Early Risers.

[Coombe Barton]

28 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

I seem to think that Dick Strawbridge has 2 kitchens one for the events and a smaller day to day one. 

They're both practical - they have to be - and not for show.

 

[Gwiwer]

11 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

I'm not sure the daisy wheel was actually faster than a good electric typewriter and it did make an awful racket.

The only advantage I ever found was the ability to change typeface.  Nowadays it's done with a couple of clicks of a mouse or even at the touch of a screen   

 

9 hours ago, BR60103 said:

I describe myself as "VAX specialist".

I use a Wertheim  

 

9 hours ago, BR60103 said:

I feel that much modern techology is some developer trying to show off how much function he can cram onto one knob.

And just as often demonstrating that the developer is themselves a k**b.  Or is engaged in a peer-group measuring contest of several similar

[Ian Abel]

Best wishes to Brian and Simon and family...

 

HUMP day, nothing exciting OR mundane to report from yesterday. Pretty boring and run-of-the-mill all round.

 

Today much of the same, additional fervent requests for report changes from client.

Later, Jemma will bring Whitney over for a 4 day dog-sit while she flies off again to transport folks hither and yon.

 

12 earlier, mostly cloudy but only 1% chance of rain apparently. High around 22 forecast.

 

Carry on.

[polybear]

Bear had fun packing up the items sold on the 'bay - one in particular was a large L-shape and too big for the loads of cardboard boxes Bear has stashed away; loads of soft packing, jumbo bubble-wrap, brown paper and about 250 yards of parcel tape has succeeded in doing the job though - and it's now an even larger L-shape....

They're now both ear-marked to be collected by Hermes sometime tomorrow - hopefully before Bear goes to college....

 

After that it was a quick sortie to the local Co-op - I did note that the newspaper headlines claimed that the French (Fishing Union?) are getting the Rsole with the UK over fishing licences and threatening to shut down any shipments to and from the UK in the approach to chrimbo.  T0ssers.

 

The other highlight was uncovering the sofa and wall unit that have both been covered over with a dust sheet and plastic drop-sheet for the last year.  So how the hell can the wall unit be covered in dust? 

The next significant job will be to unload the wall unit and pack the contents safely away - some of the contents will go to charity (there's a large display section full of china and glassware that was Momma Bear's) - some difficult decisions will be involved   There's no point me keeping such items, and I'd much rather that I find good homes where possible than risk stuff being dumped if I were to be hit by the Number 279 Bus (other numbers are available.....).  I'll conduct suitable research before re-homing items though, just to make sure they're not worth a £million....

[Sir TophamHatt]

Good evening.

What a week it's been.

 

Had a good time at a little model railway show seeing some units from Europe but also gained a lot of inspiration for my own layout.

 

Master STH is ill, again.  But we've put some things in place to help him (like a bowl!) but still his lively self.

Boiler is leaking after it got serviced.  They've come back but need a service pack.  Not ideal but at least it should be free as the boiler is only two years old.

Gonna try and get the same people to fit a tap on the boiler input too.  It's complicated but as our fridge freezer is in that area, if we want to actually use the water filter and ice maker (considering we've had it 6 years!), it's the only way.

 

But like all around the home, there's little things here and little things there that need doing.  Hopefully by the end of next year, all these things will be sorted.

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Went down to Tess Coes earlier to get a few bits and pieces, again no queues at the filling station and the store was almost empty. 

[polybear]

Bear's local village Fuel Station has fuel available today - and zero queues.  The £1-51/litre price could be a clue there - Bear paid (IIRC) £1-39 yesterday at Tess Coes.

[Gwiwer]

23 minutes ago, polybear said:

Bear's local village Fuel Station has fuel available today - and zero queues.  The £1-51/litre price could be a clue there - Bear paid (IIRC) £1-39 yesterday at Tess Coes.

I haven't needed to look today.  I refuelled a couple of days ago at Tess and Coe's nearby for £1.41 / litre.  There was no queue but 16 other locations I passed before reaching that one offered nothing or diesel only.  

 

Neighbour who is an NHS worker commuting from the Hill of Strawberries to Guildford reports she has had no difficulty refuelling on the A3 though has sometimes had to queue.

 

[JohnDMJ]

 

11 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

G R O A N ! 

That’s bad, John - even by your standards.

 

iD

 

 

Sir, you flatter me!

[tigerburnie]

Evening all, not long back from a glorious wander up one of our local Glens in wall to wall sunshine, only 14 degrees but glorious, we saw White tailed and Golden Eagles along with Buzzards, Red Kites and a Kestrel, never seen so many predators in one day.

 

[Ozexpatriate]

9 hours ago, polybear said:

And in the Servant's Quarters it looks like this......

 

It does seem to be quite some time since you first shared photographs of your work to enclose the underside of the stairway above - back then with no context. It is nice to see how it worked out in-situ in your kitchen. Well done!

 

Sensible choices with the door/drawer pulls. I chose bowed ones. I'm so glad I don't have pulls where the handles extend beyond the mounting points - otherwise I'd be constantly snagging myself on them. (Experienced gained from a prior kitchen where the person 'in charge' chose attractive 'branch'-like pulls with projecting ends that snagged everything.)

[Ozexpatriate]

11 hours ago, AndrewC said:

Either Warners is going to keep increasing the ad usage to the point where people start to tune out, at which time it becomes counter productive, or it is a fiendishly brilliant marketing strategy to p*ss people off and make it very easy to sell a basic no advert subscription model.

I see that the top banner on sub-forum contents pages is now moved back under the first topic where it is more annoying:

 

 

This isn't the first time, but I had preferred it at the top where it could be seen and then scrolled away. At this point I would be very interested in a "Bronze" level "No ads" subscription. Things like free show tickets are not useful to me.

 

[New Haven Neil]

8 hours ago, swampy said:

Taught by a Mrs. Emslie, ISTR (on the left). We were told she was brought in as a part-time teacher from a firm to teach computer programming. I kept my exercise book with the flow charts and punch tape sellotaped in for decades until a clear-out.  

 

You're another SSGTSB victim then!  I was just talking elsewhere about Jock Thompson.....

 

I genuinely don't recall Mrs Emslie, I just don't recall a computer studies teacher.  This is possibly a reflection of how much i didn't enjoy it - or much else in that school bar metalwork.

 

P-Bear, the way the washer sticks out from under the worktop a smidge (a little known metric unit) is the same as ours, it collects every crumb like a crumby magnety thing.  Does my head in, why cant they make then a little slimmer so they don;t stick out from a standard worktop.

[Coombe Barton]

... ardent Brexiter tries, in court, to invoke EU law in a defence - the hypocrisy! ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2021/10/06/more-than-eight-million/

[PhilJ W]

Hello again from Estuary-Land. At my local Tesco's E10 petrol is 134.9 a litre with diesel a penny more. However when I topped up yesterday I did so with E5 premium as the car doesn't seem to like E10. At the moment it is about one third E5 and two thirds E10 in the tank at the moment and the car seems to like it. I'll know more after the trip to Wakes Colne on Sunday. (The reason I topped up as I'm not certain that the petrol queues will not be back.)

 

[Gwiwer]

44 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

White tailed and Golden Eagles along with Buzzards, Red Kites and a Kestrel, never seen so many predators in one day.

Oooh nice.

 

A few years ago I would have been surprised to see any of those anywhere near here.  But today we see Buzzards weekly and red kites almost as often.  Pretty sure we sighted a kestrel twice last year as well.  When I first started "ticking" birds the only significant and reliable place to see Red Kites was the Elenith Valley of mid-Wales; a long-weekend cycle trip was duly arranged and they obliged by soaring above the mountain ridge for us near the Dolaucothau gold mines.  

 

There seems to be dissent in the ranks locally over pronunciation.  I have always referred to the common bird of prey as a BUZZ-ard.  It might be the local upper-middle-class creeping in but we hear them referred to as Buz-ZARDS more often than not.  What ever.  Tomarto - tomayto and all that.  

 

We celebrate 26 years of marriage tomorrow.  Circumstances determine that I shall spend the evening with only the cat for company.  Dr. SWMBO is a guest of the Japanese Ambassador at an evening reception prior to RBG Kew opening their autumn Japanese event.  It's too late for an early riser on a school night so she is instead being accompanied by a friend who, among other things, is researching Japanese culture and history and may enjoy the evening far more than I would.  We shall celebrate instead on Saturday although a couple of surprises are lined up for earlier in the day tomorrow when Dr. SWMBO will be working from home.  

 

 

[J. S. Bach]

 

10 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

 ...snip... We celebrate 26 years of marriage tomorrow.  ...snip...

26 YEARS! CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

Edited October 6, 2021 by J. S. Bach

[PhilJ W]

15 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

P-Bear, the way the washer sticks out from under the worktop a smidge (a little known metric unit) is the same as ours, it collects every crumb like a crumby magnety thing.  Does my head in, why cant they make then a little slimmer so they don;t stick out from a standard worktop.

In my kitchen the back door opening is 55cm from one wall and 65cm from the other. Fortunately the pipework and drains are on the 65cm side. I have drawn up plans for a replacement kitchen taking advantage of most kitchen units although 60cm deep have a 10cm space behind them for pipes etc. The intention is to narrow the units on the narrow side as the space behind them is not required and extend the units on the wider side with wider tops that will cover the washing machine (and the dishwasher if I decide to have one). At the moment though the finances won't go to a new kitchen.

[PhilJ W]

Best wishes to you and your good lady for tomorrow Rick.

[simontaylor484]

I love Japanese gardens I even tried to grow a small Japanese holly (ilex crenata) and cloud prune it sadly the dog broke it. Also I enjoy the symbolic nature of the gardens 

[simontaylor484]

Feeling a bit flattened this evening, her ladyship rang at 4 to say she was being allowed home and was just waiting for discharge paperwork. Giving me chance to give the kids tea and youngest to do his art homework. We set off at 6pm we got to the Rothwell junction 30 and the phone rang she has had a further seizure and they are keeping her in. Of course we had left her clean pjs at home. When we got there she was incredibly tired. There is an elderly lady in the next bed who was always talking to her self and trying to get out of bed saying she wants to go to bed she frightened the youngest to bits. In the room she is in  they are all having to be watched 24/7 for various reasons 

[Andrew P]

Happy Anniversary Rick @Gwiwer and you good Lady.

[polybear]

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

It does seem to be quite some time since you first shared photographs of your work to enclose the underside of the stairway above - back then with no context. It is nice to see how it worked out in-situ in your kitchen. Well done!

 

 

Many thanks - I'm pleased with the way the re-shaping of the stair box has worked out, it was a fair bit of work at the time but the difference it's made was well worth it I think.

 

1 hour ago, New Haven Neil said:

P-Bear, the way the washer sticks out from under the worktop a smidge (a little known metric unit) is the same as ours, it collects every crumb like a crumby magnety thing.  Does my head in, why cant they make then a little slimmer so they don;t stick out from a standard worktop.

 

It'd be good if it were a little further back - in fact it will go back a little more but I don't want to risk the washer touching pipework etc. and risk damage due to vibration.  Part of the issue is that I've replaced the standard cold fill pipe with a clever one (that's more bulky) that supposedly shuts off the water automatically if the pipe splits.  Supposedly.....

I guess making the machine flush with the front of the worktop would mean a smaller drum - so less clothes could be washed in one go, which wouldn't be a selling point.  The other option would be to position the fill pipe and drain pipework such that it wasn't directly behind the washer - that would allow it to go back another 1" - 1.5" or so which work probably do the trick.  However in practice that would be a bit of a pain to do.

[figworthy]

14 hours ago, polybear said:

 

Bear still misses the office photocopier - the amount of personal stuff that got printed on there (by all in the office) was unreal; it was very fast, high quality, A3 and colour.  It was also a very fast scanner - Bear has the first 150 issues of a certain MR magazine scanned and saved on hard drive; it did take a while - and whilst Bear did receive several strange looks from the HoD he never actually bounced me for doing it.

 

I remember hearing the tale (best part of 40 years ago) about a boss wondering why they were using so much paper in their quiet season.  What he didn't know was that several of his staff were using the photocopier to produce the newsletters for their various hobby/interest groups.

 

Adrian

[Gwiwer]

2 minutes ago, figworthy said:

 

I remember hearing the tale (best part of 40 years ago) about a boss wondering why they were using so much paper in their quiet season.  What he didn't know was that several of his staff were using the photocopier to produce the newsletters for their various hobby/interest groups.

 

Adrian

We encountered the same problem at one of my Australian employments.  The bean-counters countered that by locking the copier to the FollowMe system which required each user to enter their unique PIN on the keypad to release the machine.  The system them counted copied made by each user and charged them accordingly.  Legitimate use was fee-waived; any question over excess use had to be supported by proven business requirements.