Early Risers.

[Ozexpatriate]

I am very excited by the weekend weather forecast. It is forecast to rain on Saturday. We might even see thunderstorms. The prospect of precipitation is delightful.

 

Today was quite lovely - 27°C and sunny. We could really use a little rain.

[Ozexpatriate]

4 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

Been to Stithians today for the West of England Steam Engine Society annual shindig.

 

Very impressive.

 

I've never seen more than three at a time here and they are not quite in such nice condition.

 

Though I am remiss in not attending an event called the "Great Oregon Steam-up!".  I've missed it for this year. It will return next summer. 

 

I need to put this on my calendar.

 

[jamie92208]

7 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

I thought you were supposed to wear baseball caps back to front to stop your neck getting burnt.

 

Just remember to run the shoelaces throw the holes in the hat and under your chin and not the other way round.

I have been assured that wearing a baseball cap back to front instantly reduces the IQ of the wearer by 10 points. Several of the ones that I have dealt with have ended up with a negative value. 

 

Anyway good moaning g from the Charente.  It is due to get damp today as the sky is due to weep this morning. The older adults are going to abandon the younger ones and the SPT this afternoon as it's the Cagouille or snail meal this afternoon.  The younger adults may have to deal with somewhat inebriated parents when we return.  It should be a good afternoon. 

 

Jamie

[iL Dottore]

3 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

So long as you are stable while ambulatory. My aunt had knee surgery (in her late 80s?) All went very well. Until, frustrated with having to call a nurse to assist her to the toilet, she determined she would do so on her own. She fell and hit her head. Her health (which prior to that incident had been fabulous) had a steep decline afterwards. She is no longer with us.

A salutary tale (and one I’m sorry to hear about).

 

Going to the WC by yourself, whilst you are recovering from an operation, does require critical self assessment as to how much assistance you really do need. In my case, all I needed was assistance in getting out of bed (bending one’s knees immediately after knee surgery is not the most pleasant of endeavours). Once sitting on the side of the bed, I was able to use the crutches to stand and to ambulate myself safely to the loo - a matter of a few paces.

 

For the first week after a surgery (and possibly longer, depending on patient and operation), you have to walk a very fine line between not doing enough physical activity and doing too much. Fortunately, nowadays, the consensus is to get patients to ambulate and to do physical activity, no matter how limited, almost immediately after surgery. This has a number of benefits such as minimising the muscle atrophy which you get from extended bedrest, preventing deep vein thromboses and so on.

[iL Dottore]

9 hours ago, Ian Abel said:

I'm glad you added the ** but given we're in ER isn't that already part of the ER definition 🤣🤣🤣

I was going to make an acerbic comment about The Bear’s post, but decided against it, deciding to give PB a break/the benefit of the doubt.

 

Besides, his nemesis, Captain Cynical, was off being beastly to somebody else - although he did take the time to tell me that The Bear should not get complacent, because “if I am being nice now, it’s only because I’m saving up the nasty for later!”

[polybear]

8 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Viakal and other limescale removers such as Oust mostly consist of formic acid which is what makes stinging nettles sting. It is perfectly safe to use (stinging nettles are edible).

 

Strangely enough it doesn't make paws sting though (ask me how I know.....); I was mighty careful to keep it off the surrounding Granite Worktop though, as the two don't play nicely together and it cost ratheralottadeltics (and some; the Sink wasn't cheap either**)

 

**Both being good examples that go to disprove iD's @iL Dottore's theory scandalous, libellous  allegation that A Certain Bear is a tight ar5e.....)

 

8 hours ago, Erichill16 said:

Sigh!

 

I reckon it's further proof that Kim Jong wotsit is out to get us - maybe @Andy Y is a secret agent.....

 

7 hours ago, PupCam said:

Speaking of the Sheringham Greater Anglia  station when we visited with the intention of a ride  on one of those (very good) modern trains for a "Compare and Contrast" exercise with a "proper" train the single ticket machine was out of order.   The only way of purchasing the train tickets before boarding was via a flaming App.    Junior Puppers did the honours but if it was down to me I wouldn't have done so on a point of principle - I WILL NOT BE FORCED TO USE A SMART PHONE APP FOR ANYTHING & EVERYTHING AND SET UP YET ANOTHER ACCOUNT JUST TO BUY A TRAIN TICKET.   IT'S DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THOSE THAT CAN'T DO SO (mainly but not exclusively the elderly).   You may of course regard that as a rant and me a luddite if you wish but it's still discrimination and if it was in in another form in other contexts would be illegal (and rightly so).   

 

That was in very significant danger of being a Rant......

Based on a recent Court ruling I think I'd be inclined to ride without a ticket, offering to buy a ticket using a proper method of payment at my destination.  The chances of actually encountering a ticket check would be pretty slim (and playing the line that "they keep sacking proper staff and replacing them with machines" should go down well I reckon) and if it did go to court then it'll certainly make a good test case with plenty of media attention.

[polybear]

Bear here.......

 

Bear has several ideas (who says Bear can't multitask??) for today - I've not decided which yet.....

The good news is that Bear has had one message "showing a significant desire" to possess Harry (the catch being he needs to flog one of his existing 'sickles [the SOHC version of Harry] first in order to retain matrimonial harmony...) plus another with a firm offer - a little low but certainly a worthwhile improvement over the dealer offer - but I've a pretty good feeling that a "meet you halfway" counter-offer would be agreeable.  Watch this space.....

 

10/10 for ambition - though taking on the Presley Family Lawyers probably isn't the smartest idea in the world:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdd7enz9r0qo

 

This is good news at long last - a certain BBC Reporter will I suspect be most pleased:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cewlgpye209o

 

Time to wriggle....

 

BG

[iL Dottore]

Living in Switzerland, as I do, and being very much a Nipponphile, I am very much spoilt by public bodies and private entities that are actually competent, know what the **** they are actually doing when they do it and which treat their employees as more than an unpleasant and annoyingly necessary expenditure.

 

Now this is not to take away from the abilities, intelligence and competence of most of the people in the front line, but British management – never Britain’s strongest point - has gotten worse over the past two decades and this rot permeates both public and private entities.

 

Call me a cynical old bu99er if you will, but I firmly believe this rot was accelerated by Tony Blair and his mantra of “educashun, educashun, educashun” which funneled far too many youngsters into university education, resulting in a plethora of (for want of a better term) “Mickey Mouse,“ courses, with a resultant unrealistically high expectations of the graduates of those courses.
 

Unwilling (and quite possibly unable) to actually do any meaningful “hands-on“ hard graft, these graduates in lower management positions have to devise ways to justify their employment. And this they do by creating harebrained schemes that look good on paper, but are either unworkable in practice or which sidelines a good percentage of the customer base.

 

And because most of these people have never actually done anything meaningful in the front lines, they lack the insight, awareness and experience to know that just because it looks good on a spreadsheet/CAD drawing/3-D architects model/et cetera doesn’t mean it will work/make customers happy…

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

Off to do some "making shiny new things look better as in.. "used" in Baildon. This could get expensive!

 

Baz

[Grizz]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Living in Switzerland, as I do, and being very much a Nipponphile, I am very much spoilt by public bodies and private entities that are actually competent, know what the **** they are actually doing when they do it and which treat their employees as more than an unpleasant and annoyingly necessary expenditure.

 

Now this is not to take away from the abilities, intelligence and competence of most of the people in the front line, but British management – never Britain’s strongest point - has gotten worse over the past two decades and this rot permeates both public and private entities.

 

Call me a cynical old bu99er if you will, but I firmly believe this rot was accelerated by Tony Blair and his mantra of “educashun, educashun, educashun” which funneled far too many youngsters into university education, resulting in a plethora of (for want of a better term) “Mickey Mouse,“ courses, with a resultant unrealistically high expectations of the graduates of those courses.
 

Unwilling (and quite possibly unable) to actually do any meaningful “hands-on“ hard graft, these graduates in lower management positions have to devise ways to justify their employment. And this they do by creating harebrained schemes that look good on paper, but are either unworkable in practice or which sidelines a good percentage of the customer base.

 

And because most of these people have never actually done anything meaningful in the front lines, they lack the insight, awareness and experience to know that just because it looks good on a spreadsheet/CAD drawing/3-D architects model/et cetera doesn’t mean it will work/make customers happy…

@iL Dottore you are bang on Sir. 
 

I would like to add, IMHO and experience, that as time has passed clusters of these types (I’ll call them professional managers for want of a more accurate reference), have learnt to recognise one another in their employment paths. Which allows them to go on to form self prompting and self protection cells within organisations. 
 

These folks have little if any real world experience and as you say have probably never actually done any hands on hard graft. They know what they have learnt from ‘the book’. Which is great when the real world always matches exactly what the book tells them will always happen.
It is probably not going to be much of an issue if you are running a company of flower arrangers (no I don’t have anything against flower arrangers), but it definitely has terminal consequences in say ‘safety critical track and signal maintenance’, especially where the same group of fudgewits have now reached the lofty heights of policy making and are ‘profit motivated’, because obviously there can be no conflict of interest between profits and ensuring safety critical systems are always prioritised. 
 

I personally knew at least two people killed, in separate incidents, as a direct result of this issue. 
 

 

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl,

3.5 hours sleep, short awake, 3 hours sleep, 1 hours sleep a good night's sleep for me, legs are tired after repeated wandering around doing the tours...

 

The worst thing for UK companies is professional managers, university, junior manager, change companies before the chickens come home, "work" at next company, change again before the changes chickens arrive. And repeat..

Work your way through many companies to climbing the greasy pole,  while the chickens peck at your feet.

 

Never any commitment to any company, just turn up, make cuts or decisions to look good, move on before the disaster happens.

 

With sailing, it's not just the sun from above, but the reflected sun from the water, many of us wear wrap round sunglasses ( Polaroid). Having a wide brim all the way round reduces some of the side glare as well. The hat will be attached to a short string to the life jacket.. I've lost too many hats in the water over the years.

 

Must be the same road designers in Puppershire as Norfolk, the NDR had to have many roundabouts redecorated, as originally built it had merge lanes one car long, and no arrow signs on the roundabouts, many of which were hard to see.

 

Time to get breaky..

 

 

 

 

[DaveF]

I may have something to say on the subject of roads in the next few days as a new outbreak of forthcoming roadworks signs has been reported which suggest that one of the only 2 north south roads in town will be closed for up to 40 weeks while the main road east west past the shops is also closed long term.  From my side of town it will be impossible to reach the shops, surgeries or pharmacies wiithout a long detour.  I may tell my local councillor what I think, for all the good it will do.

 

It is dry but cool again, hopefully the cloud will melt away soon.

 

Yesterday evening I encountered both the duplicate post syndrome and community not available when I was replying to a comment in my photo thread.  Just now and then I feel discouraged.

 

I have now found out who is parking his white van almost opposite my house at night, a mutual acqaintance will let him know what I and my neighbours think.  I am determined not to get myself upset about it, it would be counteproductive.

 

Today should be quiet, a quick bit of shopping, looking at old photos, gardening and more moving of junk  important treasures in the garage.  Perhaps even some modelling.

 

David

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

A bit of a dull start to the day here in England’s northwest corner, but at least it’s dry. I’ll shortly be setting off to the ExpoEM exhibition at Basildon (Shipley) , so Baz….

 

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

Ey up!

 

Off to do some "making shiny new things look better as in.. "used" in Baildon. This could get expensive!

 

Baz

I’ll see you there! 
 

Back later. 
 

Brian 

[Winslow Boy]

Me I'm walking the Boss and assuming I still have enough energy after that, we shall be visiting a friend's daughters garden that has been opened for charity. From the photos I've seen it should be interesting. As it's in a 'posh' part of Manutopea I will have to mind my p's & q's.

 

Note to self -don't say it's cr@p out loud.

[New Haven Neil]

10 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

O what a nice collection of moticyculs Neil. Pity about that scruffy f&RT sitting on one. Did he get permission.

 

Errr that's not me, I'm the photographist.

[PhilJ W]

3 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

I have been assured that wearing a baseball cap back to front instantly reduces the IQ of the wearer by 10 points. Several of the ones that I have dealt with have ended up with a negative value. 

Jamie

 

[Coombe Barton]

7 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

 

I've never seen more than three at a time here and they are not quite in such nice condition.

 

Are they much lighter in weight? Evidence in the wheel spokes ...

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Not a bad night last night, now that the rain has gone Arthur Itis is behaving himself. As I have mentioned I do the NY Times Wordl game, yesterday I got it in one* and the same this morning. Hopefully tomorrow I can make it three in a row. *The first word is a pure guess and doesn't count and you have to work out from the letters in the correct place, the letters that are in the answer and the letters that are not. It has been recommended to me that I start with the same word every morning and this is what I do. Also the start word should include the more common letters such as E and R.

[monkeysarefun]

 

Spoiler alert for @Gwiwer

 

I well understand that absolutely no one else here has any interest in the AFL, in fact many of you proudly state that you   have no interest in anything to do with any  sport, but, I'm just going to say that tonights twilight game, Collingwood V Brisbane - a replay of last years grand final - equaled that game in excitement and  was another one for the ages. 

 

Collingwood needed  the  win to get a place in the final eight. They were trailing all through until the last 2 minutes when a goal put them ahead, so their grand final "journey"* stays alive. (unlike soccer, where a goal would put them merely equal to the other side and would then inflict us with  yet another  &$*& penalty shootout**).

 

Next stop - St Kilda v Geelong!

 

*It seems to have peaked recently but I sure was sick of all the journeys we were going on .  no one went on a diet, they did a "weight loss journey" Cancer sufferers went on a "cancer journey" and so on. 

 

** I'm thinking that horses, lacking the physiology or tactical ability  to play any sport apart from soccer, obviously had a huge part in coming up with this nonsense solely  in order to p1ss me off, it has their clumsy hoofprints all over it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 17 by monkeysarefun

[Gwiwer]

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Call me a cynical old bu99er if you will,

I will not. 
 

But I will lay that accusation at the feet of Captain Cynical 

 

 

 

[jjb1970]

Shanghai on Thursday evening, I can think of worse places to be.

 

 

Edited August 17 by jjb1970

[Coombe Barton]

5 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Call me a cynical old bu99er if you will, but I firmly believe this rot was accelerated by Tony Blair and his mantra of “educashun, educashun, educashun” which funneled far too many youngsters into university education, resulting in a plethora of (for want of a better term) “Mickey Mouse,“ courses, with a resultant unrealistically high expectations of the graduates of those courses.

Coupled with the use of software tools (which I disagree wholeheartedly with) enabling them to seem as if they're producing good work by their own efforts.

 

Bringing back handwritten exams (as were prevalent when I started teaching at university level) is a way of sorting sheep from goats. And, of course, proving skills. However the Pandemic effectively killed off exams.

Edited August 17 by Coombe Barton

[Tony_S]

2 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

Bringing back handwritten exams (as were prevalent when I started teaching at university level) is a way of sorting sheep from goats.

Not sure if my son was a sheep or a goat but handwritten examinations would have prevented him from getting as far as university. He couldn’t control a pen well enough to write and think. Once he was released (at sixth form college) from handwriting and allowed to use a keyboard for exams he was fine. His dyspraxia was quite weird. He could use chopsticks but not a pen or pencil, had no problem with keyboards. He could ride a bike but not rollerskate. Further and higher education were far more supportive to him than primary and secondary education. 

[pH]

8 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

…

Bringing back handwritten exams (as were prevalent when I started teaching at university level) is a way of sorting sheep from goats. And, of course, proving skills…

I agree with what Tony S has posted above. Handwriting an exam requires a skill not in any way associated with the knowledge and skills the exam is meant to test. By the end of a written exam, partly because of my (appalling but legible) writing style, I could be struggling with hand cramps.
 

One guy in our high school class, when in a rush to get his thoughts written down, could get through paper at a ridiculous rate. Each new sheet had to be given out by the invigilator at the front of the classroom. At the extreme, I’ve seen this guy use up a sheet to record a dozen words and go for another to finish the thought.  What he was writing was evidently of good quality though, as he went on to university in the early 1960s, long before the days of Tony Blair.

[monkeysarefun]

5 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Going to the WC by yourself, whilst you are recovering from an operation, does require critical self assessment as to how much assistance you really do need. In my case, all I needed was assistance in getting out of bed (bending one’s knees immediately after knee surgery is not the most pleasant of endeavours). Once sitting on the side of the bed, I was able to use the crutches to stand and to ambulate myself safely to the loo - a matter of a few paces.

 

There ultimately comes a point in everyones " life journey"  where you stop just "falling over" and instead "Have A Fall".