Early Risers.

[Coombe Barton]

... Sir David Dimbleby on the new BBC Chairman "The best way of assuring that would be to have a commission made up of all parties … and let them decide" ... quite! ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2023/04/29/drifting-up-again-nationally-nhs-covid-19-app-now-closed/

[DaveF]

It has remained dull with the temperature at a steady 8C all day so I've had the heating on for some of the time.

 

After breakfast I had a walk to the end of the only road into my side of the estate and then back via the big field in the middle of the estate - about 1.25 miles.  As we have the field each part of the estate only has one road to get in and out - I suppose that makes it a series of low traffic neighbourhoods.  It certainly makes the place quiet with no through traffic and probably helps house prices a bit.  Then I went into the greenhouse to check the plants and moved most of the Christrmas Cacti (Zygocacti) into bigger pots as they were beginning to get a bit unbalanced - I find they flower better if the pots are not too big so only went up by one pot size.  

Back in the house I sorted out more photos to put on here and then made some coffee, just as the post came.  It included the details for my house insurance renewal, it has gone up by almost exactly 15%.  While I had coffee and until lunchtime I looked at some landscape and holiday photos I took in 1991/2, including Germany, Switzerland and Denmark.  I see about 700 each week.

Lunch was a simple soup after which I went to Homebase. had a look round and bought some more path gravel as I realised I hadn't got enough.  A very helpful member of staff put it the cart, wheeled it to the car and loaded it for me so all I had to do was pay for it.  When I got home I sensibly used my small 2 wheeled trolley to take it to where it is needed. Next I did some more weeding before coming back in and finishing a magazine.

 

Then I had a good look on house insurance comparison sites and a few company sites and cannot get identical cover any cheaper - the others all have a lower limit for valuables which doesn't suit while I am still dealing with stuff fom Mum's.  My current insurer is also content that the model railway stuff is insured with another company, when I've asked before some of the cheaper companies are not happy about that. 

 

Since then I've had a cup of tea and done a Sudoku, next will be "proper" tea with a cheese sandwich, later I think I will watch a film and then a detective serial on BBC1.

 

So passes a typical day in the life of a retired person.

 

David

Edited April 29, 2023 by DaveF

[Tony_S]

42 minutes ago, PeterBB said:

Have enjoyed the odd cruise but if the above came in there is no way that I would take another and it horrifies at present to see so many decks with minimal 'outside' space.

I wouldn’t go on a cruise if I didn’t have an outside cabin with a balcony. That also saved the having look for a sunlounger task on an open deck. It hasn’t been too far on any of the ships we have been on to find a deck to walk round on. However we have only been on the ones that have up to 2000 passengers not the new giant ones. The Cunard ships don’t seem too crowded but I suspect those on the Princess and Queens Grill decks don’t mingle with those of us in standard accommodation. In the last cabin we had , access to our balcony was through a pair of patio type sliding doors. There was a glass panel topped with a handrail you could lean on. At the rear end of our corridor there was access to a deck that in reasonable weather was used for recreation. It was also where helicopters hovered over when taking someone away. In inclement weather we couldn’t go that way when heading to our dining location. After a month onboard we knew just about every way to get from one end of the ship to the other. 
 

[Hroth]

48 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

... Sir David Dimbleby on the new BBC Chairman "The best way of assuring that would be to have a commission made up of all parties … and let them decide" ... quite! ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2023/04/29/drifting-up-again-nationally-nhs-covid-19-app-now-closed/

 

I also noted that Sir David ruled himself out of applying for the role, though he had put his name forward for the Chairmanship twice previously.  I expect he feels that it needs someone younger with boundless energy.  And also that in the next decade its going to be something of a poisoned chalice...

 

Another enjoyable choice of music too.

 

[iL Dottore]

3 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

@PhilJ W that’s absolutely typical of London Transport. 
 

I was aboard a 25 (Victoria - Ilford) one evening when a dispute arose over a fare. The conductor was stabbed quite badly over 2p. 
 

Having made the emergency calls by radio and satisfied himself that police and ambulance were on the way the driver then received another radio call. 
 

His controller - with whom he had just spoken - “reminded” him that the crew was required to complete his journey or face a charge …….. 

 

The conductor required significant surgery and never returned to work. The offender was never caught. The union instructed its members to not work that route the next day (which was lawful at that time) in protest at the demand that the crew complete the run.
 

All for 2p

Had I been in charge of things, I would have (as they crudely say) “torn the controller a new one”.

• You never, ever, let your people down or fail to back them up.
• You never throw your staff “under the bus” (or to the wolves - choose your metaphor). If a junior person screws up, it’s always (partly?) your fault - you didn’t adequately supervise, guide or support your juniors. Grow a pair: admit that things went wrong and promise to fix the problem (and do so). Which then leads me to the next point:
• Praise in public, give them their (when deserved) b0llocking in private.

Fortunately, as an external consultant, I can avoid most man-management duties (I’m very happy to support and assist junior staff).

 

Much as it does appeal to me to be able to shout “Frog!” and have a dozen underlings chorus “how high do you want me to jump, SIR”  It really isn’t an effective or sensible way of managing your colleagues….

 

Edited April 29, 2023 by iL Dottore
Weird iPad behavioue

[iL Dottore]

The comments about the Royal Marines being on board to protect the RN officers brings to mind the famous quote by Wellington “Our army is composed of the scum of the earth - the mere scum of the earth” but it was said in anger after British troops went looting during the Spanish campaign. He also said “The scum of the earth... but what fine soldiers we have made them”

 

Quite a complex character was The Duke of Wellington (and we could do with a few of him today).

 

An interesting read about him: https://adventuresinhistoryland.com/2014/11/13/what-wellington-said/

 

Edited April 29, 2023 by iL Dottore
Typo

[Ozexpatriate]

10 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

This one?

No - that's "Sambal Oelek". It's much chunkier with a more varied taste profile. Sriracha is blended smooth and is sold in squeeze bottles with a squirty top.

 

Same manufacturer though.

[Ozexpatriate]

2 hours ago, PeterBB said:

Historically look what happened to the mutineers ...

The RN lived in fear of mutiny - hence the reaction to the Bounty mutineers - literally pursued "to the ends of the earth".

 

Hardly surprising with impressment, the harsh discipline, privations and dangers of life at sea in the eighteenth century.

 

Allegedly HMS Pandora (with her famous 'box' full of mutineers) sailed right past the marooned survivors of the Lapérouse expedition on Vanikoro in a remote part of the Solomon Islands - shortly before wrecking on the Great Barrier Reef.

 

It all caught up with the RN in the end with the 1797 mutinies at Spithead and the Nore during the Wars of the French Revolution.

 

Edited April 29, 2023 by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

17 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Quite a complex character was The Duke of Wellington (and we could do with a few of him today).

 

An interesting read about him ...

I'm glad that nonsense misquote about "Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton" wasn't included.

 

I have read a quote attributed to Arthur Wellesley (not sure when, I believe post-Prime Ministerially - he was Commander-in-Chief of the British Army during the first Anglo-Afghan war) 

Quote

‘It is easy to get into Afghanistan. The problem is getting out again.’

 Besides the linked reference, I'm not sure I've found it anywhere else. Whether or not the quote is literal, It continues to be quite accurate to this day.

[pH]

6 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

I had a very lumpy passage up the Kyles of Bute from Mallaig to Kyle of Lochalsh aboard the MV Loch Arkaig …

That was quite the diversion! (I think you mean Kyle Rhea.)

[Sidecar Racer]

3 hours ago, polybear said:

 

I'm gonna start my own thread called Early Risers Night Mail so I can be in a little world all of my very own....

 

 

 But would you stay there ?????

[PeterBB]

8 minutes ago, pH said:

 

Just a couplre of photographs ...!

 

[Ozexpatriate]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

... all delivered alive and well, though you wouldn't have called them particularly healthy, to Batavia (where some of them promptly died of malaria due to be poor conditions there)

... A common fate. With his sauerkraut as a preventative for scurvy, Cook kept most of the Endeavour crew alive - until they stopped in Batavia. While in Batavia and crossing the Indian Ocean on the way home, more than two dozen would die.

 

The Dutch affinity for canals did not serve them well in Batavia where the canals propagated diseases.

[The Johnster]

Good point; the breakdown of order on Pitcairn very nearly saw that community off.   Fletcher Christian’s utopia turned sour in a morass of racism and immorality, to the extent that two centuries later my father quoted it to me as a dire warning of what my teenage hippie sympathies would bring about.  
 

In the event the Pitcairn community, reduced by it’s own failings to a bunch of murderous Tahitian women, Bounty’s carpenter (who was either too old or not inclined for women), and a ship’s bible, turned out rather well, bit it could so easily have been a lifeless boneyard populated by Tahitian livestock. 
 

It took a particular personality to command one of these voyages successfully, and even Cook, superb at it, disciplined his men cruelly when he had to.  It is very clear with hindsight that Bligh did not have that personality, and that he was probably not the worst tyrant in the navy, though the very long voyages did not play to his strengths in this respect.  The accounts of the voyage of the Pandora, dispatched to Tahiti to collect such mutineers as had remained on the island (along with some who had not mutinied but for whom there was no room in the jollyboat) reveal a properly sadistic and murderous psychopath who would make Bligh look like a Sunday School teacher!

[Ozexpatriate]

2 hours ago, Tony_S said:

I wouldn’t go on a cruise if I didn’t have an outside cabin with a balcony. 

Indeed. I once went on a weekend (two night) cruise from LA to Mexico (à la "The Love Boat" television show) in an interior, hull cabin. I imagine a prison cell is worse, but not by much. Having a balcony cabin is so much nicer.

 

2 hours ago, Tony_S said:

That also saved the having look for a sunlounger task on an open deck.

Yes. My cousin went on a Mediterranean cruise (pre-pandemic and the last big family holiday before their children were out of school). 

 

Being Australian of European descent, she is very aware of sun exposure. On that cruise all the deck chairs on the shady side of the ship were always stowed and she could never find one. The deckhands would put out deck chairs in the sun, but stow them again quickly.

[polybear]

1 hour ago, Sidecar Racer said:

 

 But would you stay there ?????

 

Wot, and miss all the fun??

 

Bear here.....

A day bit of minor sanding & final fettling of the Bannister, Base Rail & Newel Post completed - they're now ready for priming - that'll be tomorrow's mission.  Other fun included a visit to the Post Office, Chemist & Co-op - I'll swear the latter gets more expensive on every visit, but that's the price of convenience; it's rare that I blow more than twenty quid on a visit and it's just for the basics such as milk, bread, nanas etc.  I'm due a big hit in Lidl but at the moment I can't be ar5ed so it remains on the "to do" list.

BG

 

 

[polybear]

Oh yes......

A search of the cheapo shelf in the Co-op Bakery Section failed to produce any cake goodies 😢 (I've almost forgotten how to spell LDC) but did produce a bag of five of those Bagel thingies (like wot they eat in New York).  And what do I find when I open up them up?  They've all got bluddy holes in the middle like donuts...no wonder they were cheap.....

Yours,

Cheated of Bear Towers ☹️

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Quite a complex character was The Duke of Wellington (and we could do with a few of him today).

He was not all that popular, certainly after Peterloo.

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

The Dutch affinity for canals did not serve them well in Batavia where the canals propagated diseases.

Batavia is built on a swamp, Jakarta as it is now named is slowly sinking into the swamp so the Indonesians are now building a new capital.

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. A few small rumbles from the arthritis/sciatica so Nurofen has been taken. Liver & bacon with onions, mash and veg was tonights dinner and very nice it was too.

[Dave Hunt]

23 hours ago, polybear said:

 

Bear recalls mention of an incident in the Med. many years ago whilst attending an Aircrew Sea Survival Course at Boscombe Down; the Lecturer mentioned (IIRC - it was a long time ago) a ship that went down and many ended up in a life raft(s) but failed to put the roof up, so it was just an open Dinghy.  Many (if not all?) died of exposure, despite the Med. temperatures.

I've had the joys of being in an MS16 life raft off Portland (the UK one) in cr@p weather and they get warm very, very quickly thanks to the roof.

 

Spot on Bear. Having done many aircrew dinghy drills in allsorts of weather in allsorts of places round the world I can vouch for what you say. It was always stressed to us that survivability once you got into the dinghy (I'm now referring to the one man variants) was dependent on getting the cover up round your shoulders before attempting anything else such as baling out, inflating the floor etc. The experience of being kicked off the back of an ASR launch in the North Sea in February is not something I would recommend but the lessons learned were salutary. It was also salutary to discover that bobbing up and down in the Med in September, whilst nowhere near as teeth chatteringly freezing, resulted in getting really quite cold after a short time. 

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

14 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

My very first sea voyage was on a unstabilised channel ferry aged 14. I wasn't affected on the rough crossing but had great amusement watching the young ladies in their trouser suits(1967) coming up out of the saloon whilst feeling sick, then forgetting g to check which way the wind was blowing. Getting your own back was. a good description. 

 

I was once on an outside deck of a Greek ferry in rough weather when a young woman who looked very green about the gills came running out of the cabin and made for the windward rail. The cries of "Noooooo..." from those on the deck went unheeded and as the contents of her stomach came flying back across them there began a chain reaction that soon became something of a holocaust. Fortunately we were far enough away not to be directly affected.

 

Dave

[Gwiwer]

2 hours ago, pH said:

That was quite the diversion! (I think you mean Kyle Rhea.)

What ever it was called it was interestingly and surprisingly rough for a passage between two nearby land masses

[Gwiwer]

6 hours ago, polybear said:

I'm gonna start my own thread called Early Risers Night Mail

How about Night Risers - Early Mail for those of a certain disposition? 🤣

[Dave Hunt]

3 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

How about Night Risers - Early Mail for those of a certain disposition? 🤣

 

Or simply Morning Glory?

 

Dave

[PhilJ W]

I see the coronation tat is hitting the shops, this must be the tattiest.

https://www.partypacks.co.uk/products/british-royal-temporary-tattoos-sheet-of-16?currency=GBP&variant=40682599514205&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google Shopping&gclid=Cj0KCQjwgLOiBhC7ARIsAIeetVDiS5g2j7v9vlLVmUSda9IaJnlro5H4zMzrs0pVEyWmXl6S12_CBjIaAp_YEALw_wcB