Early Risers.

[grandadbob]

Evenin' each,

A little bit of muddling has been done, painting of tiny beer bottles, crates and barrels for my brewery lorry and pub. Quite a few more to be done.

A couple of rugby matches watched and I particularly enjoyed seeing Exeter beat Toulon (in Toulon) by one point in the final seconds of the game.  This was made more enjoyable because of the continued whistling and booing by the French fans every time anything went against them along with them not "respecting" the kicker.  Almost wet myself laughing when the final kick went over and shut them up for a few seconds until they started booing the result.  Really sportsmanlike...not.

My car (Peugeot 3008)  has the stop/start function which can be switched off but I leave it on.  It doesn't function if the battery level has dropped below a certain level which as I do a lot of short journeys means it doesn't always work.  Nor does it work if the air con or screen demisters are on or if the outside temperature drops below a certain level and there are a few other reasons.  TBH It only takes a split second to restart on mine as soon as you lift your foot from the brake pedal or even twitch the steering wheel which is what I usually do in anticipation of traffic lights changing.  If in heavy slow moving traffic I do the same as Rick and just keep a very light foot on the brake so it doesn't cut out.  Never found it a problem although TBH I'm not sure what good it is apart from getting the car through emission control rules and regs.

The Boss is in "dancing" mode (not with me, I don't dance), she's watching the tv programme so I will now don my headphones and listen to some music.

Edited December 9, 2023 by grandadbob
multiple mistooks

[TheQ]

20 odd years of shift work,

Diabetes, yes..

Permanently disrupted sleep patterns,  yes

[Sidecar Racer]

3 hours ago, DaveF said:

     and why when traffic lights turn green do they wait for nearly 15 seconds before moving? 

 

 

 Waiting for the right shade of green  of course .        🤣

[New Haven Neil]

38 minutes ago, Hroth said:

I can imagine things might be a bit queasy on Fraggle Rock!

 

 

Anchors are deployed, but a shift towards Whitehaven is noted!  It is a wild old night for sure but I think the worst has passed now.  There's a big tree down just down the road from us.

[monkeysarefun]

Yesterday despite being in the low 40's the humidity was in the low teens. Today its going to   top-out at only 28 but  its cloudy so the humidity is around 70%.

 

I know which day I prefer.  (Hint - not today!) 

[polybear]

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

When the time comes to buy a battery for the stop-start car, make sure you sit down or a standing beside something soft to fall onto before  he rings up the cash register!

 

 Some brands ( like Mada I think) don't use the starter motor for stop-start but use engine compression, basically similar to when you push-start a car...)

 

Just checked and an AGM one for Mickey is a Deltic (£160) from the Dealer - probably less elsewhere.

 

1 hour ago, grandadbob said:

My car (Peugeot 3008)  has the stop/start function which can be switched off but I leave it on.  It doesn't function if the battery level has dropped below a certain level which as I do a lot of short journeys means it doesn't always work.  Nor does it work if the air con or screen demisters are on or if the outside temperature drops below a certain level and there are a few other reasons.

 

I have a "clever" battery charger that can be left connected apparently, though I only use it occasionally to give Bertie Battery a top-up cos' I too do very little mileage (probably no more than 2K/year.

 

ION.......

 

More "Planning"........I have an idea**.......

 

(**I've had them before....they've yet to end well........)

 

IOON......

 

I see Pootin's UN Flunky has been slaggin' off JB's Flunky for puttin' his Paw up in some meeting or other yesterday.  Perhaps they should tidy their own doorstep first.  T0ssers.

 

BG

[Hroth]

Riding out the gale with a large mug of drinking chocolate with added cinnamon syrup and some "seasonal*" music on the hifi...

 

* Not the usual carols, "pop" stuff, etc...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rtpYyH4q8p0

 

Edited December 9, 2023 by Hroth
Added link, edited reason for edit...

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

Just checked and an AGM one for Mickey is a Deltic (£160) from the Dealer - probably less elsewhere.

 

 

 

Just checked the price of an EFB battery for an MG3 here, a decent one is around $350, which compares to the $270 that the ute battery cost me about 4 months ago, and that  one came with extra cranking amps to help kick the V8 in cold weather.

Edited December 9, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[Barry O]

Hoolie outside is finally abating.  Airportv as shut at times this afternoon.. LBA is not the easiest place to land.

 

On line zoom meeting held .. outcomes were good.

 

Time for some shut eye methinks.

 

Baz

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[The Lurker]

5 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

The UK aside, it surprises me that there's this sort of different rates for different places inside the Schengen Area. Is it mostly because Switzerland is not in the EU?

 

All of your stories of 'not available in Switzerland' surprise me. It makes me wonder if (and I have some idea why not) the Swiss adopted the Euro and EU membership this might go away.

 

Seems like that sort of thing is a consequence of choosing to live in Switzerland.

Surely there are different pay rates for the same job within the US? That is prevalent in the Uk - some places especially London tend to be more expensive and command higher pay scales and so the work carried out is more expensive - I guess it is a vicious circle.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

Despite the awful weather, I had a good time at the Manchester Model Railway Show today. It actually worked out cheaper getting the tram there than it would have been to take the train, so I think this may be the way forward in the future. There didn’t seem to be as many traders as there used to be, but those that were there, all seemed to be doing well. Certainly the one I bought my storage unit from was, he’d actually sold out of one item (a rail cutting jig) by dinner time. 

 

I also had a few bargains at the club sale stand too, I managed to pick up 3 Mashima motors for £26 and an unopened 00 (16.5mm) gauge Scaleway double slip point kit for £12. I just need to myself a set of 16.5mm track gauges now. 

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[jjb1970]

Engine stop/start has been around for a long time, a BMW I had in 2009 had it as part of their efficient dynamics package, and every car since then. I stopped noticing it, systems are now very good and there's no issue pulling away from lights. I found batteries coped fine. The thing that is counter intuitive to everything I was taught is that my automatic A6 would disengage the engine (but not stop it) and coast if the system detected the engine wasn't doing anything such as going downhill. Engines are now designed to warm up a lot more quickly. Unfortunately playing with compression ratios and injection has meant some modern petrol sound diesel-like but they're very efficient. 

[iL Dottore]

Well, that was fun!

 

Tiring, but fun.

 

I had mentioned earlier that I would be cooking a 12 course Japanese haute cuisine dinner (Kaiseki Ryori) to celebrate a friend’s 70th birthday.

 

It went very well indeed, the only minor mishap was with the yakitori, which needed to go back on the grill for a moment or two. The expensive fish, referred to before, was absolutely perfect and, because I bought a little bit more than absolutely necessary to see my guests, tomorrow I will be having a high-quality sashimi lunch.

 

The birthday girl thought it was a really good dinner and her husband (and my friend, the retired GP) really enjoyed the sashimi, but went absolutely bonkers over the Gyudon - which, I must admit, was a bloody good indeed.

 

Every single one of the 12 courses were wolfed down,  something which I, as an amateur chef, find intensely gratifying. With good planning and a fair amount of prep work, a 12 course menu wasn’t that difficult a feat to pull off. Of course, in a typical Japanese Kaiseki meal each ““course“ is actually just a single  dish.

The only “downside”, if you want to call it that, is that I spent a good portion of the evening in the kitchen, leaving Mrs ID the task of entertaining our guests. Once dinner was over, I retired to the living room and had a wee dram of Suntory World Whiskey with my friend. This particular whiskey is a most interesting special blend of whiskeys from America, Canada, Ireland, Scotland and Japan.

 

Anyway, it’s now time for bed (having dozed off when writing the above, so I a bit you all a good night from a wet and windy Switzerland. Tomorrow will be a day of dolce far niente

Edited December 10, 2023 by iL Dottore
Correction of autocorrect

[Ozexpatriate]

2 hours ago, The Lurker said:

Surely there are different pay rates for the same job within the US? That is prevalent in the Uk - some places especially London tend to be more expensive and command higher pay scales and so the work carried out is more expensive - I guess it is a vicious circle.

Yes and no. I'm aware of corporate pay scales where the San Francisco Bay area has (slightly) higher pay than the rest of the country, but everywhere else the pay scales are the same irrespective of state.

 

While there is a standard Federal minimum wage, local minimum wages vary state-to-state, even within a state.

 

Pricing on nation-wide chains (like fast-food) can vary by franchisee, but advertised specials are usually the same price, except in Hawaii and Alaska where it costs more to ship them there.

 

My question to Flavio ( @iL Dottore ) had nothing to do with wages. It was about how Switzerland seems to have different access to goods from Euro-wide retailers. Based on what Flavio has told us, many products are not offered in Switzerland and many companies will not deliver to Switzerland. This seems super weird to me. Even multinational retailers like the A->Z company doesn't offer the same range of items - again according to Flavio.

 

I was guessing that this is because Switzerland has different import laws than EU countries.

 

I order British model railway items from British retailers regularly. They put them in the post and arrive on my doorstep. I pay exactly the same as anyone in the UK - except that my purchases are exempt from VAT. With postage, they end up costing slightly more - and can be much more if the retailer just posts, say, a single wagon.

 

Edited December 10, 2023 by Ozexpatriate

[jjb1970]

For some reason trade between Britain and Europe now seems a lot more complicated than trade with the rest of the world. If I  order stuff from Britain it seems to be 4-5 days to get to me in Singapore, including a customs check and I have zero issues. 

[Ozexpatriate]

1 minute ago, jjb1970 said:

For some reason

Why could that possibly be I wonder? 😉

 

[Tony_S]

11 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Why could that possibly be I wonder? 😉

 

I ordered a coat last week. It was from a Swedish business who ship worldwide from the Netherlands. There was a website for UK orders except it wasn’t for UK really but GB.  For residents in Northern Ireland they had to use the EU web pages. 
If I order something from Amazon UK that is actually from Amazon EU the tracking indicates when and where customs clearance occurs. I assume Amazon sort out all import stuff. It seems odd that a screwdriver costing a few pounds incurs all this documentation. We sent a Christmas card to Switzerland today. Aditi paid for the postage online and the system insisted on a customs declaration for the card.  Not sure if that would have been necessary at a Post Office. 

[Ozexpatriate]

3 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

We sent a Christmas card to Switzerland today. Aditi paid for the postage online and the system insisted on a customs declaration for the card.

Intriguing. I imagine the system is treating it the same as a package. Still weird all the same.

 

Customs forms are required when shipping packages from the US to Australia with the USPS - but not first class international mail - like cards. I just put the right postage on them and drop them in a mailbox - like any other letter.

[jjb1970]

If I  send a letter or card home I just have to apply the right stamp. If I use an express tracked service like EMS (such as sending documents to the bank) then I  have to complete customs forms.

[BR60103]

The news tonight reported that we had a new record high for the day -- 12 degrees replaced 11.5.

 

[Ozexpatriate]

38 minutes ago, BR60103 said:

The news tonight reported that we had a new record high for the day -- 12 degrees replaced 11.5.

We were flirting with / exceeding record highs for the day last week - with one day around 19°C. An 'atmospheric river' of moisture brought rain and less cold air from the central Pacific (around Hawaii). We had most of our normal rain for the month in the first week of December - around 145mm. We are now ahead of normal precipitation for the 'rain year'.

 

There was flooding in the usual trouble spots and a couple of drownings of people swept away by swollen creeks, with landslides and roads collapsed by failing culverts - particularly on the coast.

 

Friday was dry but the rain is back today.

[pH]

2 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

… advertised specials are usually the same price, except in Hawaii and Alaska where it costs more to ship them there …

At one time, we used to visit Hawaii every January for a soccer tournament and usually  did self-catering in a rented condo. Shopping in supermarkets there it really wasn’t too unusual to hear, in a mainland US accent, a disbelieving “How much??”.

Edited December 10, 2023 by pH

[pH]

3 hours ago, The Lurker said:

Surely there are different pay rates for the same job within the US? That is prevalent in the Uk - some places especially London tend to be more expensive and command higher pay scales and so the work carried out is more expensive - I guess it is a vicious circle.

Overall, a very awkward situation. I’ve been on the “wrong” side of it where, within the same organization, the same work was being done in London and in the north of England at very different rates of pay. As you can imagine, that led to a certain degree  of unhappiness. There was no need for this, other than that staff doing the job in London had (of course) to be able to live there. This was many years ago - with modern communications, I would be very surprised if this situation is still the same.