

 

 

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone

 

It's a wet and cold day here in England's northwest. Up late again this morning, so straight down to the cellar to do some work on boxing the gas pipework in. 

 

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

 

Brian 

[Pacific231G]

Good (GMT) morning everyone.

 

It's raining in W. London so I'm working.

With the promised good weather yesterday,  I awarded myself a day off yesterday and  went flying, for only the second time since September. The airfield was unusually busy for a Friday but we'd alll seen the forecasts for the weekend.

I flew over Dean Hill (between Romsey and Salisbury on the Wessex main line) to see if there was any trace left of the narrow gauge railways that once served the RN Amunition Depot there and which I saw quite often (from 1500-2000 ft) when they were in use and from rather lower after the MoD moved out.

So far as I could tell, even the inset track has now gone or been filled in. At one tiime the storage company that bought the site from the MoD were thinking of using the railway but AFAIR decided the maintenance costs would be too high. There is a 009 model based on it which a friend in the 009 Society now owns

 

When I fimally got home, after long queues on the M25 (M4 closed by a bad crash)  I decided to have a computer free evenin g so watched one of the earlier episodes of Poirot (fifty minutes of my life I'll never get back!) . It included a sequence with Poirot and Capt. Hastings having lunch in a dining car on an "express" travelling on a winding single track line. The series is usually pretty good about capturing the  sense of an age that felt itself to be very modern - though the Art Deco Hoover Building appears in different guises rather often. The problem though with using preserved lines as film locations is that, apart from the Great Central, they're all very obviously branch lines. They therefore have a totally different ambience to the main lines we're generally supposed to believe the protagonists are travelling on.

Edited May 8, 2021 by Pacific231G

[Two_sugars]

'Orrible day . . .stopper nin.

 

Our local sugary rang me yesterday asking if i had an appointment for my No2 jab. . . 

 

The result is I've got an appointment for Wednesday at 1200. . . . 5 days before my original, 1mile away instead of 12, and no rush hour traffic.

 

Have a good day, all . . . I'm hibernating.

 

 

John

 

 

[TheQ]

Just woken from a hibernation, an hour and a halves worth.. 

Too soggy for cement laying.

Much shelving done,

Ben insisted on taking me for his long walk.

On the way back he kept running ahead the stopping to look back at me "come on, I'm getting wet"

We were, very ...

I put another coat of paint of more shelf bits, then retired to hibernate in bed..

After hibernation I paddled out and put another coat on.

In an hour I'll retrieve these bits and install them...

[Erichill16]

Afternoon All,

Bet Andyram needs a lie down in a dark room with a stiff drink.

 

Robert

[andyram]

59 minutes ago, Erichill16 said:

Afternoon All,

Bet Andyram needs a lie down in a dark room with a stiff drink.

 

Robert

 

You are not kidding! Sadly, anther 90 minutes in the shop to go before I can partake in any alcoholic beverage. Those 90 minutes are not something I ever want to go through again. The rain has meant a "quiet" day in the shop. Well, when I say quiet that does not include the noise from the courting couple upstairs this morning. They were certainly having amnestying enjoyable time! The pay back was me screaming and shouting later in the day as I enjoyed / endured the game via my laptop.

 

Good wishes to all, especially those in need.

 

Andy

[simontaylor484]

9 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Home Information Packs potentially saved all parties involved in the transaction a lot of cost and inconvenience.

 

Amazingly, most houses in the UK are purchased without being surveyed at all other than for the mortgage company to put a value on the property as security.

 

As you say, the Blair govt introduced HIPs (and EPCs) but failed to make them compulsory after a big campaign by the Daily Mail. I don't understand the point of being a politician if you are going to let newspaper editors have all the power. Minister involved at the time was Yvette Cooper (Mrs Balls). I have still not forgiven her.

She is my local mp she gets in every time as would anybody wearing a red rosette a lot of ex miners despise her 

 

 

 

Edited May 8, 2021 by simontaylor484

[The Stationmaster]

Afternoon all,

 

A visit was paid this morning to the train-spotting branch of Waitrose not that there were over many trains to spot - something to do with a mass order for sharp knives in a certain Japanese engineering company I presume.  However one of their trains did go past - not only at a seemingly normal speed but also looking to be in one piece - and according to RTT having come all the way from Swansea so it was presumably one that had been checked (I hope).  I bet the leasing companies who own the things will be presenting Hitachi with some quite juicy bills to match the ones they have received from teh train operators.

 

The car was also refuelled - for the first time in quite a long while - at the cheapest place for miles around which is fairly near said branch of Waitrose.  Compared with the 'Euro' (not) garages rip-off merchants here that gave me a saving of 7.2p/litre on 52.25 litres of diesel,  However in the petrol station come mini-market queue there was one idiot not wearing a mask (the chap in front of me rather enjoyed my comment about hopefully early mortality of said covidiot) and he was accompanied by a (masked) female of the sub-species who was masjed but appeatred to have little idea about what w she was shopping for.  Maybe it was the boxes of eggs piled at the counter where I paid - although I did at least catch the one that got knocked off because it was in my way when I tried to pay.

 

As for fly tippers they local scumbags actually managed to block the lane to a nearby hamlet in the past few days.  We don't see too many scrappies nowadays - the former regular bloke, another who announced his presence by ringing a handbell, hasn't been around fora long while.   The pair of Asians who used to cruise up & down with an eye out for electrical stuff, various also seem to have vanished - strange to relate they used to not take anything they found had the flex and plug cut off.

 

Sorry to hear about Dave's dad and i do hope some way can be found to cheer him up and get him back on track to improvement.  hoping too for some better news about Gordon.

 

Enjoy the rest of your day and stay safe - notwithstanding the efforts of others to apparently do the exact opposite.

[The White Rabbit]

Hello all,

 

Not the best few days in this burrow. Too many pressures at the same time and no chance to take a breather. So I've missed ERs for a while, will try and catch up a bit later. 

 

The sun is now out after a very wet day, I was out earlier to have my first jab and plenty of big puddles on the roads. Apparently the name of poodles comes from a German verb, puddelin (sp?) to splash in water. They'd have been doing a lot of that today. The centre was actually in a hall which the last time I was in it, was being used for a model railway show. Not the closest centre to home but not much further and a lot more civilised than fighting through city centre traffic to the local football ground. No adverse reaction (yet?), fingers crossed that continues. 

 

Earlier in the week I saw the blackbird having a prolonged splash in the birdbath. Definitely the avian equivalent of a Hollywood shower. He and his partner seem to be nesting in our holly tree. I haven't looked closely as I don't want to spook them but I'm 90% they have a nest in there. 

 

Various flowers are starting to bloom and give some colour to the garden. If I'm not cramped up or feverish tomorrow, I might have an hour out there. 

 

Culinary duties call...

[New Haven Neil]

Evening.

 

Another mad day, enlivened by torrential rail at sparrow's exhaust, which we had to go out in to take the van to the van menders for a very early start - they agreed to squeeze the job in today if we could be there (25 miles away) by 7.  Collection very much later, ie just now,  revealed at least the job wasn't as much as we had been told to expect, but still eye watering.  All done though, just got back in.  The other place we approached about the job wanted twice as long to do it, so twice the labour costs.......hmm.  These guys that did the job are used to heavy vehicles rather than just being Fiat car specialists, so they got the job - and we're impressed, taken through everything done, shown all the removed parts etc.

 

 

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. The wetness this morning has gone but its still blowing a hoolie. The California lilac is ready for the bees but they must still be shivering in their hives. Went to Tess Coes earlier for bread and milk. In the toilets they have installed combined soap, water dispensers incorporating a hand drier. I used one and it barely dispensed enough water to wash your hands let alone rinse them and the hand dryer only operated for a couple of seconds at best so I had to grab a paper towel from one of the sanitisation stations to dry my hands. time to put the kettle on. be back later. 

[simontaylor484]

Still raining on and off here loads of sparrows on the pyrocanthus hedge that is ready for cutting. Buxus sempervirens  need cutting but too damp don't want to end up with box blight.

[Ozexpatriate]

9 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

It may be sobering to note that the sort of punishments that today would have “Incensed in Islington” writing angry letters to the Guardian or “Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells” writing an equally apoplectic letter to The Times, really didn’t fall out of favour (or more accurately into disuse) until the early Victorian era.

Lobbying for change of course began slightly earlier than that. I note you are a fan of utilitarianism. Robert Bentham, (sometimes referred to as the 'father of utilitarianism) was a big fan of prison reform. His unrealized 'Panopticon' proposal for a new concept in prisons dates back to the late 18th century.

 

At the time of course sending undesirables on what were essentially permanent holidays to the sunny antipodes was considered a benevolent alternative to the noose and gibbet. While it can't have been fun, once their term was served it might have turned out better than hell holes like Newgate or the Chatham hulks. It did for their descendants. 

[Ozexpatriate]

14 hours ago, JohnDMJ said:

Then I came across this reminding me of many other (probably well-intentioned) introductions to the UK such as mink and various fauna which have run rampant destroying in their path the natural ecostructure in which we try to live.

Feral cats are far worse than hedgehogs in destroying birds in New Zealand. (Not that hedgehogs were a good idea.)

14 hours ago, JohnDMJ said:

IMHO, what various kinds of mankind have done to transport indigenous species to other climes in the belief that "mankind knows better" has been detrimental to the global environment! The disrespect for the long-departed and well mourned Mr. Common Sense has much for which to answer!

It is precisely "common" sense and its lack of ability to foresee unintended consequences that is the problem.

 

I give you the cane toad disaster in Queensland.

 

The prickly pear was introduced to Australia to produce fast-growing fences. It was quickly a pestilential, invasive species. Cactoblastis cactorum (cactus moth) was then introduced from South America to eat the prickly pear - which it did. Based on this 'success' (using 'common', but misplaced, sense) the cane toad (native to South America) was introduced (from Hawaii) to mitigate damage by the native cane beetle to sugar cane crops. The cane toad had no natural predator in the Queensland ecosystem and was just as happy to eat any and all of the numerous local insects (in fact they will eat anything they can fit in their gaping mouth) and made no appreciable difference to the cane beetle or its depredations. They have displaced many native reptiles and are now ubiquitous.

 

Memory fails, but there's a joke along the lines of "What goes pop, pop, pop? The sound of driving over cane toads."

 

Then there's the rabbits that arrived in 1788 with the first fleet.

 

Sadly our understanding of unintended consequences is mostly informed by royally messing things up in the first place.

 

Edited May 9, 2021 by Ozexpatriate

[Tony_S]

14 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

rabbits that arrived in 1788

They are an introduced species to Britain too. Definitely by the Normans and possibly earlier by the Romans. 

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. You all better don a tin hat when you go to bed tonight.

 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/chinese-rocket-live-tracker-latest-24067915#source=push

Admittedly its estimated that it will come down into the Pacific off of New Zealand. 

Edited May 8, 2021 by PhilJ W

[Ozexpatriate]

10 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

You all better don a tin hat when you go to bed tonight.

Safe if you live north of 41.5°N or south of 41.5°S.

[Coombe Barton]

... planning all gone to pot ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2021/05/08/holidays-not-certain/

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

I was wondering if anyone here could help me.

Everything internet wise was working fine earlier today, iPads, laptop, wireless extender and wireless printer however later the extenders stop working and the laptop can’t connect to the internet. Looks like extending can’t find WiFi signal and computer can ‘see’ the Sky signal but won’t connect. Three iPads seem to be working fine as does the smart tv and all the lights on the router are showing ‘normal’.Is it anything to do with dual band, some devices picking up on one signal and the other on the other and the router is only transmitting on one?
Any ideas out there?
Robert

[Tony_S]

19 minutes ago, Erichill16 said:

Evening All,

I was wondering if anyone here could help me.

Everything internet wise was working fine earlier today, iPads, laptop, wireless extender and wireless printer however later the extenders stop working and the laptop can’t connect to the internet. Looks like extending can’t find WiFi signal and computer can ‘see’ the Sky signal but won’t connect. Three iPads seem to be working fine as does the smart tv and all the lights on the router are showing ‘normal’.Is it anything to do with dual band, some devices picking up on one signal and the other on the other and the router is only transmitting on one?
Any ideas out there?
Robert

If that happened to our system my first thing to do would be to turn off the router, leave it for a few minutes and turn it back on . If that doesn’t work does your router allow you  to change the channel numbers for the two bands. Perhaps you are getting interference from someone else? 

Edited May 8, 2021 by Tony_S