Early Risers.

[Coombe Barton]

2 minutes ago, Dave47549 said:

Plainsong, however. Now you're talking! :

I'll put some on the blog

[jonny777]

The sun has broken through the cloud here in North Somerset and the temperature is heading towards 20C. 

 

I've been on bindweed duty (removal) because the stuff has suddenly appeared. I'm sure it grows at a foot a minute when my back is turned. 

 

I managed to cut both front and back grass before the rain arrived yesterday afternoon. There is another dollop (technical term) visible moving north towards the French coast, but it might just miss us and go more over Hampshire, Wiltshire and Sussex. 

 

Our 4am blackbird serenade usually wakes me up. It is so regular that I could set my clock by it, but fortunately only lasts about 10 minutes after which the bird seems to fly off in search of earthworms and relative quiet is restored. 

[PupCam]

1 hour ago, PupCam said:

A functional, direct connection between the phone and the Arduino continues to allude Puppers but he will not be beaten!

 

And he wasn't!

 

I hope such graphically, explicit model railway content does not breech any ER rules of etiquette! 

 

But it works all for about £30 of hardware and lots of free software

 

 

[iL Dottore]

Andrew,

 

Here are some demos of the HIWATT Custom Little D Amp & Cab. Sadly, the second bloke doing a great cover of Shine On is NOT me 

 

 

 

And don't be fooled by the 20W/0.5W settings - even at 0.5W I can blast out the neighbours....

Edited June 3, 2021 by iL Dottore

[polybear]

1 hour ago, Dave47549 said:

Plainsong, however. Now you're talking! :

 

 

 

Aren't you supposed to do the tuning up before the audience arrives??

And one of those guys must've been in a punch-up the day before - and came off the worse for it judging by those shiners....

 

Too late.....gone.....

[The Lurker]

Greetings from Sidcup which continues to bask in the sun, although tomorrow is supposed to be colder and wet. A lazy day today, not working. Younger Lurker is revising for end of year exams - his first such experience.

 

on Monday evening as I was putting out the last of the rubbish for the collection on Tuesday morning I noticed an ambulance over the road. Turns out the guy there had a massive heart attack and died. He’d been seemingly well until then. I would guess he was in his mid 70’s although in 17 years here I’d never asked him his age. His wife is bearing up, all things considered.

 

anyway, enjoy the rest of your day!

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. It's 26 degrees C here at the moment so who wants to go abroad? Especially as Portugal has just been removed from the green list. Looks as if some more of the kidney stone is making its exit so drinking a lot of water to help it on its way. Will be getting in touch with the surgery shortly to have things checked out, I'm expecting a call from them to arrange a sound scan to check that nothings stuck in the pipework. Heavy showers predicted for later tonight and tomorrow and probably thundery with it, should cool things down a bit.

[Andrew P]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Andrew,

 

Here are some demos of the HIWATT Custom Little D Amp & Cab. Sadly, the second bloke doing a great cover of Shine On is NOT me 

 

 

 

And don't be fooled by the 20W/0.5W settings - even at 0.5W I can blast out the neighbours....

Awesome, AWESOME, AWESOME AWESOME.

 

I want one.

[iL Dottore]

8 minutes ago, Andrew P said:

Awesome, AWESOME, AWESOME AWESOME.

 

I want one.

I wanted one too.

HIWATT in the UK no longer stocked the HIWATT Custom Little D Amp & Cab (and wanted A LOT just for the new generation Little rig head [no cab] at about £1700). They suggested that I contact the Swiss importer to see if they had any. I wrote to the Swiss importer and Yes, they had one in stock and Yes they could do me a great package price (a fraction under £940 for head and WEM cab including VAT and delivery). Sadly, I had to sell a few guitars to raise the funds (Mrs iD was most adament), but I am glad that I did. The amp really is awesome.

[Pacific231G]

Afternoon all

Fairly fruitful day today so far. Did all my neck exercises and my 4K brisk walk before it got too hot. finally got some sense out of the law firm handling a personal injury claim, lunch on the patio, then I raked the lawn. Since I'm not an Englishman that suggests I'm a mad dog . According to the BBC forecast, it's going to remain fine and sunny until the middle of June so check the umbrella!

The hot weather is making it hard for my fridge to refrigerate, It's up to 8 C but I thinj that's because it gets so full after my weekly shop.

 

Looks like any chance of getting to the CF de la Baie de Somme's  Féte de la Vapeur the first weekend of July is kyboshed. We're not supposed to go there for non-essential reasons because France is amber and they won't let us in anyway thanks to the delta variant here. Thankyou Boris for not responding to the situation in India for three weeks. As Enstein never actually said "Madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome" (The actual quote seems to be "From the standpoint of the psychology of personal constructs we may define a disorder as any personal construction which is used repeatedly in spite of consistent invalidation." This was in  The 1955 book "The Psychology of Personal Constructs” by George A. Kelly ) 

Edited June 3, 2021 by Pacific231G

[polybear]

Little details:

 

Major design flaws in Army's new armoured vehicles, report shows

The MoD halted trials for four months following complaints that crews were suffering from temporary hearing loss and aching joints.

The MoD says the trials resumed in March. But the leaked report says crews are still having to observe strict health and safety restrictions, including "limiting time in the platform to one hour 30 before a crew change or speed restrictions of 20mph" - which is less than half its top speed.

The report also notes the "vehicle cannot reverse over an obstacle more than 20cm high". Defence experts say many of the problems stem from additional armour protection being put on the original hull, which has seen an increase in weight from 19 to more than 40 tonnes.

 

Francis Tusa, a defence analyst, described Ajax "as the Army's Nimrod" - the planned Maritime Patrol Aircraft scrapped in 2010 at a cost of £4bn, without a single aircraft entering service.

Mr Tusa said the only thing the Ajax programme seemed to have delivered so far was tinnitus.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57348573

 

Rumour has it that a certain fellow ER'er was last seen banging his head against a brick wall.....

[Ian Abel]

YIKES!!!

The holiday weekend got away from me, then the beginning of the week did the same

 

Holiday weekend was very full with activities, dinner with Trevor and Meagan, happy hour(s) with friends and some putzing in the garden for good measure!

 

Work week (Tuesday) started off with a rash of requests/requirements for the Long Island client, keeping my head down <phew>

 

So here we are Thursday already (BINs shifted to tomorrow due to holiday Monday), and Jemma expected this afternoon. Taking a long weekend down here with us as Brendan is visiting family in Denver - jet setters all

 

The weather was delightful the entire holiday weekend and through yesterday, today though it starts to get "NASTY".

Was already 18 getting the newspaper, and headed for 30!

The next WEEK is expected to be highs from 33 to 36 with overnight only in the low 20s.

I HATE really hot weather and the high humidity ("Minnesota - Land of `10,000 Lakes") we get with it is miserable.

 

Carry on, stay safe.

[simontaylor484]

Afternoon all 

 

The Cliff Richard Organization sounds like some form of mafia type thing.

 

Misheard lyrics Peter Kay did a good sketch of that on one of his shows.

 

Weird Al Yankovitch his parody of Coolio s Gangsters Paradise Amish Paradise i have shared on this thread before.

 

I remember Terry Wogan playing occasionally a recording of Elvis lonesome tonight he sings "looking in the mirror at your bald head wishing you had hair.  He cracks up laughing but the backing singers carry on. 

 

 

[Pacific231G]

13 hours ago, BR60103 said:

The rule in computing used to be: Take your estimate; double the number and increase the units to the next higher. A job that should take 2 days will be 4 weeks.

 

With higher exponents for government work?

 

For a filming day,  the rule was to double the longest time it could possibly sensibly take then add a fairly large time constant we knew as C.B.A.T. (Compulsory B****ring  Around Time)  If "talent" was involved both factors increased considerably. 

The one thing as director you quickly learnt to never ever ever do was to use the W word unless you were absolutely, totally, definitely certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that you really had finished the job.

 

For preparing an unmentionable for an event whose nature must never be uttered on ER, similar factors apply.

Edited June 3, 2021 by Pacific231G

[Erichill16]

Afternoon All,

Just been for a walk and saw this. It reminds me we haven't  heard from NewBrayford for while!

[Barry O]

Ey u! Been for a walk or two others far from @leopardml2341

Who may recognise 

 

Had some beer at various places including the Navigation...

 

Now for a shower before I size up!!

Baz

[Barry O]

@polybear Frances Tusa spouts some carp. Uk PlC cut up New Nimrod to later buy a 737 with the same electronics fit.

 

As for Ajax it was always going to fail. An Austro Spanish vehicle which is far too heavily and has always had serious problems. Problem was the bean counters in BAE gave the job to Marconi for their bid.. but we kicked them off CR2 as they were carp...

 

Baz

Edited June 3, 2021 by Barry O

[TheQ]

I see accommodation perfectly suitable for our troops , is not good enough for illegal immigrants...

 

The boat yard that lends us motorboats for guardships for the 3 Rivers Race not can't... They're all booked out....

So they are lending us America..

 

 

 

 

No not the country, but the yacht below which is also a former competitor..

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

Agfternoon all,

 

and time that bl**dy e4ditor was shot for repetition ad infinitum.

 

A nice day yesterday with next door doing some weeding of out r front garden and then quaffig Pimms until unforecast, but obviously approaching, rain drove the outdoor natterers indoors - for at least 90 further minutes of nattering.  But she's great fun and as she really loves weeding (yes, really) we are more than happy to help her on her path to her personal. Nirvana.  in contrast this evening might see artificial watering of the veg patch after another dry & warm day biut this time without any hint of rain either forecast or apparent in the sky.

 

Today's post arrived with a freebie bookazine about certain locomtoives from the failing days of that once great Glasgoq w railway firm that had become. NBL.  I see my name is in teh credits but must go through it ti find what I've got in this one as i can't remember contributing anythong to this specific one - but i must have.  

 

Arduino man seems more than capable of doing things other than Sopwith Pups  but i do wish the folk who make such things would get the sounds right - even a short trip driving one of those will quickly bring to your notice a lot more sounds than seem to make it to the model world..  `thanks Baz for some sound words about the Ajax project which from what little I already knew about looked like a shambles hoping for a home somewhere.   only trouble is our tax money pays the twits who buy such stuff on our behalf.

 

I hear that we are now banned from the EU unless we have a proper reason to go there and i can but really blame our own Govt this time round as they seem to have about as much idea about how to operate border health controls as our cats.  That lesson should have been learnt last year but is still being ignored even today as people coming from Portugal 'have. a few days grace' before it is reduced frim Green to Amber status - reall idiot stuff.  So the message still has to be 'stay safe'.

 

Enjoy the rest of your day and looking forward to some good news about all the ailing

[Barry O]

I wonder if the author of the bookazine bothered to talk to Alistair Wright? I spoke to him earlier this year. Wotked for NBL ( starting as an engineering apprentice)....

Baz

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

Well that was trickier than I expected it to be! Although, to be fair, I knew it wasn’t a straight forward job, given the amount of pipework there was in that particular corner, not to mention the light switch the 3 sockets. The only part I haven’t done yet, is the other side of the inner door, as I need to cut into a fresh sheet, but as this bit is only 8 inches wide, I’ll wait until I’ve some off cuts and use them for this bit. Anyway, it’s done now and looking a lot better for it too. 

 

The next wall to tackle is only a short on, but it links the wall I’ve just done to the wall next to the outside door. I still have 2 full sheets of plasterboard, which is enough to do that wall, both sides of the chimney breast and the small section next to the inner door. So when that’s done, it’ll leave just one wall and the chimney breast to do, but I’ll need 4 more sheets of plasterboard for that, which is less than I’d initially expected. I’m assuming that’s down to me using up all the offcuts up efficiently. 

 

Once id packed up for the day, I spent an hour or so doing some eyelid inspection. 

[Coombe Barton]

I bought an irregular occurrence magazine from an emporium in Bath, and as there was an amount of postage to pay, also bought one of their other featured publications on the construction of processed and solidified hydrocarbon building kits.

Reading that resulted in me saying s0d it and causing a precipitation of items previously alluded to being dispatched from Cornwall and Merseyside.

Decoration and application of solvent will be achieved at a later date.

Have I avoided the awl?

 

 

Edited June 3, 2021 by Coombe Barton
Can't blame autocorrect for that one.

[polybear]

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Sadly, I had to sell a few guitars to raise the funds (Mrs iD was most adament)........

 

So Captain Cynical isn't quite the fearless supervillain he'd have us all believe then.......

 

58 minutes ago, TheQ said:

I see accommodation perfectly suitable for our troops , is not good enough for illegal immigrants...

 

 

 

Bear's thoughts echo TheQ's.

I daresay the accomodation being whinged about is far preferable to a Syrian warzone.  And I wonder if any arrests for arson were made after they torched the place a while back?

Is that a Rant?

[PhilJ W]

Hello again from Estuary-Land. The personal plumbing seems to be getting back to normal though the extra water drunk has to go somewhere so I'm getting plenty of exercise running up the stairs to the loo. Time to get dinner ready, early as there's another Zoom meeting tonight. 

[Ozexpatriate]

12 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

In regards to modern musical parodies, arguably the king of ‘em all is Weird Al Yankovitch (two of my favourites of his are Fat [a take off of Michael Jackson’s Bad] and Eat It [a take off of Michael Jackson’s Beat It]). And they are very cleverly done as well, pretty much copying all of the original MTV Video, but with a Weird Al twist.

In the US (before Weird Al), there was a nationally syndicated, weekly radio show called "Dr. Demento" named for the persona of the host who played novelty and parody music.  Originally he played songs by people like Tom Lehrer and Stan Freberg. I remember him being on KLSX (then playing "classic rock" hence the klassix call letters) in the late 1980s.

 

It was Dr. Demento that catapulted Weird Al to fame when:

Quote

... in 1976, Hansen spoke at Yankovic's school where Yankovic gave a self-recorded tape of comedy songs and parodies to Hansen*. ... Hansen then funded Yankovic's first EP, Another One Rides the Bus**, which eventually led to a record deal and pop chart success in the 1980s and beyond. 

* Barry Hansen whose alter ego was Dr. Demento.

 

** A parody of Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" without the 80's video treatments of "Eat It" and "Like a Surgeon".