Early Risers.

[iL Dottore]

If I were to run good restaurant with an extensive whisky bar and if I decided to offer the above mentioned Tallisker 44 yo, using the “generous” 35ml standard measure I would get 20 servings out of one bottle. This gives me a base cost of £190/measure. If I follow the average restaurant and their markups I would charge either 50% markup (= £285/glass) or 100% markup (= £380/glass), should I push my luck (as many restaurants do on drinks markups) I could go for a £300% markup (£570/glass).

Thing is, some people will pay £570/glass (if not more) as Salt Bae has shown. For such people it’s all about showing off how much money they’ve got/can throw away.

Sorting the booze is easy (very rate bottles + > 300% markup) Now if I can find a way to flog frozen burgers and oven chips at obscene prices, I’ll have my first Bentley in 3 months….

 

I wonder if @polybear is any good at applying gold leaf to frozen burgers and gold sprinkles to oven chips?

 

p.s. interesting factoid: pizza in a restaurant has one of the highest markups on the entire menu (if not the highest)

[simontaylor484]

Surely Captain Cynical would refill the empty bottles with some cheap malt or even blended whisky andvsell that at £380 A glass.

Couldvi have a 10%cut of profits for putting it in the suggestion box for fleecing the mega rich

[TheQ]

Afternoon Awl,

The first couple of miles of the race was a right pain, not enough wind but at least the tide was with us.

We had a wayfarer in the fleet which was interesting as the have roughly the same waterline length, but a slightly bigger sail area, their handicap is about 7% faster.

 

This week's modifications worked well, they will be kept, but set up slightly better.

It helped blue moon keep up better with the fleet, on the down race BM was last but a couple of hundred yards behind the Wayfarer, and we were within sight of the last yeoman also 7%. Faster on handicap.

 

The up river race we were first, for about 100 yards.. yep a very good start, then all the faster boats swept past.

 Kept up well on the down wind section. Once we turned to go up the Bure, we lost out as the faster boats  got clear air and went. But.. BM was handling well and pointing high,. She was doing a lot less tacks than the wayfarer, once we got to the trees the fleet concertina'd up, and BMs handling was beginning to pay off, ever so slowly we caught up, and 100 yards from the finish we over took the wayfarer. 

So I'm happy now with BMs performance, I will measure up soon for a new jib and main I think that's going to be the next step in improving performance..

 

Got back here with a soggy botty though. Launching the dinghy, to take BM back across the river, I slipped on the slipway, landed on my backside just in 1/2 inch of water, didn't even get my feet wet.  Pulled myself out of the water with my hands even they didn't get wet..

[The White Rabbit]

10 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

Surely Captain Cynical would refill the empty bottles with some cheap malt or even blended whisky and sell that at £380 A glass.

Could I have a 10%cut of profits for putting it in the suggestion box for fleecing the mega rich?

 

Sorry to disappoint Simon but this is an old trick, including in Northern Ireland during the 'Troubles'. Twas a major money spinner for the paramilitary groups. OK, maybe not Tallisker at £Kwhatever but on a similar principle. 

 

35 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

...Now if I can find a way to flog frozen burgers and oven chips at obscene prices, I’ll have my first Bentley in 3 months….

 

I wonder if @polybear is any good at applying gold leaf to frozen burgers and gold sprinkles to oven chips?

 

p.s. interesting factoid: pizza in a restaurant has one of the highest markups on the entire menu (if not the highest)

 

Takeaway food has a high mark-up and given the tendency for purchasers to pay in cash, is very prone to 'manipulation' of accounts. Going back a few years, a certain fish and chip outlet in a certain Yorkshire village I know well, with a shop floor footprint smaller than most ER's living rooms, managed to send their three daughters to 'finishing school' in Switzerland. Paying cash... as in a suitcase-full... 

 

Could I mention a particular friend of mine, a cousin actually, who just happens to have a nice range of Bentleys for sale... I won't ask for a referral commission, we'll sort that out between ourselves... 

[BoD]

Evening all.

 

Relaxing now after spending  today running things on parallel metal rails for the entertainment of visitors to the NT at Ormesby Hall.  It is a rather special layout we have there and were this not Wheeltappers I would post a couple of pictures and let you be the judges.

 

Regarding whisky,  I number of years ago I invested in ‘advance’ bottles of Founder’s Reserve from the Isle of Arran distillery.  It was, I guess, their way of funding the startup of the distillery.  The bottles arrived after said number of years and have increased in value but are not yet rare enough to make selling them that worthwhile.  The number I own has decreased through, err, natural wastage, anyway. 
 

The rarest bottle I have is going for up to 1.5k at the moment.  That one I may hang on to a bit longer.

[iL Dottore]

27 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

Surely Captain Cynical would refill the empty bottles with some cheap malt or even blended whisky andvsell that at £380 A glass.

Couldvi have a 10%cut of profits for putting it in the suggestion box for fleecing the mega rich

The problem with that suggestion, Simon, is that there will be invariably somebody who actually does know what a £380 glass of whiskey is supposed to taste like and would kick up an unholy stink!

 

No, I think what should be done is to use all the dregs from the single malt whiskey bottles, “blend” them together and bottle of them as something exquisitely rare (which technically indeed it is – as no other combination of malt whiskey bottle drags is likely to mimic it or match it) and thus considerably expensive. Plus, if you add together the number of years each contributing whiskey is aged, with suitable weasel wording you could get away with claiming it to be (for example) “80 years of vintage“ or some such….
 

Simon, if you can source unusual, elegant and extremely expensive looking bottles for our (ahem) “exclusive” single malt whiskies, I will be happy to turn over 15% of the gross profit on each bottle to you!

[simontaylor484]

I have visited the Arran Distillery at Lochranza in 1998 I did sample the wares on a tour but i am afraid I'm not a lover of fire water

 

[Ozexpatriate]

9 hours ago, chrisf said:

I shall ... gaze nostalgically, perhaps through a tearful eye, at the weedy earth where the strawberry bed used to be.

Not much unlike the local strawberry farmers here.  Two different local news channels did similar stories last night. With our damp, cloudy, La Niña spring, growing foodstuffs are behind schedule. Strawberries are at least not being incinerated by the heat like last year, but farmers are struggling to manage the damp and they are not ripening quickly. Meanwhile they are worried that sweet corn* will not ripen before the summer barbeque season ends on the Labor Day weekend (September 5).

 

* Sold on the cob

 

9 hours ago, big jim said:

Father’s Day this morning,

A wretched "Hallmark" holiday. I have instructed my sons that they are not required to observe it and no one is disappointed. (The elder did send a card, which I consider thoughtful and more than sufficient.) 

 

Today is "Juneteenth" in the US. It is a new holiday for most people, only being an official Federal holiday for a couple of years. Federal government offices will be closed tomorrow and there will be no mail deliveries.

 

11 hours ago, grandadbob said:

Hint of sunshine here but thankfully it's a lot cooler than the past couple of days.

One of the delightful(?) things about weather is that it always seems to be better somewhere else - unless you live somewhere blessed with a so-called "Mediterranean climate" like say Perth (WA) and even then it can get very hot there.

 

Today saw a nuisance drizzle on my walk. It got persistent enough for me to put the rain jacket on, and then shortly afterwards stopped. The forecast is for 19°C, but at midday it is <16°C and remains cloudy with (very) little random patches of blue. The week ahead sees tantalizingly seasonal forecasts around 25°C. Such weather will be welcome.

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Thunder and lightening again this afternoon but this time we only caught the edge of it. Most of the lightening was to the south so GDB might have caught some of it. We had some heavy showers but they didn't last long. The fox cubs are chasing each other around the garden, they are very quick, all I see is a reddish brown flash. The rain hasn't stopped the hay fever and what's worse is I just sneezed and it woke up Si Attica so a couple of Nurofens are about to be taken.

[brianusa]

51 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Such weather will be welcome

All too soon the heat will get to folk who will wish for the cool weather to return to the usual PNW gloom!

    Brian.

[New Haven Neil]

Evening.

 

Not-really-Fathers-Day passed with a phone call from my not-really-daughter, and arrangements for a quite special meal out when diaries align - she's a treasure.

 

The rest was at archery, where Mrs NHN was 'on one', and won from a field of a dozen, beating the top archer in the club by just a handful of points.  Three archers were very close at the end, a good shoot and very enjoyable for all taking part in windy but sunny conditions.

 

Later I did some work on the G%$£"n R&^%$£y as one bit of trackbed had sort of rotted away - oops.  New sections cut and painted with preservative, completion tomorrow.

 

I don't like whisky or whiskey at all, but do enjoy a rum.  Salty the sailor stuff.

[J. S. Bach]

21 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

Evening.

...snip... just a handful of points. ...snip... I don't like whisky or whiskey at all, but do enjoy a rum.  Salty the sailor stuff.

It only takes one.

 

I, too, prefer rumbygum but an occasional (very) Scotch is nice. However the last few years my only hard stuff was an ounce or so of Maker's Mark once a year at the Mid-Ohio Insulator Show as a memorial toast to Steve Blair, the founder of the event.

[simontaylor484]

@New Haven NeilI agree with you on the Rum as long as its a dark rum. Although I don't drink anymore.

 

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

Been at the new premises most of the day but got home in time to see my friend, Mr Botham, on Country File.

Dont think I can be bothered waiting up to watch the F1 so will probably watch it on catch up tomorrow.

Back to the new premises tomorrow as we’re having a demo on how the heating system works and a friends coming round to discuss signage. Expecting  phone calls regarding communication contracts and insurance premiums. I can hardly wait.

Goodnight. 

Edited June 19, 2022 by Erichill16
Spelling

[Gwiwer]

3 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

Surely Captain Cynical would refill the empty bottles with some cheap malt or even blended whisky andvsell that at £380 A glass.

Couldvi have a 10%cut of profits for putting it in the suggestion box for fleecing the mega rich

Captain Cynical might argue that most people couldn’t tell the difference between £50, £500 and £5000 whiskies. 

[Gwiwer]

11 hours ago, big jim said:

Father’s Day this morning,

So it was. 
 

My late father always insisted on two things namely that we observe Mother’s Day and suitably fête ours and that we never ever stoop to the blatant commercialism of Father’s Day. 
 

In consequence it was always simply disregarded. 
 

Never knowingly having fathered anything myself I am now not in the position of having to decide whether or not to follow his example. 
 

I also never had to attend confession with the dreadful admission of “Forgive my sin for I have fathered” 😇

 

G’night all 

[Dave Hunt]

Haven't posted for a few days but I'm afraid that I don't have much in the way of cheerful news. Things are not good with my Dad and rather than go through the saga of what has happened since Thursday I'll just say that he is back in hospital and in a bad way with pleurisy, heart failure and other troubles. He is on various intravenous drugs and what the outcome will be is uncertain but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'm getting tremendous support from Jill, though, and she is even encouraging me to spend time in the railway room/workshop as well as going to the S7 meeting yesterday at the Warley clubrooms to lighten my mood. Thank God for a brilliant wife, railway modelling and the support of friends such as RMWebbers.

 

Dave.  

[BSW01]

Dave. So sorry to read about your dad's troubles. Fingers crossed for you. 

[PhilJ W]

Sorry to hear about your dad Dave. It brought back memories of my own dads passing, still not sure as to whether it was the big C or the morphine that carried him off.

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, New Haven Neil said:

I don't like whisky or whiskey at all, but do enjoy a rum.  Salty the sailor stuff.

 

 

1 hour ago, simontaylor484 said:

@New Haven NeilI agree with you on the Rum as long as its a dark rum. Although I don't drink anymore.

 

The best rum I've ever tasted is Cockspur Rum from Barbados. Its like butterscotch in liquid form. 

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

I didn’t get time to look in and post this morning, mainly due to having a late breakfast in bed! As this was later than planned, it meant we were constantly trying to catch up. The weather has been rather mixed today, it was definitely alit cooler than earlier in the week and we even had a light shower this morning. 

 

Mike and Sarah called this morning to drop off Father’s Day card and gift of money, in lieu of a present, which, as I generally have specialised requirements, I don’t mind in the least and I can put it towards something that I really want. 

 

We were just about to start dinner when Vickie and Ian called round, again with cards and money, but also a half dozen bottles of beer and a new key ring! This of course meant that we were late eating dinner, but under the circumstances, we weren’t too bothered, as it was nice seeing them both. 

 

James and Amelia called round, at about 8 o’clock, after making a slight detour from taking Amelia home and they too brought cards and money. They could only stop for a short while, as she has school in the morning. But it was nice to see everybody, albeit at different times of the day and I’ve acquired a goodly sum of modelling tokens, not to mention the extra half dozen bottles of beer, but no chocolate this time! 

 

In between all the visits, I managed a couple of hours in the office, where I was able to finalise the layout of my wiring schedule sheets,  using the modifications that I’d highlighted last year. I’ve pre-populated 2 sheets with the information I’d written down when I built the turntable control panel and I’m quite happy with how it all looks at the moment. I’ll go back to it in a few days time and have another look over it all again, just to make sure I’m completely happy with it all. 

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[andyram]

Evening all and supportive thoughts to @Dave Hunt. I hope things improve for your father. @Erichill16 I did not realise you were acquainted with Mr Botham. The shop on Skinner Street is always our first, and last, port of call during our visits to Whitby, making sure we stock up on cakes, biscuits and lemon buns to keep us in treats for several weeks. 
 

As many of you know, Whitby is my favourite place and I enjoyed tonight’s Countryfile. I have found a piece of Whitby Jet on a visit and carry it with me everywhere. It often gets held in the hand during times of stress.

 

In the recent years when I have had to battle the black dog, I often find that, in Whitby, I feel immune from the beast. There is a spot on the Moors road, just prior to the turn off for Grosmont, where you crest the hill and see the town, the sea and the Abbey for the first time. No matter how bad I am feeling, the moment I reach that location, and see that first view, I feel my shoulders relax and the stress ebb away. I have often thought about the benefits of moving up there and with the problems of late, it has crossed my mind again. If only I could afford that dream home. 
 

One day maybe.

 

Night all.

 

Andy

[Ozexpatriate]

59 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

The best rum I've ever tasted is Cockspur Rum from Barbados. Its like butterscotch in liquid form. 

Growing up in what at one time was sugar cane country, I've long been partial to dark rum.

 

The selection of 'premium' rum from around the Caribbean is amazing and availability really exploded a few years ago. I have several stashed away from places as varied as Guyana, Venezuela, St. Lucia and an opened 'ordinary' one from Jamaica, along with a couple of reserve versions from home.

 

The other dark spirit that really took off several years ago was Extra Añejo Tequilas. These are for sipping - not mixing in margaritas. Unlike rums, they must all come from the state of Jalisco, close to the town of Tequila.

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by Ozexpatriate