Early Risers.

[New Haven Neil]

After a nice ride out for a couple of hours I returned to do the house husbandly things, washing  blah blah.

 

I'm waiting for that new Ann Cleeves book from the library, I have a place in the queue - the new Richard Osman one too, they have been quite amusing.  In the meantime I have been working through JD Kirk's series of Scottish detective novels, very sweary and not without an element of humour despite grisly murders.  I suspect the author knows a detective and has built upon anecdotal stories of colleagues...

[monkeysarefun]

31 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

... Simon Jenkins in the Guardian says “Even HS2’s defenders are abandoning it. Rishi Sunak, it’s time to follow suit ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2023/09/25/new-data-absent-concern-about-antivirals-hs2-possibly-total-waste-of-money/

 

 

You don't need to spend a heap on a High speed train.

 

Simply change the timetable for all the normal trains so they leave earlier.

[PupCam]

Evening All.

 

No bimbling today after all.   The DPD man turned up earlyish with my Yamaha bits  so a concerted effort was made to make use of them.     The longest job was trying to "buff-up" the fork legs.    I think 49 years worth of the 50 year old patina  (read that as mottled light corrosion) was removed.  Although far from perfect they do look more presentable now than they did.   After all there's patina and then there's patina ........

 

Anyway, the caliper looks good to me and now with a new piston, seals,  dust seals, brake pipe, pads and a thorough clean of the cylinder and the seal grooves plus a freeing up of the "Floating" caliper bearings I think there's a good chance the brake might actually work properly now and the lick of paint makes it look quite smart.

 

 

The master cylinder casting has been stripped and is being cleaned and it will receive a complete new piston and seal assembly and a new fluid reservoir.    

Well, I feel the brakes are kind of important!    I think some close scrutiny of the rear brake and the transmission may well be in order too while we are about it.

 

Time for bed said Zebedee.

 

Night All

 

[pH]

8 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

In Wyoming there seemed tbe a raccoon every couple of miles and a few deer or antelope when not in the Interstate. 

Driving on Interstate 10 in east Texas and Louisiana, the common roadkill was nine-banded armadillos. A flattened armadillo can look confusingly like a separated tread from the tire of a transport truck. 

[Hroth]

@PupCam Boingggggggg!!!

 

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. I have several evergreen shrubs in the garden beneath which the foxes love to dig their holes. The chap who took the dead fox away told me that by removing all branches and foliage within one foot of the ground discourages foxes from digging holes. So over the next few weeks its out with the pruning saw.

[iL Dottore]

52 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

... Simon Jenkins in the Guardian says “Even HS2’s defenders are abandoning it. Rishi Sunak, it’s time to follow suit ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2023/09/25/new-data-absent-concern-about-antivirals-hs2-possibly-total-waste-of-money/

There’s nothing wrong with HS2 per se, but everything wrong with the way the whole project was managed. Take multiple layers of superfluous “consultants“; layers and layers of contractors, subcontractors, sub-subcontractors and sub-sub-sub contractors, a bus load or two of very expensive lawyers and Whitehall mandarins, Add the almost unfailing tendency of anything touched by the UK government to go belly up in short order and it’s no wonder HS2 is where it is (or, more accurately, where it isn’t) today.

 

If you had given that sort of money to one of the JR companies (or to one of the Chinese railway companies), not only would they have built the same amount of track the HS2 was originally supposed to have, but they would’ve done it multiple times over and still have had a few bob left in the kitty to develop a new generation Shinkansen (or Chinese HST)

[Winslow Boy]

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

You don't need to spend a heap on a High speed train.

 

Simply change the timetable for all the normal trains so they leave earlier.

Or better yet we could follow in the footsteps of the orange one and build a big wall across the country and leave them to get on with it. Don't think we'd miss them mind you deciding the route of the wall might cause some issues.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

Well the weather has been kind to me today and the result is the workshop door is now finished, that’s a very big tick there. I’ve also made a start removing the paint from the windows, but I only managed to get the outside done. The next good day I’ll get the inside done and hopefully get some paint on those too. After dinner I fitted ALL the door furniture to the workshop door, including the door stay, so now the door will stay open when I won’t it to. I also managed a bit of gardening too, just a little weeding and picking some raspberries, which I’ll have with my breakfast tomorrow morning. 

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[Winslow Boy]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

There’s nothing wrong with HS2 per se, but everything wrong with the way the whole project was managed. Take multiple layers of superfluous “consultants“; layers and layers of contractors, subcontractors, sub-subcontractors and sub-sub-sub contractors, a bus load or two of very expensive lawyers and Whitehall mandarins, Add the almost unfailing tendency of anything touched by the UK government to go belly up in short order and it’s no wonder HS2 is where it is (or, more accurately, where it isn’t) today.

 

If you had given that sort of money to one of the JR companies (or to one of the Chinese railway companies), not only would they have built the same amount of track the HS2 was originally supposed to have, but they would’ve done it multiple times over and still have had a few bob left in the kitty to develop a new generation Shinkansen (or Chinese HST)

Hmm there might be one or two problems with that approach especially if a Chinese company was doing it. I seem to recall one incident where the police were called in to remove some 'peasants' because they objected to having there land taken from them. Come to think of it that might work quite well at the London end they could start at the palace of Westminster and move on from there.

[monkeysarefun]

I thought the opposite was true, "nail houses" is the  term for houses that are isolated and  built around when their owners refuse to sell.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2014/apr/15/china-nail-houses-in-pictures-property-development

 

 

Similarly one of the RAAFie  reservist pilots here flies for one of the Asian airlines  and he's told of  a farm in the middle of the taxiway at Narita Airport.

Edited September 25, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[Ozexpatriate]

10 hours ago, Ian Abel said:

We had 2 inches of rain overnight Saturday and a further inch last night, FINALLY some relief from the dry weather.

It's been raining here on and off since Saturday evening - with the exception of a couple of isolated (but locally heavy) showers the first areal rain since about May. The result:

Quote

Month: .41" Departure from Normal: -.79"

So about 10mm. Hardly a deluge, but it doesn't feel out of place for this time of year. September is not usually very wet. We are supposed to get more in the coming days.

[Ozexpatriate]

4 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

Or better yet we could follow in the footsteps of the orange one and build a big wall across the country and leave them to get on with it.

Didn't the Romans do that already?

 

Little "wall" was built in the previous administration. The existing barrier was 'strengthened' / extended in places. The border is almost 2,000 miles long. 52 miles of new 'wall' were built, with 450 miles of improvements on the existing barrier. At best, 25% of the border barrier was improved. Multiple online sources will corroborate.

[jjb1970]

6 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

If you had given that sort of money to one of the JR companies (or to one of the Chinese railway companies), not only would they have built the same amount of track the HS2 was originally supposed to have, but they would’ve done it multiple times over and still have had a few bob left in the kitty to develop a new generation Shinkansen (or Chinese HST)

 

The Chinese have built so much new high speed railway that it's pretty much a production line which allows them to work quickly and effectively. They now have immense expertise and experience in high speed railway construction, whereas aside from the ridiculous way the government approaches anything in the UK as you highlight, at a technical level the stop-go intermittent approach to major programs in Britain means things tend to be a learning exercise and we don't have the expertise that the crazy amount of work done in China has allowed them to build up.

 

It's not just HS2, look at the sorry saga of the Great Western and Midland mainline electrification programs. In my own bubble the government stopped ordering nuclear subs for a few years meaning there was an interruption in building the things in Barrow meaning the yard lost a lot of the skills it had built up over decades with predictable results for the Astute program (not helped by the government selecting a Marconi design when they'd neither designed or build a nuclear submarine then telling VSEL to build someone else's design).

[jjb1970]

China jumped into high speed rail in the mid-00's and now have something like 42,000Km of high speed railway, which is route length will be less than half that but it's still a remarkable achievement. China is a much bigger country than Britain in every way than the UK (or most other countries) so we should be careful with taking comparisons too far but even accounting for size the snails pace progress of HS2 and endless travails is frankly embarrassing compared with the way China just goes out and builds stuff when they decide it is necessary to do so.

 

The usual justification is that China is a dictatorship, authoritarian state, an environmental rogue elephant trampling all underneath it which doesn't give a toss about health and safety. I wouldn't want to swap the UK model of elected government for what they have in China (as bad as Westminster is) but they do have laws and if not a model of government I particularly like neither is it the reincarnation of Stalinist Russia or that naughty national socialist Germany so many paint it as. I remember the early years of Chinese economic development in the 90's when visiting the steel making and shipyard cities was like visiting Mordor in Lord of the Rings, it was awful. Now China has cleaned up its act and environmental controls are pretty rigorous, to the point I now have European companies whinging about the costs of reducing the environmental impact of ships visiting China. I don't like it but they did what most countries have done, develop economically then repair the damage. Visiting Beijing now is like a city transformed compared to how it was 15 years ago (in every way). And on health and safety, I won't pretend their health and safety culture is as rigorous as our but neither is it a free for all and things have improved beyond recognition compared to my earlier experiences.

 

Ultimately there seems to be a reluctance in much of the world to accept that China has developed economically and is now a modern, highly capable country.

[polybear]

Bear here.....

 

Today sees Bear danglin' playin' in the muddling room - hopefully finishing at long last the joining of various sizes and shapes of brass and whitemetal.  That's the plan, anyway.

Other tasks requiring Bear's attention today:  Nil.  I call that a Tick.

 

Bear gone.

[polybear]

This link is added with a very, very high warning (though it's a BBC News item, so written carefully) - so open it on that understanding.

All I'll say is that is one very wierd, sick £^$£*%$$£$^^$£" that I really do hope gets Life;  fortunately (I hope) he's going thru' the Oz Justice System rather than UK Courts - who would probably give him 18 months suspended.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-66920778

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from the Charente. It's sunny again but not too warm.  However the supermarket needs to be visited. 

 

Not a lot else to report though. 

 

Ttfn. 

 

Jamie

[New Haven Neil]

Morning, from a reasonably warm rock at 15c and dry.  All due to change though. Badly.  It was actually dead still half an hour ago, now it is windy, there is a lot more of that to come unfortunately, with 70 - 80 mph gusts by tomorrow.  Ugh.

 

Off to the hospickle this afternoon for a new direction of physioterrorism, I don't think I'm going to like it much.  However it is better than having painful injections into hip joints that don't help in the slightest. I hope.

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

34 minutes ago, polybear said:

This link is added with a very, very high warning (though it's a BBC News item, so written carefully) - so open it on that understanding.

All I'll say is that is one very wierd, sick £^$£*%$$£$^^$£" that I really do hope gets Life;  fortunately (I hope) he's going thru' the Oz Justice System rather than UK Courts - who would probably give him 18 months suspended.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-66920778

 

 

Due to the nature of the crime If he hasn't got  Australian citizenship then under The Migration Act of 1958   he'll potentially be judged to have failed the character test and therefore pose a risk to the safety and good order of the  community thus rendering him ineligible to remain here. Alternatively receiving  a sentence of 12 months or more will place him in the same position.

 

If either case occurs then    when his sentence is over he'll be met at the jail gates  by the  Federal Police   and chucked on to a plane back to the UK. 

 

If  he is a dual citizen of the UK and Australia then he'll get deported back there only if he has committed an act of terrorism.

Edited September 26, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[TheQ]

11 hours ago, skipepsi said:

When and where will there be pictures?

An RMweb thread will start when I have built one of the two board pairs, quite where I'll put it I'm not sure.

There appears to be no specific Narrow Gauge railway section, it's no longer a micro layout as it's grown to 11 linear feet. While heavily based on French railways, it's emphasis is more on it being during the Art Deco period.

There's a idea I'll be able to end on connect up a model of a real Norfolk NG railway, for which previous preparations were made, but that is being redesigned due to the change of car, the shape of that was a big part of its design. At the moment I haven't worked out how to make it fit.

 

To me,  it seems the wake up call for environmental protection to China was the Beijing Olympics, they cleared the air in Beijing by closing down dozens of smokey factories in the area for the duration. Then with all the politicians in Beijing seeing what they had done and what they could do, realisation occurred.

 

Mooring Awl,

3.5 hours sleep, short awake , 3.5 hours sleep a much better night.

 

Ben the I want out Collie was hinting much too early, I managed to delay him for a while, but we've now been out. He did go fairly fast for his age, had a good snuffle and found one of his tennis balls. So he was happy.

Heavy dew, heavy cloud, no wind, it doesn't seem to be getting much lighter. The seaweed inspectors indicate rain in an hour or two.

 

Plans for today,

First brownie point earning, 

Various bits have arrived to modify some loom equipment, they will be installed first.

That done, brownie point consumption.

Board one will be completed enough to go into my computer/ muddling room in the house.

Board two will get one or two more sides.

 

A muggacoffee calls, 

Time to go to the kitchen ,, but first rescue some wool that was drying out side, before the rain arrives.

 

[monkeysarefun]

4 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Didn't the Romans do that already?

 

Little "wall" was built in the previous administration. The existing barrier was 'strengthened' / extended in places. The border is almost 2,000 miles long. 52 miles of new 'wall' were built, with 450 miles of improvements on the existing barrier. At best, 25% of the border barrier was improved. Multiple online sources will corroborate.

 

We built one here ages ago, which is 3,500 miles long. 

 

So it might look a little dodgy in places but how many Mexicans have got over it? None!

 

 

As a bonus it is possible to take advantage of its vast tourist potential.

 

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

Covid jab day.. a gentle stroll to the local pharmacy to be jabbed will be conducted. I may even trundle down to Headingley to watch some cricket.

 

But first.. a bacon sarnie is calling...?.

 

TTFN

 

Baz