Early Risers.

[TheQ]

Today is Trafalgar day 216 years ago..

 

[Ian Abel]

Moaning on a chilly BIN day!

 

Yesterday the memorial celebration we attended was very fitting and moving - all the family continuing to be grateful for the Mrs work with Michelle.

We then went to Jemmas' for a light repast and relax.

Also, the new patio furniture arrived, oddly, compared to so much these days it was scheduled to arrive "October 21-26" so we were quite surprised/pleased.

All that remains is for me to spend 3+ hours assembling the contents of three very large boxes

 

Today - continuing to get my head around the wholesale changes required for the new "Cash Flow Statement" - accountants and auditors needs psychiatric help IMHO!!!

Later, schola rehearsal - sadly with the spike in COVID cases in the state, we're electing to NOT have our pre-rehearsal happy hour, as it's cool enough that we'd need to be indoors and several of the group (myself included) will err on the side of precaution.

 

View from my office window shows some of the colours that abound locally, there are some more impressive and deeper reds down the street away.

 

A mere 4 and sunny at BIN time, expected to reach a whopping 9 for the high.

 

Tally ho.

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Should have gone shopping today, all that was in the fridge was a bacon and cheese quiche and some chips so that was dinner. 

1 hour ago, polybear said:

Complete b****x of the day:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58993387

Unbelievable

To think that he is related to me on on my mothers side of the family. The connection goes back to the early 18th century where there is a common ancestor. Did I tell you that I have an ancestor on my dads side of the family who was hung for piracy?

[BSW01]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

Complete b****x of the day:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58993387

Unbelievable

I think it's time we put Bertie Wooster in charge, oh, wait a minute........... 

Edited October 21, 2021 by BSW01

[tigerburnie]

Evening all, had the day in Perth, took the grandsons to their swimming lessons as they are on tattie fortnight half term break, not seen them swimming for around 2 years, they are very good, they both began lessons at 1 year old at Waterbabies, we have pictures of them like the Nirvana album cover. Been a nice day though very cold, the hill tops have a dusting of snow, seemingly it was snowing in Braemar last night.

[simontaylor484]

35 minutes ago, BSW01 said:

I think it's time we put Bertie Wooster in charge, oh, wait a minute........... 

At least he would have Jeeves to help out

[pH]

View from our front deck four years and one day ago:

 

[Gwiwer]

3 hours ago, polybear said:

Complete b****x of the day:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58993387

Unbelievable

 

That's the same as saying children in class don't need masks because they all know each other.  Where is a very significant proportion of the infection currently?  Among 10 - 18 year olds.  

 

3 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

I solved the iron cord problem by buying a "cordless" iron

 

I have an ironless cord if you'd like to make up the set   

[Ozexpatriate]

17 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Whilst much of British “chocolate“ (and nearly all American “chocolate“) would not be recognised as such by most true chocolate aficionados, there’s only so much “improving” (i.e. substituting cheap/synthetic ingredients for expensive/natural ingredients) companies can do before even the most casual of chocolate consumers realises that something is “off”.

I would not argue that the Swiss are properly known for their chocolate, but even the mass produced-for-export, Swiss products* are only a little better than their British or American high volume competitors. There are many US alternatives to the chocolate-industrial complex (Hershey), in particular I refer to smaller producers than Ghiradelli (known for their San Francisco roots) which itself is quite good for volume manufacturing (equal to Lindt to my taste - perhaps unsurprisingly**).

 

* Like Lindt bars, Toblerone, etc (though I will say Lindt's LINDOR brand is nice).

 

** Ghiradelli is a subsidiary of Chocoladefabriken Lindt & Sprüngli AG. It makes me wonder how much Lindt product sold in the US is made in the US.

 

Fresh Continental chocolate is amazing. A colleague brought back an assortment of fresh chocolates (not individually wrapped) from a Parisian Chocolaterie. I've never tasted chocolate as good.

 

Edited October 21, 2021 by Ozexpatriate

[Barry O]

This message comes via the Late and Never Early Railway lo fi.

Their are some nuggets in life. Acouple complained that LNER were useless as , for the second time, tickets bought from train line gave them reservations in coaches which weren't there..erm..easy don't use train line as they still think all the trains are IC225sets.. nope these are zooming along.

 

Had a great day with the old Challenger 2 team..wrongs have been righted!

 

 

Significant temperature drop noticed already..and we are in our air conditioned coach..

 

Borough Market was visited..seems to be acknowledged its pre coving self.

 

Baz

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

Hope all’s well.

Nothing of interest to report and tired so goodnight ,

Robert

[Gwiwer]

30 minutes ago, Barry O said:

This message comes via the Late and Never Early Railway lo fi.

A friend sent me a picture today of a railway boundary marker still set in the ground on a busy road outside the station.  Which station I'm not going to say because these things are rather uncommon.  It says "LB&SCR"  

 

For the "Late, Bu**ered & Severely Chaotic Railway", perhaps?  

 

I also know of some GWR ones and what is believed to be a genuine West Cornwall Railway one in situ but again the location is not going on the internet.  Not even the relative sanctity or ERs.  

[Coombe Barton]

...  man from another planet, him say ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2021/10/21/you-just-cant-make-it-up/

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Nothing of interest to report here either.

38 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

A friend sent me a picture today of a railway boundary marker still set in the ground on a busy road outside the station.  Which station I'm not going to say because these things are rather uncommon.  It says "LB&SCR"  

 

For the "Late, Bu**ered & Severely Chaotic Railway", perhaps?  

 

I also know of some GWR ones and what is believed to be a genuine West Cornwall Railway one in situ but again the location is not going on the internet.  Not even the relative sanctity or ERs.  

I know of a disused bridge which has some bricks stamped GER.

[TheSignalEngineer]

22 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

...  man from another planet, him say ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2021/10/21/you-just-cant-make-it-up/

Sadly I cannot post my views of that eejit here as the profanity police will have me in the Tower. Suffice it to say I am not impressed by him.

 

[polybear]

49 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

...  man from another planet, him say ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2021/10/21/you-just-cant-make-it-up/

 

It totally mystifies this Bear just why our glorious leaders have such a downer on bringing back mask wearing.  It's free, it's easy and it works.  FFS

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, Gwiwer said:

A friend sent me a picture today of a railway boundary marker still set in the ground on a busy road outside the station.  Which station I'm not going to say because these things are rather uncommon.  It says "LB&SCR"  

 

For the "Late, Bu**ered & Severely Chaotic Railway", perhaps?  

 

I also know of some GWR ones and what is believed to be a genuine West Cornwall Railway one in situ but again the location is not going on the internet.  Not even the relative sanctity or ERs.  

I'll keep awY from politics however I hesrd the LBSCR refered to as the Long, Boring, Slow and Comfortable Railway, of course it's neighbour to the west was the Long and Slow Way Round that competed with the Great Way Round in some areas.

 

Jamie

[TheSignalEngineer]

3 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

It totally mystifies this Bear just why our glorious leaders have such a downer on bringing back mask wearing.  It's free, it's easy and it works.  FFS

It's more than free. Since the end of the VAT holiday the mandating of mask wearing would in fact make money for the Treasury. 

[Tony_S]

Aditi persuaded me that a trip to the tip would be a good thing to do after lunch. So we set off to Canvey Island. As we approached the bridge under the railway line at Benfleet station the roundabout exit had a sign saying road closed so I carried on round the roundabout to head away. The car in front decided to join a few other cars beyond the road closed sign. Well he did and then stopped and his reversing lights came on. The road under the bridge was flooded and I assume the pumps had failed as there was a tanker attempting to remove the water. There were a few cars there just waiting. We did get to Canvey by the other route. It was quite quiet at the tip. 

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

Shopping was shopped and the rest of the day was spent doing bu99er all, although I did manage an hour in the cellar working on the engine shed office roof, i made the body for the chimney stack and I’ve almost finished one side of the roof. 

 

I had a and a message from Vickie asking about a booster pump for their shower in the attic, as the water pressure isn’t great. I quick search on the net found just the thing, so I called Ian and told him what I’d found and he’s going to order 2, one for each of their showers, so I expect I’ll be asked to fit one in the next day or so. 

 

This afternoon, I watched the first episode of the ‘Hornby’ programme, it’s not brilliant, but it is interesting, so I’ll carry on with it. 

[BSW01]

1 minute ago, Tony_S said:

Aditi persuaded me that a trip to the tip would be a good thing to do after lunch. So we set off to Canvey Island. As we approached the bridge under the railway line at Benfleet station the roundabout exit had a sign saying road closed so I carried on round the roundabout to head away. The car in front decided to join a few other cars beyond the road closed sign. Well he did and then stopped and his reversing lights came on.  

There are always that select few, who think that they can ignore these signs aren’t there?

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[laurenceb]

Night awl

[Ozexpatriate]

9 hours ago, The Lurker said:

although to be fair, Fall was used in England long ago, and is the opposite of Spring. I suspect Autumn was just us wanting to get all continental and sophisticated

Apparently Chaucer has an early documented use of "Autumn".

Quote

Chaucer may have been the first (Middle) English author to use “autumn.” In his translation of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy (c. 1380), the Latin “autumnus” morphs into Old-French “autumpne” in a line about Boreas, the Greek God of the North Wind.

 

English use of "Fall" predated it by a very long time:

Quote

Indeed, the use of fall to denote the season after summer appears to have been more widely in use during the Middle Ages. It comes from the Old English fiæll or Old Norse feallan — both meaning literally to fall.

 

Tangentially it makes me wonder when the "English"* started using only the Julian Calendar. Presumably this had currency in Roman Britain but Old English had (lunar) month names like:

 

haligmonaþ - September - holy month (Halimath)

winterfylleþ - October - winter full moon (Winterfilth)

blotmonaþ - November - blood sacrifice month (Blotmath)

ærra geola - December - before Yule (Foreyule)

 

Parenthetical forms are from Tolkien's Shire Calendar.

* By which I mean some jumble of Anglo-Saxon/Danelaw peoples rather than the current boundary.

 

The Venerable Bede apparently documented these names in 725 and provided correlations between the Anglo-Saxon and Julian calendar months. Presumably contemporary Latinate documents used the Julian calendar.

 

Did the wannabe French, Norman Vikings nix the Anglo-Saxon calendar or did the conversion of the English to Christianity cause use of the Anglo-Saxon calendar to wane because saints' days were defined by the Julian calendar?

 

So far Google is unhelpful. I guess we used to call them the "Dark Ages" for a reason, even if that is a misnomer.

 

[Ozexpatriate]

A dull grey day here. Apparently there is something the meteorologists breathlessly call a "bomb cyclone"* off shore. It will bring rain this evening, but unlike the Columbus Day Storm of 1962, it won't visit us directly in Portland, travelling rather to southern Alaska/British Columbia, and presumably north of Vancouver.

 

* A low pressure system where barometric pressures drop rapidly - 24mbar over 24 hours (extra-tropical Explosive cyclogenesis)

 

Having gone out to fetch the mail I was surprised to note that we hit 18°C. It didn't look like it would be that 'warm'. Some devices (like my 'phone) suggest we hit 21°C.

 

It is supposed to rain a lot over the next three days.

 

Edited October 21, 2021 by Ozexpatriate