Early Risers.

[Ozexpatriate]

7 minutes ago, polybear said:

How on earth does a whale get stuck to a ship's hull?

I don't know what the underwater bits of the Hobart class look like.

 

One news report suggested bow strike which makes me think of the bow wave deflector.

 

There are lots of whales close to shore off the California coast.

[leopardml2341]

Evenin' folks

 

Only been absent for a day and six pages, it's late so for give me for taking the cop out and sending generic good wishes and thoughts to all.

 

In other news:

Mi narrow boat is certified safe for the next four years

Met an ex colleague, for coffee and (Eccles) cake; twas reet grand sitting outside in t' sunshine

Made some headway on prepping said boat for repaint

 

Tired now, goodnight.

 

Back at the home work desk tomorrow...........  Hopefully will remember to check in before the Maelstrom.

[simontaylor484]

It doesnt get any better @Sir TophamHatt i had an hour plus from 11 yo and a dachshund they took my place in bed i got the chair woke up crippled had to have an extra hour in bed.

 

All due to thunderstorms 

[tigerburnie]

G'night all

[pH]

23 minutes ago, polybear said:

Apparently one of the big businesses in Vietnam is scrap metal - much of which is from ordnance dropped or fired by the US during the war. 

We recently watched a programme on life in the Falklands. There is a big demining effort going on there, and getting towards an end. The main force of deminers are Zimbabweans!

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

I set off the surgery a few minutes after 8:45 and arrived just before 9 o’clock. I then followed the instructions fixed to the door and knocked once and waited. A minute or so later someone came to the door and after answering a few questions I was allowed into the waiting area and booked in. I was seen at exactly 9:10 and the procedure took place, after which I booked my next appointment, which is August 4 at the same time, so that’s it now for another 12 weeks. I then left and was back home just before 9:30. 

 

Once home, I got changed into my working cloths, made myself a muggertea in my thermos mug and headed downstairs to the cellar. I had a few more smaller offcuts of plasterboard, which were offcuts from the ceiling in the office, so aren’t waterproof plasterboard. Ive use these to clad the wooden beam which is above the cellar window and door, the remainder was used on another wall, but at just below ceiling height. If water gets that high in the cellar then I’m in big trouble. 

 

After dinner I moved the bookcase so that I can get to the wall behind it. Tomorrow when I go to the big orange DIY shed, I’ll get some more waterproof plasterboard and fit the second skin to the wall on worked on yesterday, I’ll also double skin the wall behind the bookcase. Any offcuts will then be used on the remaining wall that has electrical sockets fitted. 

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[Pacific231G]

 

Today was the weekly game of Covid roulette at Tesco (not so bad now I'm fully vaccinated)  followed by a reasonably brisk walk getting in just before the rain (again) . The afternoon was fairly productive and I've got far less still to do on the current job than I've done so far.

 

Goodnight all

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[southern42]

‘ night all and nos da.

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[BR60103]

We had a telephone session with our financial advsor yesterday and had to fill out a spreadsheet today on our current situation -- which is, of course, out of whack due to you know what.

 

Walked in the Arboretum today. Passed another couple who were looking into the trees. There was a distinctive red-headed bird up there poking his head into a hole and then another appeared on the other side. Pixillated pileated woodpeckers.

 

[iL Dottore]

10 hours ago, JohnDMJ said:

... "An expert is someone who disagrees with other experts!" ...

This moronic statement is very much part of the problem with the Internet: basically, as people far wiser and far cleverer than me have observed, it essentially means “my ignorance is just as good as your informed opinion based on your years of experience and expertise” as a brief dip into the Hitachi thread here on RMweb can reveal (thanks for the tip Stationmaster, it was quite amusing to read some of the posts).

 

There is something very odd about the Anglo-Saxon psyche when it comes to education and learning: it’s all very well to go to school and come out with a piece of paper saying that you have indeed gone to school and come out with a piece of paper; but true learning, expertise and a desire to better oneself (not to mention that sin of sins: intellectualism) does tends to be – at the very best – regarded with suspicion (certainly if you listen to the vox populi and read much of English writing). Terry Pratchett, as ever the insightful social observer and satirist, called this phenomenon “crab bucket“. Only English seems to have the expression “too clever by half”

 

There was a whole slew of so-called “realistic kitchensink dramas“ in the 1960s which revolved around the son or daughter of working-class parents coming into conflict with their mother or father (usually father)  over the offsprings desire to move (usually to London) and better themselves by getting a better job and/or an education (something that seems to permeate all strata of British society) 

 

An attitude that was beautifully lampooned by Monty Python in a sketch where the son comes into conflict with his father because the son wants to go down the mines instead of becoming a playwright  like his father...

10 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Empanadas de carne y mole.

 

Here's a chicken version.

Yes. I don't know why it is not spelt in English as pronounced - molé. I presume people here are familiar with avocado-based mole aka guacamole.

I think the problem is that English - as a language - is definitely a stranger to the umlaut, accent, circumflex, cedilla and other diacritical marks. Apart from the fact that most English language keyboards are bereft of such things (and thus require the use of an Alt-Code to insert a letter with a diacritical mark) English rarely needs a diacritical mark to change the sound-values of the letters to which they are added (the only one I can immediately think of is coöperate) unlike most European and many other languages. Which is odd when you come to think about it - given the hours of amusement provided to the British by foreigners trying to correctly pronounce Salisbury, Worcestershire, Marylebone, Cholmondsley and the like (very much “English as she is spoke”)
 

Ānd ôn thāt lingüistic nöté Í bîd yøú ä sùpêr Thūrsdáy, Ì’m öff for my sęcõnd jab todåy 

 

iD

Edited May 13, 2021 by iL Dottore
Correction of MP Sketch details

[chrisf]

Greetings one and all

 

After far too long an absence there is live music on the horizon.  The first concert that I shall attend since March last year will be on Tuesday of next week.  The Hut People are due to appear in St Neots. Who they?  Sam Pirt plays accordion and Gary Hammond a bewildering array of percussion instruments, including a pair of plastic squeaky pigs!  The next gig that I know about is in the grounds of Hatfield House in July.  It will be a cut-down version of what the organisers intended thanks to social distancing but now includes the Young’uns.  Their appearance three years ago was the first time I heard “Be The Man”, a song which as some know means a great deal to me.  How I have missed my fix of live music!

 

I see that there is disagreement in the ranks about certain potential ingredients of breakfast.  I invite warring factions not to march forward together but to accept that we do not all have the same taste.  If I had to choose between baked beans and black pudding I would choose the former but do not entirely dislike the latter.  It is a long time since I have had either with breakfast.  It is, come to that, a long time since I have eaten breakfast outside the home, because it has not been possible thanks to that ruddy virus.  Some establishments attempt to serve breakfast that can be taken away.  They are on a hiding to nothing. The normal size bap cannot come close to accommodating the ingredients of a full English, there being room for at most three of the essential components.  The alternative is a polystyrene container as unappetising as its contents.  I like my breakfast to be presented on a plate - that’s a round or oval thing made of china.  Never mind, gentle readers: one day life will return to normal.  That will be after a squadron of airborne pigs has bombed Downing Street.

 

I see that my hitherto esteemed friend and colleague regards the statement that he quotes as “moronic”.  It used to appear as part of my signature.  Please tell him that I take exception to that view.  Monkeysarefun, the clock seems to have stopped on the koala thing live from Brisbane.  JohnDMJ, I wish you had not mentioned Jimmy Young.  It’s a long story which will have to wait until tomorrow.  Continuing warm thoughts to Gordon and family and anyone else who is poorly.  Best wishes to all.

 

Chris

[Barry O]

Ey up!

It would seem my diary is becoming full with future cricket match dates, club reopenings, visits to see relatives including Dr Eldest Herbert who has a May 28th deadline for submitting his book to the publishers.

 

Weather wise looks like Saturday  and Sunday marches will be off due to the forecast deluges. Pah!

 

Time to finish my mugatea ... then.. comenon Thursday,  let's be having yah!

 

Stay safe! Hoping for positive news from Gordon and positive improvements from Dave's  dad.

 

Baz

[NGT6 1315]

Moanin‘ awl. Yeah, it’s rainy here all right, too!

 

At least this bodes well, or so I hope, for a quiet shift as it’s a bank holiday here.

 

From the „sod it“ category, a replacement car will need to be obtained because of something which certainly seems strange! I had recently done an oil change myself, mainly because I needed something to do and because I felt it couldn’t hurt to do this a bit more frequently on a 12 year old car. However, last week, I got an oil pressure warning and noted the engine sounded increasingly rough.

After having it towed to our dealer, they were mystified to find particles of an almost waxy composition in the lubrication circuit, which seems to have clogged most of the oil conduits. There’s no easy way of fixing that except by way of a total engine rebuild or replacement, so I’m sorry to say, that’ll be it for the good old Prius. I’m not prepared to spend 5,000ish on a car which I believe will be worth no more than that as a whole after all those years - even with meticulous care.

 

The question remains how this contaminant could have gotten into the engine to begin with. They hadn’t noticed anything untoward when it had been in for a steering rack replacement recently, and I had carried out the oil change with materials strictly to OEM specs.

 

I suppose any guess will be as good as any other. Could‘ve been the new oil filter, could‘ve been the oil itself, maybe even deliberate tampering by some unknown rectal orifice…however this should have occurred. Though I suppose in a big city, there’s all sorts of scrotes with mindsets not worthy of appreciation, so…

 

But, fear not, suitable replacement - even more so for a family with two kids - is in the process of being secured. I stand by my preference for Toyota hybrids, but I’ll just say, stay tuned. We’ve an appointment with the dealer on Saturday in any case.

 

Thinking of Gordon and anyone else under the weather. Other than that, well, enjoy whatever you’re up to!

Edited May 13, 2021 by NGT6 1315
Typo detected

[jamie92208]

Good moaning.  It's not raining.....at the moment.  Various tasks got completed yesterday and hopefully more will today.  Today is, like in Dom land, a bank holiday, the 3rd in a fortnight. It looks as if many people will make tomorrow a bridge day and make a 4 day weekend out of it.    In the meantime we've got a guy arriving to start pointing a stretch of the wall at the front of the garden. A few stones fell out of it after the frosts in January, and crumbing mortar combined with the removal of Ivy, means that work needs to be done. I have some work to do in the shed so the day will be seized one way or another.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

Edited May 13, 2021 by jamie92208

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl, Inner Temple Hare,

 4.5 hours +1.5 hours plus some not sleeping..

 

Ben the Alarm clock Collie was half an hour early today, which didn't help..

Dry but mostly cloudy out there many of the clouds looking exceedingly dark and thunderous.. which won't please Ben, He was hiding in his cage yesterday evening as we got some thunder but no rain..

 

I have spent sometime working on the handicap spreadsheets. Dinghies added in didn't work, they are just too different.. So I switched to  Keelboats raced locally. The Rebel,  Reedling, Yeoman, Yare and Bure one Design, the Broads One design and the International Star. The results suddenly looked more reliable...

One dinghy survived the cull, the Norfolk Dinghy, it's heavy Clinker built has a steel plate, copper and Brass buoyancy tanks. The overall effect of that, is it's somewhere between a keelboat and dinghy in performance..

 

The thinking behind the switch is Blue Moon is a miniature Keel boat, at 16ft LOA bigger than the Mini 12M equivalents, which are 12 to 14ft. The Local Keelboats are 19 to 25ft. so with Blue Moon sitting between the Commercial mini 12M, it should and has produced a better range of results..

 

 The next thing is to produce graphs of the results, The first hopefully a straight ish line with Blue Moon sitting somewhere near to the line produced by the known handicap boats.. The other graph will be a conversion chart between the known RYA Portsmouth Yardstick handicaps and the Norfolk broads Handicap..

 

 I think yesterdays major system is OK, So I'll hand it back when the operators turn up.. there are spare systems at the moment due to shortage of parts..

 

So it's shrapnel time this morning Little odd resistors etc.

 

Just waiting for a 1 G Ohm to settle.

 

Time to.. wait..

Edited May 13, 2021 by TheQ

[AndrewC]

Good moaning all from the boring borough. 

Work is still a bucket of yak excrement. Dealing with sh*tgibbons, c*ckwombles, asshats, and all around c*ntpuffins on a daily basis is wearing me out. Mangler has decided that I get to do the exit interview for the very disgruntled person who handed in their notice last week. No doubt the mangler is lacking in testicular fortitude and doesn't want an hour of home truths. Second interview today for another potential escape. Wish me some sort of luck. 

 

I will now make a confession. I'm not a fan of pies, cakes, or other baked goods. Meat pies included. I try to limit my carbs as much as possible so apart from the occasional home spun pizza over a wood fire, I avoid such floury things. I guess that not being so keen on them makes avoidance easier.  

 

Just noticed Dom's signature line. Mylène Farmer is a favourite. Which brings me to a gripe around Apple music. Up until the other day I had in my digital library her Greatest pt1 & pt2 album. Went to play it, "permission denied". WTF I say or words to that effect. Turns out it has been removed from Apple, so it is no longer available to either stream, or play even if you've already down loaded it. Not the first time I've had music vanish. P!sses me off royally. I found another album but it is mostly live versions. <sigh> The real kicker is I bought the double CD for MiL a few years ago and it seems to have vanished off the planet. Can't find it anywhere. 

 

enough for the day. Coffee calls, need to look human(ish) as well for the Zoom interview in 3 hours. 

[NGT6 1315]

Re the possibility of tampering, however remote, I did make sure to ask for an alarm device to be fitted to The Replacement. This’ll monitor the engine bonnet as well. Unfortunately, car theft and burglaries in order to lift items such as sat navs, steering wheels or airbags is a fact of big city life as well, so that, too, is certainly worth spending a bit of extra money on.

 

There also was a case where somebody kicked off the passenger side mirror on FiL‘s car a couple of weeks ago. Furthermore, last year, some fooker had spiked a tyre on the Prius with a screw to the sidewall, so maybe a car alarm will go some way to discouraging such vandalism.

Edited May 13, 2021 by NGT6 1315

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Arthur Itis was going hammer and tongs this morning so much so that I could barely move. Almost certainly due to the change in the weather its cooler and damper than the last few days. Second jab today, first was back in February, I was told that I would be contacted re. my second jab but I had to call and fix it myself. Now time to run a bath be back later.

Edited May 13, 2021 by PhilJ W

[PupCam]

Morning all.  

 

I've had to invoke the "Pupper's Patented 'ppointment Procuring Procedure" with the GP for the 4th time in recent weeks this morning.   I'm pleased to say it worked again although the 10 minutes on hold when I did get through did have me twitching!     I was feeling quite reasonable when I awoke this morning but it's all gone downhill since playing the Appointment Lottery but I won't bore you with the details of my afflictions.

 

Anyway, whilst awaiting the telephone call from the doctor (wouldn't a face to face appointment and examination be good for a change!) I feel I may have a crack at downloading and building the code for the DCC++ EX system as it basically involves sitting in my chair and barely moving.   I can also do the mods to the hardware which looks to be the removal of the two jumpers which were part of the original hardware configuration whilst sitting on my rear.

 

Enjoy your day folks!

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

It looks like the weather can’t make its mind up at the moment, one minute it’s dull, then the sun comes out, then it’s dull, then it’s sunny again........... Anyway, I’d best get downstairs and make room for a dozen sheets of plasterboard, as that’s what I plan to pick up if it’s all in stock. I’ll also get a few other items whilst I’m there, I think I’ll need more nails for fitting the ceiling sheets, more jointing tape and some metal plaster edging too. 

 

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

 

Brian

[The Lurker]

15 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Molasses is hard to come by in Europe,

The group I work for supply it widely.

 

However it is used in making animal feed (liquid and dried pellet form), as feedstock for distilling, fertiliser, coating charcoal briquettes, and as an alternative to salt in the grit put down on roads.

 

As far as I know, none of the molasses brought into the UK is used directly in the human food chain