Early Risers.

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, Sidecar Racer said:

 

I know you and your brethren like  like your super power  ute's but sometime you can get

carried away and over confident in there performance abilities .

 

Case in point , some years ago there was a UK Top Gear v Oz Top gear challenge , here is one round .

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=537FDgzGv2A

 

 

First corner would have been interesting!

 

Where I get my ute serviced they used to do all the work on  one owned by a local  tradie (carpenter I think) who had his Malloo modified to something like 500HP at the rear wheels. Sounded insane ( they started it up for me once when I was there). The tradie used it as his occasional (once a week or so) work truck.

 

If you ran out of nails it'd be a quick trip to Bunnings and back at least.

 

Edited April 22, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[monkeysarefun]

I just spotted this in the front yard and thought @polybear might want to check it out.

 

 

 

It's an Orb weaver spider, it's body can get to the size of a baby mouse.

I never realised that they were so furry til I took this pic,- it's  like a little teddy bear,  it makes you want to give them a bit of a tickle under the chin.

 

At least this guy has built his  incredibly strong sticky  web over a garden bed, their usual  favourite place is straight across a path at face level, then  they sit in the middle  of it waiting for you to walk into it face first after dark.

 

Bin nights around the country echo to " Jeeez, @##ing " spiders!!",    "@&#&#" off you @&#&#&ing spiders!!",    "$_@@_ me, I hate you &###ing  spiders!!"  and so on from  driveways and paths everywhere, making it Australias  number 2 prank pulling spider after the Huntsman.

Edited April 23, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[Ozexpatriate]

59 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

It's an Orb weaver spider

The neighbours next door to mum and dad were infirm and had let their yard 'go'. There was a golden orb web with countless spiders on the side of the house about two storeys high which ran almost the length of the house.

 

It's all cleaned up long ago, but I'm not sure I'd want to be the guy hired to clean it up.

[pH]

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

I never realised that they were so furry, it makes you want to give them a bit of a tickle under the chin.

Speak for yourself!

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl,

3.5 hours sleep, 4.5 hours sleep, I'm happy with that.

 

Woke with aching joints, wet weather imminent, it's certainly grey out there looking out of the window.

 

Contrary to Ozpatriots forecast, this side of the puddle, we are expecting an Arctic blast for a few days, the return of frost and darn chilly in the morning.

 

I see from a TV programme there are idiots taking Metformin to attempt to extend their life. 

From my experience, the side effects are not necessarily worth it. There are a long list of side effects with Metformin, one of which is muscle loss, I'm certainly a lot weaker because of it, I'm sure that's the cause of many of my aches and pains.

 

Plans for today, no sailing, the part for the boat still hasn't turned up. 

Likely I'll take a trip into town to get the new facia board, then I might get some workshop time on bits for sailing and other unmentionable hobbies.

 

Time to go on patrol with Ben it's time to go out Collie.

[iL Dottore]

On the subject of spiders, I had a very interesting experience at (if I recall correctly) London zoo, which was that of feeding spiders.
 

I was in the sealed walk-through spider enclosure (which has lots of  spiders, running free) and I was chatting with one of the zookeepers. He said that one of his tasks was not only to lay out the food for the beasties, but also to occasionally feed the larger spiders, so that they didn’t forget how to hunt their own prey (or something along those lines – it was a while ago now, so I may not be perfectly remembering exactly what he said). He showed me how it was done: he took out a pair of very long tweezers, and took a live fly from a container in the tweezers and then very carefully held the fly in front of a dark recess, at which point a fairly large spider came zooming out of the recess grabs the struggling fly and promptly wraps the hapless insect in spider silk for later consumption.

 

Quite a fascinating process. 
 

And for @polybear a programme to deal with Arachnophobia (midway down the page) https://www.londonzoo.org/whats-here/habitats/tiny-giants

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from rather grey and damp Charente.  I survived yesterday. First off was a delightful hour chatting to Emily and the girls.  She's got mummy Laura sussed.  She's taken to pronouncing words like 'yes' like cartoon characters do,usually with an American accent.  This winds Laura up. Very funny to watch as a grandparent.  The nearly 4 year old obviously knows exactly what she's doing. 

 

Domestic engineering followed.  Then the delights of delivering my presentation via Zoom to a room in Derby.  At least I kept them awake apparently. 

 

Then in the evening 2 expat friends came round for drinks and nibbles. A very pleasant evening was had. They left just as the streetlights switched off and the stars were fabulousto see with a tiny crescent moon. 

 

Today it's off to the market this morning then I the afternoon may dmyoIonline income tax return.  Whay joy awaits. 

 

Ttfn. 

 

Jamie

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

@TheSignalEngineer the laws have changed not sure about your competition rules though. As it happens our league rules  haven't . Hope that the U13 has the right sign offs to play in adult cricket. It protects him and the club to do so.

 

Yes, first game of the season. Delayed start while they removed some of the standing water, it was cold but a game played in tremendous good spirit.  Another game beckons today.. and there's me trying not to umpire too much! My hip is telling me why this is a bad thing to do..

 

Time for my mugatea then.. cricket..

 

Stay safe.

Baz

[jjb1970]

Back in blighty, apologies I can't catch up on all the posts. I flew with Air India, and despite a lot of negative reviews online I enjoyed it, the food was superb, properly excellent. Now to look at the shopping list, oh dear..... I already got Mrs.JJB the full set of Poldark on DVD which is apparently the priority job for the week.

[polybear]

6 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

I just spotted this in the front yard and thought @polybear might want to check it out.

 

 

 

It's an Orb weaver spider, it's body can get to the size of a baby mouse.

I never realised that they were so furry til I took this pic,- it's  like a little teddy bear,  it makes you want to give them a bit of a tickle under the chin.

 

At least this guy has built his  incredibly strong sticky  web over a garden bed, their usual  favourite place is straight across a path at face level, then  they sit in the middle  of it waiting for you to walk into it face first after dark.

 

Bin nights around the country echo to " Jeeez, @##ing " spiders!!",    "@&#&#" off you @&#&#&ing spiders!!",    "$_@@_ me, I hate you &###ing  spiders!!"  and so on from  driveways and paths everywhere, making it Australias  number 2 prank pulling spider after the Huntsman.

 

Let's play Blow Lamp Target Practice.....

 

21 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

On the subject of spiders, I had a very interesting experience at (if I recall correctly) London zoo, which was that of feeding spiders.

 

Quite a fascinating process. 
 

And for @polybear a programme to deal with Arachnophobia (midway down the page) https://www.londonzoo.org/whats-here/habitats/tiny-giants

 

Can I bring a Blow Lamp?

 

Bear here.....

Today sees Bear wiring up the outside socket that I've added to the front wall of Bear Towers as a part of the Great Hallway Refurb - the cable run is dead easy (thru' the wall, then up an existing cable conduit that encases the mains supply cables from the meter to the Consumer Unit); I deliberately made the box surrounding the C.U. a bit bigger so I can fit an RCD isolation switch to the front panel that'll hopefully (a) keep Bear safe when he chops the hedge cutter cable, and (b) allow me to disable the outside socket to stop scrotes nickin' my leccy (not that there's much danger of that where I live anyway). 

After that I may well add a couple of picture hooks to The Wall Of Doom, after which I'll be able to shift the ladder back down to the shed and out of the way.  I have a pair of large clip frames displaying scenes of Venice that I've had since 1987 and really like - they live on that wall and I'd like to put them back there.  I have a cunning idea to convert the clip frames to "proper" picture frames by buying some picture frame moulding and making a frame to surround the clip frame (which is basically a bluddy great sheet of glass with a hardboard backing) - buying ready-made frames that size would be (a) expensive, and (b) most likely use plastic instead of glass if coming from an internet supplier.

So if any fellow ER'ers know of a decent picture frame moulding supplier I'd be interested....

 

In other news.....

Good to know our tax is being put to good use:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/stricken-3-2bn-royal-navy-aircraft-carrier-hms-prince-of-wales-reduced-to-acting-as-a-scrap-yard/ar-AA1acHyP?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=686dfce3cf784caadcfd50b4831f396e&ei=19

 

And the Parking Saga continues:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/news/now-national-trust-joins-car-park-app-chaos-two-million-face-parking-meter-deserts-as-councils-scrap-traditional-pay-and-display-meters-in-favour-of-cashless-alternatives-in-beauty-spots/ar-AA1aaNq7?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=4cb79dee73db498aa62415d49f9f6968&ei=53

 

I also heard from a Buddy that's "in the know" at the Duxford Air Museum; it seems they plan to get rid of the very extensive Land Warfare Section (containing a big selection of kit that I'm sure would be of great interest to @Barry O), along with other items such a section of the man-made harbour that was used during D-Day (or maybe Dunkirk?).  It's also strongly rumoured they plan to concentrate on Military Aircraft rather than Civilian, some some bright spark has apparently decided that this would be far better outside, along with various other Civvy Aircraft:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_York

I'm told some of the airframe may well be canvas;  this particular aircraft took part in the Berlin airlift.

I'm guessing that Concorde won't be going outside though as that's too much of a money-spinner.

Incidentally, two Adults plus two kids 5-15 years old will set you back a few coins short of ninety quid now - and that's without getting there or refreshments.  Big Ouch.

 

It's quite possible that numerous Rants may be contained in the above.......

Bear gone.

[TheQ]

The York at Duxford spent 1947-1950, in RAF use, and wasn't disposed of by the Air Ministry until 1954 to Dan Air.

 

The carrier being used as a hangar queen, as the RAF call it, is not unusual. Most bases have one, every so often someone declares no more Hangar Queens. They promptly run out of spares, and another aircraft becomes the hangar Queen.

Edited April 23, 2023 by TheQ

[grandadbob]

On 22/04/2023 at 07:25, Barry O said:

 

@grandadbob appears to be missing. I just hope he and his family are OK.

 

On 22/04/2023 at 08:24, polybear said:

Bear was thinking the very same;

 

Good morning all,

I am fine but thank you for your concern.  I've been away for a few days on the high seas and in the low lands.  Lots of catching up to do and have come home to a domestic appliance problem which may be terminal.  Will visit again later.

Edited April 23, 2023 by grandadbob

[iL Dottore]

As folks know, I’m gearing up for a 5 week “retirement” holiday in Japan and I have been doing extensive research on the country so that I can better enjoy my stay. Now the reason I mention this is because my research shows that the Japanese take incredibly good care of their cultural heritage (partly, I suspect, because a lot was destroyed by the American air raids that deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure in WWII).
 

In Japan you have National Treasures (the most important of the Tangible Cultural Properties) which are protected by law and have very strict controls about their use, repurposing, selling-off, etc. Contrast that to the UK where, as we have seen in numerous posts on ER, you can do almost anything you want with the nation’s cultural and historic heritage (witness the vandalism currently being carried out by the NT and various museums). Furthermore, the Japanese wouldn’t even dream of making it hard to visit such treasures - as many museums and cultural properties in the UK seem determined to do.

 

One final thing, in Japan you also have Living National Treasures - those individuals certified as Preservers of Important Intangible Cultural Properties. So master craftsmen, craftswomen, artists and artisans whose skills in their particular area of expertise are superlative. Such masters are paid a modest stipend by tye Japanese government (averaging about ¥2 million  [about £12000]) so that they can concentrate on their work.

[PhilH]

Morning from soggy bottom. A bit dreary and, to my mind, cold. Whether that’s a result of a blood thinning med I take I don’t know but certainly over the last year or so I’ve noticed that I feel the cold much more now. I spent the last decade of my working life working outside keeping water flowing and hardly ever used to bother with coats or jumpers but now, well, on colder days the Michelin Man has nothing on me.

 

I decided yesterday to have a play on my much neglected train sets….not a happy experience. I don’t know if dcc fitted engines don’t like sitting around doing nothing for months on end but they didn’t want to go as well as I’d expected. Maybe a good track clean up is in order although it looks pretty good, but I’ll leave that for another day/ week/ month…..

 

I have a weekend visitor, my daughter’s pooch. They are in London, saw Peter Kay last night at the O2. Very funny apparently. The ex has the grandkids this time I get the pooch, certainly makes for a quieter weekend.

 

Whatever you’re doing, enjoy the day.

 

Edited April 23, 2023 by PhilH

[The Lurker]

2 hours ago, Barry O said:

Ey up!

 

@TheSignalEngineer the laws have changed not sure about your competition rules though. As it happens our league rules  haven't . Hope that the U13 has the right sign offs to play in adult cricket. It protects him and the club to do so.

 

Yes, first game of the season. Delayed start while they removed some of the standing water, it was cold but a game played in tremendous good spirit.  Another game beckons today.. and there's me trying not to umpire too much! My hip is telling me why this is a bad thing to do..

 

Time for my mugatea then.. cricket..

 

Stay safe.

Baz

Speaking of rules, I thought I had read a while back that a batsman is no longer allowed to use a runner of they’d got injured- and yet yesterday Keaton Jennings had Luke Wells as a runner, albeit for only 2 balls before he decided that wasn’t sensible and retired hurt.

 

Did I miss a more subtle change or did I just dream it?!

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

witness the vandalism currently being carried out by the NT

I haven’t seen any. I have been a member for over 40 years. As well as the well written explanations about the exhibits I really like the conservation technique displays on show. 

[Tony_S]

30 minutes ago, The Lurker said:

Speaking of rules, I thought I had read a while back that a batsman is no longer allowed to use a runner of they’d got injured- and yet yesterday Keaton Jennings had Luke Wells as a runner, albeit for only 2 balls before he decided that wasn’t sensible and retired hurt.

 

Did I miss a more subtle change or did I just dream it?!

Is it because Somerset v Lancashire isn’t an international match?

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. The usual stiff joints this morning but not as debilitating as some mornings. I too seem to feel the cold more often, an age thing I guess. I found that by adding extra heating to the bedroom has resulted in less aggravation from the arthritis/sciatica.

[BSW01]

Good afternoon everyone 

 

As is the norm for a Sunday, it was a lie in followed by breakfast in bed. Then I went straight outside to make the most of the dry weather. Some weeding and dead heading done and now ensconced on the bench under the workshop window drinking a well earned muggertea. 

 

Back later 

 

Brian 

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

I haven’t seen any. I have been a member for over 40 years. As well as the well written explanations about the exhibits I really like the conservation technique displays on show. 

https://thecritic.co.uk/is-this-the-end-for-the-national-trust/
 

Food for thought, eh?

[Gwiwer]

Miserable weather. Flooded roads. A fatal accident (waved past by locals holding bed-sheets as screens) and some absolutely crazy motorists (in which part of the Highway Code does it say you may follow-through when the leading vehicle overtakes a stationary bus using the opposite lane and forces oncoming traffic to stop?) 

 

But here we are. 
 

 

 

 

[grandadbob]

A'noon,

Still trying to catch up after our short cruise to Amsterdam.  We were on a fairly large floating gin palace/block of flats which I know many here don't like but we do and we had a great time.  Only downside was Abbie's boyfriend James managed to break his toe getting out of a swimming pool.  Somewhat inconvenient as he is hobbling about and as a roofer means he can't go to work for  a while.  Lots of walking about done along with plenty of food and drink.  I haven't weighed myself yet.   Didn't get to sample any of the "special" goods and services on offer in that fair city, The Boss was keeping me on a short leash!  😂 

The Hip and  Knee caused me some grief but painkillers eased the situation.  Hip is very bad today and have had to take a couple of Tramadol and apply Voltarol and hot water bottles which have helped a bit.

Time to catch up a bit more...also got some rugby to watch.

Edited April 23, 2023 by grandadbob

[iL Dottore]

In regards to @polybear’s arachnophobia, his irrational fear of the little critters brings to mind a short SciFi story I read a while ago.
 

In this story, adolescent humanoids on an alien planet had to survive a series of trials and tests in order to become an adult “human” (or adult humanoid, if you will). These trials culminated in a test whereby the youngster had to face his/her greatest fear without flinching or shying away. Those who did not show fear or fright were considered as “human” - because “human” reason overruled “animal” fear - and thus those adolescents were made adults. Those who showed fear or fright were killed on the spot by the elders, as the elders reasoned that by giving into fear or showing fright, the adolescent was no more than an animal and thus was culled so as not to contaminate the tribe.

 

An approach for @Coombe Barton to consider the next time he sets his exams??? 🤣