Early Risers.

[New Haven Neil]

4 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

And an AWL?

 

The Awl's local representative is busy today  😉

[monkeysarefun]

4 hours ago, TheQ said:

Here  we have a swimming pool in the driver's footwell again.

I've ordered another seal on the door not previously changed..

 

The windscreen seal is another likely culprit, was both times I've  had puddles in the passengers  footwell.

[The White Rabbit]

23 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

All the tarte flambé / Flammekueche  I have eaten have had an extremely thin base.

 

The Waitrose ones I started out with (and which have since been dropped from their range) were thin but I wouldn't say extremely thin. Yes, depending on taste (and with a reduction in cooking time) you could easily halve the pastry thickness - though rolling pastry too thin does risk creating holes in the tarte. 

 

I haven't tried it but do wonder how filo pastry would work. It might be an easy way to get a very thin layer but wonder how the unleavened aspect would affect the taste. Any ideas anyone? 

[polybear]

1 hour ago, grandadbob said:

Much hanging of Christmas lights has been done and the tree is up but not finished yet.  Unlike PB @polybear I will not be hanging anything, myself included, from the guttering.

 

Bear's Chrimbo Decs. will consist of an illuminated fibre-optic Mobile with a choo choo on it**;  take it & the mains adapter out of the wardrobe, take it out of it's bag then bung it on the small table next to the telly and plug it in.  Job done.

 

**Sadly the choo choo no longer goes round in circles - it started squealin' like Hippo with no cake and those in the far east certain didn't believe in making it easy to fix; I tried but there was so much scope for buggerinitup that I left well alone - the choo choo was parked front & centre and now it's just a light display, which is fine.

 

5 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

 

And an AWL?

 

26 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

The Awl's local representative is busy today  😉

 

There's an exemption for Live Steam.....

[Coombe Barton]

... Nine o’clock lecture – not many students there. One turned up so late only to hear me say “Thank you, see you next week.” ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2023/11/29/covid-would-the-real-former-prime-minister-please-stand-up/

[New Haven Neil]

10 minutes ago, polybear said:

There's an exemption for Live Steam.....

 

Oh goody!

 

[polybear]

Bear here.....

 

Another day of "more of the same".....

.....only today it was a bit different......

 

No naughty words (ok, maybe a few TC's - but they don't count) and I've come up with a cunning scheme that might just work.  As to whether or not this will be THE scheme is another question entirely, however.....

A very nice fellow ER'er is also assisting Bear by casually keeping me on the straight n' narrow.  Yes, really......and all for the price of a Pint.  Huge Tick - and Gold Star awarded.

 

ION.....

I phoned a Buddy earlier - he's had some rather good news (hopefully); he's been under investigation for the dreaded Big C (Prostate) and after an MRI was told "You've got Cancer" - no ifs, buts or maybe's.  He was then forward for biopsy - seventeen, no less.

Well he's now been told that he doesn't have The Big C - so he's A Very Happy Bunny after all; he's somewhat p1ssed off with the first Doc though, he told him he had (and there was no "it looks like you've got" either).  Good news all round though.

 

BG

[PupCam]

Evening All!

 

8 hours ago, Tony_S said:

My car has the facility to start and run the engine for 20 minutes to warm the car up. Lots of warnings about only doing it where permitted (not parked on road for instance). Doors remain locked. I tried it once to see if it worked, but it isn't exactly needed here.

 

20 MINUTES !!!!!    

 

I was going to add a comment exploring that but I'll refrain for fear of offence.    So everyone will just have to put up with my incredulity and wonder exactly what I think this mad world is coming to!     I bet a few can guess .....

 

ION

 

Not a huge amount to report.     A trip to beam land to extract the old photo archive.   Youngest Junior Puppers was after a few photographs of her in her "relatively freshly hatched" form.   Suitable photographs were found, scanned and dispatched by the wonder of the Interweb.    I also found a couple from an interesting part of my working life when I was involved with putting a fairly large chunk of an airliner into an even larger tank of water and then constantly abusing it for something like 40000 simulated flights.   A period when I leant a lot about control systems, 3 term controllers, hydraulic servos and  Cheese &.Onion Toasties*

 

* You've got to have something to look forward to on a cold winter's night at 2:00 o'clock in the morning when you've just done an inspection of the test facility stuck in the open on the middle of an airfield.

 

A trip to the local (this time) hospital this afternoon for more blood tests.  I was rather pleased at the end when the phlebotomy nurse thanked me for making her laugh, she said it had brightened up her day.   She "told herself off" when she said to me the standard statement "You'll feel a small scratch" and then said many people  say "That's not a scratch you're going to stab me" which of course is rather over-dramatic.   I said that I had noticed they'd changed the script from what they used to say a few years ago; she laughed and said "I know exactly what you mean and we're not allowed to say THAT any more!"   I mentioned I would have been terminally offended (it's all the rage) if she had  🤣

 

And that's it really.

 

Night All

 

 

 

[polybear]

12 minutes ago, PupCam said:

Evening All!

 

 

20 MINUTES !!!!!    

 

I was going to add a comment exploring that but I'll refrain for fear of offence.    So everyone will just have to put up with my incredulity and wonder exactly what I think this mad world is coming to!     I bet a few can guess .....

 

Bear was always of the view that warming engines slowly by idling did them a whole heap of no good as it leads to premature wear; far better to warm them quickly (within reason!!)

 

12 minutes ago, PupCam said:

A period when I leant a lot about control systems, 3 term controllers, hydraulic servos and  Cheese &.Onion Toasties*

 

* You've got to have something to look forward to on a cold winter's night at 2:00 o'clock in the morning when you've just done an inspection of the test facility stuck in the open on the middle of an airfield.

 

I suspect the thought of rather healthy inbound wage packets at the end of the week (or was it month?) after doing "Ghosters" was a help too.

Msquared ITB n' all that (and Bear will be most disappointed if you don't know that one.....)

 

BG

[Andy Hayter]

2 hours ago, The White Rabbit said:

 

The Waitrose ones I started out with (and which have since been dropped from their range) were thin but I wouldn't say extremely thin. Yes, depending on taste (and with a reduction in cooking time) you could easily halve the pastry thickness - though rolling pastry too thin does risk creating holes in the tarte. 

 

I haven't tried it but do wonder how filo pastry would work. It might be an easy way to get a very thin layer but wonder how the unleavened aspect would affect the taste. Any ideas anyone? 

 

Definite thumbs down on filo.   That is going too thin and muktiple layers would give a very different result.

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Been looking at the destructions for assembling the rollalong, seems pretty straightforward but some of the components look a bit odd in an engineering sense making me wonder if they need special tools. The fixed wheels in particular where they are attached by screw in studs that look as if they need a tommy bar. The front castoring wheels just plug in.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

The fog cleared around mid morning, as did the frost on the workshop roof. However, the frost on the ground didn’t go, it was still there as it was going dark!

 

Apart from sweeping the cellar floor, I’ve not yet mopped it, as all the boxes I retrieved from the underfloor storage area are in the way, I’ve not done much. To quote our late friend @chrisf, it’s been a day of unspecified pottering. Both our packages arrived, but like last week, they were over 1 1/2 hours late, but I suppose that’s down to the time of year! 

 

This evening we had our weekly chat with Vickie, catching up with what’s going on at their house etc. What I did confirm was that Max will drop by on Sunday. When we were out for our family meal last Sunday, he asked if I could show him how to make model cars, well, I didn’t need asking twice, so if he doesn’t change his mind, he and I will spend Sunday afternoon in the workshop and hopefully I’ll get him hooked on model making too. 
 

Once I’d packed up for the day, I had my ears lowered! 

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[Hroth]

4 hours ago, polybear said:

 

The Royal Mail weight limit is 30Kg.....just how much stuff did you buy???

 

I couldn't figure it out either!

 

It wasn't that heavy when I brought it in.  Does RM have volumetric restrictions too?  It didn't seem any bigger than previous stuff that I've had by RM.  RM just didn't come up on the list of delivery options, otherwise I'd have chosen it!

 

[jjb1970]

On warming engines, the really big engines have thermal ramp rates built into their control systems to protect them from thermal issues (stress, different expansion) but they also have warnings about not running at very low load. If you try and by-pass the control system to accelerate more quickly you'll have a lot of bills to replace cracked cylinder liners etc. The big ones are difficult to idle as they're almost all direct drive to a propeller,  they can fit special zero thrust 'propellers' which just churn the water if really necessary but it's very rare as dry-docking to change the props before and after is a lot of work and expensive. I was on a ship that did it because there was an engine issue and the yard was trying to figure out what to do (actually,  as with most 'engine' issues on big propulsion units the engine was fine, it was an alignment problem). On the smaller medium speed auxiliary engines (think locomotive size) engines going back several decades have been designed to run up to speed and take load very quickly and running at idle just clags them up. However,  this is all predicated on keeping the engines warm when stopped and keeping jacket water hot.

[jjb1970]

I find with delivery companies so much depends on the final delivery driver, which is a lottery. We had a local Hermes driver in MK who was fantastic despite all the negative views of the company. We had a spell where RM was awful, and with Amazon different deliveries in the same week could be very different.

[jamie92208]

5 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

On warming engines, the really big engines have thermal ramp rates built into their control systems to protect them from thermal issues (stress, different expansion) but they also have warnings about not running at very low load. If you try and by-pass the control system to accelerate more quickly you'll have a lot of bills to replace cracked cylinder liners etc. The big ones are difficult to idle as they're almost all direct drive to a propeller,  they can fit special zero thrust 'propellers' which just churn the water if really necessary but it's very rare as dry-docking to change the props before and after is a lot of work and expensive. I was on a ship that did it because there was an engine issue and the yard was trying to figure out what to do (actually,  as with most 'engine' issues on big propulsion units the engine was fine, it was an alignment problem). On the smaller medium speed auxiliary engines (think locomotive size) engines going back several decades have been designed to run up to speed and take load very quickly and running at idle just clags them up. However,  this is all predicated on keeping the engines warm when stopped and keeping jacket water hot.

They discovered the problem of idling engines when a few HST power cars were modified to act as driving trailers to run with the first class 91's before the Mk4 stock was delivered. The Power car was set at Idle to power the hotel load on the coaches as the 91 couldn't do that.  Before long they had problems with oil carrying over through the exhaust.  The only solution was to link the Valenta engine to the throttle circuit and use it as extra traction power.  Those sets could really fly with over 8000hp available.  The acceleration uphill towards Leeds out of Wakefield was phenomenal. 

 

Jamiei

[iL Dottore]

11 hours ago, The White Rabbit said:

Evening all,

 

One set of scribblings re tarte flambe, as promised to @polybear:

 

 

Ingredients (like pizza, it's variable):

 

A sheet of pastry is needed for the base – either homemade or RTR – Jusrol puff pastry (320g) is an easy shortcut and provides two decent portions for a meal, four if it's a lighter meal, say with some green stuff by the side.

 

A 'moisturiser' – the traditional recipes advise using Creme Fraiche but (at the risk of horrifying traditionalists who would probably say that it's not tarte flambe) you could use tomato sauce/puree or passata …

 

And you were doing so well up until then…..

I admit to being a culinary purist. If a certain dish, let’s say  <Bear Udon>  [n Hokkaido the Japanese eat bear meat - gamey, but tasty) requires you to use bear meat but you substitute beef for bear, then it’s no longer <Bear Udon> no matter how tasty it is. But if you say it’s “Udon in the style of Bear Udon”  then it’s clear what you’re getting and you won’t be disappointed that there’s no bear in your udon.

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from the Charente.  It's raining again.  The cold is progressing but  I'm going to cancemy planned trainspotting as It wouldn't be fair on Andy to be stuck in a car with me for several hours.   Logs got cut yesterday as I did my best to stay outside in cooler places.    I suspect that the ironing will be done today.  Not a lot else to report. 

 

Jamie 

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl,

6.5 hours almost solid sleep, that's good, Notalot since, not so good.

Ben the early Collie was asking to go out an hour early, I managed to put him off till the correct time.

Just the most exposed grass is frozen, not so much frosted, no white , more ice cubed. The vehicles are  showing no frost.

Easterly cool breeze, no clouds, darn chilly.

 

Cheese and onion toasties were a favourite on long overnight guard duties, other toasties just didn't work so well with the generally poor quality fillings available from the RAF cookhouse.

 

The fews times any couriers wait outside our house, are because the are busy studying their phones for the route to the next drop..

 

Plans for today,

Wrap up warm ,

Garage roof sealing,

Come in and get warm.

Muddling.

 

But first,

Much to Ben's disgust,

Porridge for breakfast. (He'll eat porridge, but much prefers bacon)

 

Time to head for to the kitchen

 

[iL Dottore]

10 hours ago, polybear said:

ION.....

I phoned a Buddy earlier - he's had some rather good news (hopefully); he's been under investigation for the dreaded Big C (Prostate) and after an MRI was told "You've got Cancer" - no ifs, buts or maybe's.  He was then forward for biopsy - seventeen, no less.

Well he's now been told that he doesn't have The Big C - so he's A Very Happy Bunny after all; he's somewhat p1ssed off with the first Doc though, he told him he had (and there was no "it looks like you've got" either).  Good news all round though.

I wouldn't blame the first doc, blame a p1ss-poor system that delays diagnostic assessments (scans, biopsies, blood work, radiology) until well after the patient has been examined and a tentative diagnosis established.

 

Too often I have seen cases where "it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck" only to find than the definitive diagnostic test shows that it is, in reality, a swan.

 

The importance of prompt diagnostics cannot be overstated, and this delay in definitive diagnosis is one of the reasons the UK lags behind most European countries when it come to cancer survival rates (see: https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/worldwide-cancer/mortality)

 

One of the bitter ironies is that the diagnostic machinery IS there, but the relevant departments work for the most part civil servant hours. A lot of the equipment lies idle in the evenings and on weekends (the lab and radiology in the hospital I worked at in the US, 40 years ago, were fully staffed for the day and evening shifts 7 days/week, with skeleton cover for nights and holidays. It can be done).

 

[New Haven Neil]

Morning, from a chilly rock that is 2c and reet frosty.  Firewood delivery today so I have to move a load of stuff for him to get to the last, and awkwardly placed store.

 

Then who knows - too cold to make heating the garage/workshop/layout room worthwhile so maybe a walk if it warms up a bit, and again more of that 'unspecified pottering' our late friend often mentioned.

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Frosty start and neighbours can be seen and heard de-icing windscreens.  A cloudy but dry morning forecast but it may brighten up later.  -1°C rising to a maximum of 5°C.

First bin lorry has already been and gone. others to follow.  Sainsbury's have advised of 3 unavailable items so a trip to Asda is deemed necessary later.  However and most importantly the discounted wine is available.

Today will see me stringing up some lights but not sure about The Shed yet as the power source is inside that building and I don't fancy walking down there every night to switch them off.  I have got a couple of plug in timers somewhere so will have to institute a search or order another one (or two).  Sod's Law says if I do the latter the old ones will then make an appearance.

Ah,  I've just heard The Boss's call to arms so "It'stimetogettamoveon."

Have a good one,

Bob.

Edited November 30, 2023 by grandadbob

[zarniwhoop]

11 hours ago, The White Rabbit said:

 

The Waitrose ones I started out with (and which have since been dropped from their range) were thin but I wouldn't say extremely thin. Yes, depending on taste (and with a reduction in cooking time) you could easily halve the pastry thickness - though rolling pastry too thin does risk creating holes in the tarte. 

 

I haven't tried it but do wonder how filo pastry would work. It might be an easy way to get a very thin layer but wonder how the unleavened aspect would affect the taste. Any ideas anyone? 

On the one occasion I had flammekueche in Alsace the base was described as bread dough. I do not recall much about the base, but it certainly wasnit ultra-thin pastry. As a veggie I asked for the onion variety without lardons, and only had a few pieces to pick off.