Early Risers.

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

 

A discount scheme for Police buying new vehicles would make sense - some companies do it/have done it (the Great Empire being one, also Avis IIRC).  I do recall a news report many, many years ago about Vauxhall workers (at Luton I think) being able to buy cars on a tasty discount; they'd buy base models such as a Cavalier L and then feed it back into the production line on the night shift and it'd magically pop out the other end as a top of the range Ghia wotsit.

Fords have run a similar scheme for years. Way back (1960) my dad worked for Fords and bought a Thames minibus via the staff discount scheme. It was obvious that the paint was better applied than most other Fords. This was because each vehicle on the production line had its own paperwork specifying what extras and colour and also if it was for an employee. Dads minibus had been through the paint shop at least twice and received an extra coat or two of paint.

[southern42]

58 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

... wood store from the backup. To do this out came the warm trousers, hat, gloves and swearing. This last was when a frozen together lump of logs dropped on my foot. No injuries, just meant I had to scrabble around retrieving them. ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2022/12/10/sounds-of-the-season-2022-23-14-increase-rate-steepening/

 

"Gaudete": Another of my top favourites. How does he do it? 🤣

Now, I really must get on and do those envelopes!  

[polybear]

4 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Interestingly the only person I know with said vehicle is a really nice person. It is admittedly a few years old but he was considering a new one last year. When he was a lad he wasn’t really interested in cars but always for some reason wanted to own a Corvette and a Lamborghini. He was otherwise only interested in motorbikes.  He left school and basically dug holes in the ground for a garage forecourt installation business. He now owns the business and did treat himself first to the Corvette and then the Lamborghini. 

 

Bear would rather like a Lambo (I like the doors - though they're not much good in a garage) but would never, ever buy one as I'd just worry too much about it - the Bearmobile was just over £9K new and I really, really HATE parking it in car parks cos' some tw@t is likely to whack it with their door sooner or later.  As for a Lambo/Ferrari etc. just how many places could you park it without it getting keyed?

 

This afternoon saw nottalot, apart from watching a mediocre film on Prime Video; Hermes/Evri arrived as promised to collect the parcel - though the Courier was most definitely not in the same league as Miss DPD (who I realised this morning never shut the front gate behind her last night - that's a point deducted.....).

A wasted day, on the whole.  Oh well - just one of those "not in the mood" days.

[New Haven Neil]

5 hours ago, polybear said:

A discount scheme for Police buying new vehicles would make sense - some companies do it/have done it (the Great Empire being one, also Avis IIRC). 

 

It's not just plod vehicles - Mrs NHN works for Fleet Services, a centralised IoM Govt. that buys and maintains vehicles for just about any service bar buses (different providers) and ambulances (so they are 'clean') that are separate.  Her patch is the police, fire, airport, railways.  There are many other covered but other management teams, IIRC 1.5k vehicles. Happily her office is with the railway guys....by chance, but brings benefits!

[Tony_S]

8 minutes ago, polybear said:

realised this morning never shut the front gate behind her last night - that's a point deducted...

Aditi was waiting for her new boots to be delivered yesterday morning by DHL. I was scanning down my security camera alerts from about an hour earlier, and noticed a chap with a box had approached our front step, put the box on it, went back to his van without ringing the doorbell or even tapping on the the door.  It was the boots. For those interested in such things, they did fit , Aditi likes them very much and got me to spray them with waterproofing stuff this afternoon. She didn’t even get cross when I asked if they are a sort of Nubuck wellie boot. 

[DaveF]

 

Many of you know I post photos in my thread on here.  From time to time I use old black and white ones, in the past few months some people have been seeing them in red not black and white.

 

I reported it to Andy Y and he was taking it up with Invision.

 

Yesterday evening I had an idea and downloaded one of my images which has been reported as being red and one from another poster which people said was OK.  I opened them both on my laptop, both were fine.  Then I opened them both in Photoshop - mine went red, the other one didn't.  That is the first time I have had that happen.

 

When I looked at the image data it turned out that mine had no embedded colour representation/information, the other one said sRGB.  I added that to mine in Photoshop, it now displays correctly on RMWeb.

 

The question is why do they go wrong in some browser/operating system combinations when they were OK before.  Is it just almost by chance because of an update or are modern browers and operating systems "more choosy" - or is it to improve securtity built into devices?

 

David

[Gwiwer]

11 minutes ago, DaveF said:

Many of you know I post photos in my thread on here.

Are the uploaded originals, scanned, copied or otherwise, jpg (or jpeg) files or another type?  It might well be that some file types are rendering incorrectly because somewhere there is an incompatibility.  I had that for a time when iPhone went over to their new .heic format.  Without warning to users, I might add, so far as I know.  It took a while for systems to catch up and effectively convert them to jpg but for a time they simply wouldn't upload at all because the file type was not recognised.  

 

Such is "progress".  

[Tony_S]

22 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

Are the uploaded originals, scanned, copied or otherwise, jpg (or jpeg) files or another type?  It might well be that some file types are rendering incorrectly because somewhere there is an incompatibility.  I had that for a time when iPhone went over to their new .heic format.  Without warning to users, I might add, so far as I know.  It took a while for systems to catch up and effectively convert them to jpg but for a time they simply wouldn't upload at all because the file type was not recognised.  

 

Such is "progress".  

Just to add another file extension into the mix. My new iPad camera gives its photos an .heif extension . According the interwebs  heic and heif are the same but heic is what Apple use! They do upload to RMWeb but landscape images are upside down!

 

Portrait seems ok.

Edited December 10, 2022 by Tony_S

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, New Haven Neil said:

Mrs NHN works for Fleet Services

We quite often used to  stop there for a snack on our trips to Southampton before our cruise holidays. 🙂

[DaveF]

56 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

Are the uploaded originals, scanned, copied or otherwise, jpg (or jpeg) files or another type?  It might well be that some file types are rendering incorrectly because somewhere there is an incompatibility.  I had that for a time when iPhone went over to their new .heic format.  Without warning to users, I might add, so far as I know.  It took a while for systems to catch up and effectively convert them to jpg but for a time they simply wouldn't upload at all because the file type was not recognised.  

 

Such is "progress".  

 

The originals are usually jpeg, a few were saved as TIFFs after scanning. None of the early ones (black and white or colour) have  colour profiles.  It is easy to add the sRGB info providing I remember.

 

I do now know that if I convert them to GIFs they render correctly but then some people just see spaces not images as their browser/OS will not display them.

 

I've just remembered a conversation I had a long time ago with a video editor who mainly worked on advertising videos.  He said that editing could be fraught if two or more video cameras had been used and they didn't have matching colour profiles as it was almost impossible to get consistent colour.

 

David

Edited December 10, 2022 by DaveF

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Went down to Tess Coes for some shopping and got enough in for a week, just in case the weather takes a turn for the worse. Snow is forecast for Sunday night/Monday morning, makes one really pleased that one is retired and doesn't have to commute. Talking of retirement I haven't seen any of @The Q's countdown recently.

[Gwiwer]

20 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

We quite often used to  stop there for a snack on our trips to Southampton before our cruise holidays. 🙂

🤣
 

We used to. Until Starchucks bought every unit and franchise from which it was possible to obtain coffee and cakes. 
 

The M3 / A303 route to the south-west is now almost entirely owned by that outfit. 
 

I dislike the product they call “coffee” and I don’t care for the way they treat their staff nor their business ethics either. 
 

 

[Winslow Boy]

12 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Went down to Tess Coes for some shopping and got enough in for a week, just in case the weather takes a turn for the worse. Snow is forecast for Sunday night/Monday morning, makes one really pleased that one is retired and doesn't have to commute. Talking of retirement I haven't seen any of @The Q's countdown recently.

 

I believe he has come in to the light ie is over in the northwest aka Manchester helping/assisting/displaying at the MRC show.

[TheQ]

21 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Went down to Tess Coes for some shopping and got enough in for a week, just in case the weather takes a turn for the worse. Snow is forecast for Sunday night/Monday morning, makes one really pleased that one is retired and doesn't have to commute. Talking of retirement I haven't seen any of @The Q's countdown recently.

3.5 working days to go.

In a chilly Norfolk.

Edited December 10, 2022 by TheQ

[Tony_S]

19 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

🤣
 

We used to. Until Starchucks bought every unit and franchise from which it was possible to obtain coffee and cakes. 
 

The M3 / A303 route to the south-west is now almost entirely owned by that outfit. 
 

I dislike the product they call “coffee” and I don’t care for the way they treat their staff nor their business ethics either. 
 

 

Our snack and drinks there are usually ones we have taken with us. We do make use of the loos. 

[polybear]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

Just to add another file extension into the mix. My new iPad camera gives its photos an .heif extension . According the interwebs  heic and heif are the same but heic is what Apple use! They do upload to RMWeb but landscape images are upside down!

 

 

 

Not to worry - at least they'll look fine to Chimpy @monkeysarefun..........

 

33 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

We used to. Until Starchucks bought every unit and franchise from which it was possible to obtain coffee and cakes. 

I dislike the product they call “coffee” and I don’t care for the way they treat their staff nor their business ethics either. 

 

Nor their prices......

I used to think they were rip-off merchants whenever we ended up in one whilst travelling on business (so The Great Empire were paying the tab); sadly most of the Little Thief (Chef) sites now seem to be S/B or Costa Packet (Coffee) outlets.

[PhilJ W]

My circumnavigating Tess Coes this afternoon seems to have woken Arthur Itis, Nurofen has been deployed.

[PhilJ W]

59 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

🤣
 

We used to. Until Starchucks bought every unit and franchise from which it was possible to obtain coffee and cakes. 
 

The M3 / A303 route to the south-west is now almost entirely owned by that outfit. 
 

I dislike the product they call “coffee” and I don’t care for the way they treat their staff nor their business ethics either. 
 

 

If your on the way to Cornwall I can thoroughly recommend this place for lunch.

https://www.podymore-inn.co.uk/

Next turn off after the Fleet Air Arm museum heading west.

[Tony_S]

23 minutes ago, polybear said:

The Great Empire were paying the tab)

I can remember that expenses incurred on courses if one worked as a teacher  were derisory. We found out that Civil Service rates were better. Aditi was asked to do something for the Department of Education . You could stay in a nicer hotel than you could on teachers expenses. Also more refreshments.  Nothing at all excessive but not mean as we were used to. 

[jjb1970]

Remind me not to go swimming at West Coast Park when I return to Singapore next week.....

 

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/environment/warning-signs-put-up-at-west-coast-park-after-crocodile-sighted-off-its-waters?fbclid=IwAR3J7nDNJIi4xvnSR1u68g1Vh1pIPCuMfdBp29HbXQ6Z8opVaqZSRGBtMPY

[Gwiwer]

55 minutes ago, polybear said:

most of the Little Thief (Chef) sites now seem to be S/B or Costa Packet

At least with the Costa (Packet) app I get both staff discounts and the public one-in-nine drinks free there.  Currently there is a promotion as well from which I have gained a free sandwich, a £1 coffee-and-cake deal, £5 off total spend in one transaction and a half-price hot drink (which I had better not use in conjunction with staff discount!).  It's not the best coffee but it's the best available at the House of Fun without leaving the appointed duty location and exiting the premises.  

 

32 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

on the way to Cornwall I can thoroughly recommend this place for lunch.

https://www.podymore-inn.co.uk/

Thank you.  Worth knowing about.  And so much better than nearby Podimore Services (note the different spelling) which is appalling and always overcrowded.  The latter offers Burger King or Greggs and is about the only place west of London and before Cornwall Services near Roche that isn't controlled by the Starchucks outfit.  Podimore Services is soooo busy any time we pass through partly because they only have those two fairly small outlets and it's a very handy spot to break the journey.  It also avoids the need to stop at the ever-busy Exeter Services.  The world and his dog stop at Exeter Services meaning we try to drive past and stop elsewhere, bladders permitting.  Solstice Services is also worth missing.  

 

There are a couple of other handy pub stops available but the one in Tintinhull (literally metres off the A303) requires pre-booking for anything solid; otherwise it's drinks and crisps at the bar.  

 

The alternative is the longer route via the M4 / M5 which is not only more miles but also fewer miles per gallon travelling at motorway speeds rather than good A-road speeds which includes lengthy sections at 40 or 50mph on the A303.  So it's a more expensive route for the sake of not-much-better-if-at-all refreshments.  

[Tony_S]

16 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

Remind me not to go swimming at West Coast Park when I return to Singapore next week.....

 

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/environment/warning-signs-put-up-at-west-coast-park-after-crocodile-sighted-off-its-waters?fbclid=IwAR3J7nDNJIi4xvnSR1u68g1Vh1pIPCuMfdBp29HbXQ6Z8opVaqZSRGBtMPY

Quote

Mr How said: “Should parkgoers encounter a crocodile, they should stay calm and back away slowly.

“They should not approach, provoke or feed the animal.”

Is feeding crocodiles something people in Singapore might be tempted to do otherwise?

Edited December 10, 2022 by Tony_S

[jjb1970]

12 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Is feeding crocodiles something people in Singapore might be tempted to do otherwise?

 

The disadvantage of living in such a safe place is people don't have a very well-developed awareness of risk🤣

 

[Sidecar Racer]

39 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

Remind me not to go swimming at West Coast Park when I return to Singapore next week.....

 

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/environment/warning-signs-put-up-at-west-coast-park-after-crocodile-sighted-off-its-waters?fbclid=IwAR3J7nDNJIi4xvnSR1u68g1Vh1pIPCuMfdBp29HbXQ6Z8opVaqZSRGBtMPY

 

Another reason .

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

Not to worry - at least they'll look fine to Chimpy @monkeysarefun..........

 

 

 

 

No I checked them out, they seem upside down from here too - how does that work?

 

50 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

Remind me not to go swimming at West Coast Park when I return to Singapore next week.....

 

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/environment/warning-signs-put-up-at-west-coast-park-after-crocodile-sighted-off-its-waters?fbclid=IwAR3J7nDNJIi4xvnSR1u68g1Vh1pIPCuMfdBp29HbXQ6Z8opVaqZSRGBtMPY

 

 

 

 

Mr How said: “Should parkgoers encounter a crocodile, they should stay calm and back away slowly.

Said Mr How: “Crocodiles, like all wildlife, generally do not attack unless they are provoked.”

 

I would suggest not following anything Mr How said!

 

2 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

🤣
 

We used to. Until Starchucks bought every unit and franchise from which it was possible to obtain coffee and cakes. 
 

 

I dislike the product they call “coffee” and I don’t care for the way they treat their staff nor their business ethics either. 
 

 

 

Here we stuck them backwards on a donkey and made them ride out of the country.

 

 

 

Can I just say that today is cloudless and a maximum of 30  and I might spend it lying on the grass under a shady tree with a beer (not Fosters)  and a  book?

Edited December 10, 2022 by monkeysarefun