Early Risers.

[Tony_S]

4 minutes ago, PupCam said:

It and others deserve our support.

We enjoyed our days out on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway (a very damp day last November) and more recently the Swanage Railway. 

[Hroth]

 

I didn't visit a railway this summer, but went to the NRM instead.  Should have gone to the NYMR instead, which would have been more enjoyable!

 

 

[45156]

Afternoon All

 

I had a PSA late last year  - came back at 2.5.  However, after my stay in hospital, I was having quite frequent nocturnal visits and contacted my GP who said that the main cause was the long period on a catheter while I was in a coma and for a few weeks afterwards.  However, the gloved finger was plied and slight enlargement of my prostate but given the low PSA, it was not likely to be cancer.

 

Got a phone call last evvening from my log supplier, to say that he had a trailer load that was loaded for a customer who then postponed their order for some reason, and they were this year's supply, so were at £130 per cubic metre - so a full load for £260.  This years' price has yet to be determined but will be no less than $160 per cubic metre - and no guarantee that they would be fully seasoned or all ash - he thinks there will be some oak and perhaps some odds of other woods.  Needless to say I jumped at this, as his logs have been very good indeed.  He arrived at 08.45 this morning and helped to unload as I can't do all that much.  From what I could see there was well over two cubic metres, and this was proved when they came up the garage wall by more than last year by quite a margin.

 

So as I am spemding my (no longer available) winter fuel allowance, and as we had cleared the garage for the logs, I rang our coal merchant to order 10 bags of smokeless fuel.  By luck, their delivery day in Ludlow is a Tuesday, and the truck had not yet left, so that is coming this afternoon.

 

We also managed to arrange for collection of our non working Bax carpet washer fot this afternoon (but that was booked last week) so today is a very productive day provided everything else goes as planned.

 

Regards to All

Stewart

[iL Dottore]

17 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

I didn't visit a railway this summer, but went to the NRM instead.  Should have gone to the NYMR instead, which would have been more enjoyable!

 

 

Is it still living down to our low expectations? (as have been voiced by many posters on here).

 

Britain doesn’t have to worry about “The Barbarians At The Gates”, because they’ve already wormed their way into top spots in museums and collections across the land.

 

To be polemical, has anyone noticed that it is mostly male dominated endeavours (engineering, railways, nautical, aviation, militaria) that tend to suffer the most neglect and – dare I say it – careless abuse at the hands of the current crop of museum “curators“ (although God knows what they’re actually curating)?
 

Has anyone recently been (with/without children or grandchildren) to the “Young V&A“ (formerly the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood)? If so, did anyone notice the almost total absence of toy trains*, toy ships and toy soldiers? Although there were plenty of dolls, stuffed plush animals and dollhouses. It’s almost as though nobody wants boys to be boys any longer playing with “boys toys”.

 

Molesworth’s much despised Basil Fotherington-Tomas was not supposed to turn into a role model for Britain’s boys….

 

* I was there earlier this year to see an exhibition on Japanese anime and manga (surprisingly enough) and, if I recall correctly, I remember seeing just one toy train, a rather sad looking locomotive without a tender and with only one carriage.

[TheQ]

Almost Afternoon Awl,

Knackered I is, after avery poor night's sleep, I went straight out to the garden.

There is about 10ft of garden between the mobile home and the hedge. I'm pretty sure the Ex of the neighbour, who still owns that house, is trying to gain a bit by letting the hedge grow out. So it was trimmed back heavily..there more to do on that. ( He still looks after the garden).

The hedge even though it's on the North East side is severely cutting down the light in the mobile home kitchen.

 

There are also two elderberry and two hazel bushes that had self seeded.  Those four have been severely chopped, I need to find the glyco phosphate, drill a hole in the top of the elderberries and fill. They really are in the wrong place.

I've observed the rear eves of the mobile home need work. Considering how and with what the moment.

 

The bullace are in plentiful fruit, and a large bullace is partly blocking the light. Bullace Vodka, Bullace Gin or Bullace wine... That is the Question...

 

 

Edited August 20 by TheQ

[Tony_S]

11 minutes ago, TheQ said:

That is the Question...

We have been having a “question” about our fruit trees too. We have a couple of pear trees that have stopped being productive. We have been advised not to replace them with pears and have been looking at plum and gage trees on dwarf rootstock. The pears will probably come down after this year’s meagre crop is removed.

[tigerburnie]

Fruit wood is very popular with wood turners, you might get a contribution to a Deltic (not that I know their current cost).

[rockershovel]

10 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

 

I'll go out on a limb and suggest that with some exceptions (like the Balkans and US incarceration rates as examples) the 1990s were a pretty good decade to live in for many people in the west. Doubtless some will suggest a darker underbelly - but with the end of the cold war and no indications of wars in central Asia over the horizon things were on an upturn.

Depends .... my recollections of the 90s were pretty bleak, in many ways. There was a bitter recession; the construction industry went into free-fall in the early 90s and the oil patch hadn't recovered from the mid-80s collapse. 

 

The decade started with the Poll Tax riots which were pretty spectacular and brought on a change of PM. It definitely wasn't a good time to be a coal miner. 

 

 

[polybear]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

 

I didn't visit a railway this summer, but went to the NRM instead.  Should have gone to the NYMR instead, which would have been more enjoyable!

 

 

 
And a lot more expensive too…..

[petethemole]

5 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

The danger is, of course, by denigrating, ridiculing and marginalising the rappers (whose rap may displease the powers that be, but isn’t intrinsically “bad”) there is a significant risk of pushing them towards Death Metal or Satanic Metal.

Or even Rap Metal.

[Hroth]

33 minutes ago, polybear said:

 
And a lot more expensive too…..

 

I suppose that as @iL Dottore would say, you get what you pay for!

 

And where the NRM is concerned, you have to pay for the hived-off visitor experience portions too...

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. The window cleaner came round this morning and informed me that the council shrubbery is overgrowing the path to the side entrance, so much so that he had to climb over the wall. I have to go out soon  but when I get home I'll be charging up the hedge trimmer.

[The Lurker]

7 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

The lazy equation of Wagner and Nazism is something that infuriates me nearly as much as regurgitation of the words "small engine policy".

The Valkyrie class was a prime example of Wagner’s small engine policy on the Mittellandbahn, something perpetuated on the Reichsbahn following the rise of the Nazis. 

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, The Lurker said:

The Valkyrie class was a prime example of Wagner’s small engine policy on the Mittellandbahn, something perpetuated on the Reichsbahn following the rise of the Nazis. 

 

Wilhelm Richard Wagner (1813-1883) not Richard Paul Wagner (1882-1953)!

[jjb1970]

I have just been to see Alien Romulus with the boy, we both enjoyed it. In my view none of the Alien movies has managed to match the original, and some of them have been rubbish. This one isn't great cinema, but it is solidly crafted, well acted and with some excellent visuals. The main weakness is endemic to the 'franchise' concept in that it feels derivative and same-same and lacks the suspense and shock value of the original. The original was a bit of a masterpiece with some iconic visuals, it was one of those rare movies which felt genuinely original and it was properly suspenseful and scary. Each sequel seemed to dilute it, though I did like Prometheus. This isn't as good as Prometheus and nothing like as good as the original but is nevertheless a good film worth seeing.

[Grizz]

5 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

I bought some Danish salami today, which was made in Australia. I can only conclude that Australia has conquered Denmark, why weren't we told about this? No wonder nobody believes the news anymore when they suppress news of a military triumph by a country which plays cricket and drives on the left. Bravo Australia, I salute you and wish you success if you decide Germany is next!

News update from Grizz your Danish correspondent. Live from Denmark. 
 

it is 17:28 Danish time…

 

Nope defo no signs of any Kangaroos, Kolas, Vegemite, Burgers with Beetroot, Hats with Corks, Utes, Surf Boards, Crocks or Sharks…..so far! 

Maybe they invaded somewhere else instead? 

 

[TheQ]

Afternoon Awl Again.

A bit more tree chopping followed by bridge work.

 

Problem, the connectors I've bought are such a light fit in each other it's a two pairs of pliers job to push them together and pull them apart. They would destroy the bridge if I used them. Thinking what to do about that.

Other than some titivating of yesterday's work that's all I've done on that.

 

I've just had a long bath, needed that after lumberjacking.

 

Thinking of what to cook for dindins.

 

 

[Two_sugars]

4 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Depends .... my recollections of the 90s were pretty bleak, in many ways. There was a bitter recession; the construction industry went into free-fall in the early 90s and the oil patch hadn't recovered from the mid-80s collapse. 

 

The decade started with the Poll Tax riots which were pretty spectacular and brought on a change of PM. It definitely wasn't a good time to be a coal miner. 

 

 

Neither was it good for small businesses . . . . a lot went to the wall.

Some of these communities  are still struggling to recover.

 

John

 

[DaveF]

I went to the Northumberland County Museum at Woodhorn (known as Woodhorn museum).  It is at an old coal mine so it concentrates on mining things with a number of the buildings open to visitors with explanatory panels along with voicerecordings to explain things.  I assume the things are accurate but the only mine I've ever been down was on my 18th birthday in France - and we did get right to the coal face, it was fascinating but not somewhere I'd want to work. ( The father of my French friends was a senior manager in the French mining industry - the day also included a cab ride in a diesel along the mine's railway network in Alsace.)

 

The new building which houses the county archives, cafe, galleries and a section about mining and people is called "The Cutter" as the roof shape is designed to resemble a coal cutting nmachine.

 

Again inside it the display about  miners is informative and includes a time line of the main historical events over the past 150ish years along with displays about housing, working conditions, things to play with like old mangles, crawling along replica mine workings etc.  It is entertaining and again has information panels and recorded voices.

 

Upstairs one gallery has a permanent exhibtion of the pitmen painters of Ashington, the other had a display of paintings by a former miner illustrating some of the things he did in his working life from about 1920 to 1970.  For those who like football there was also a bit about Jackie Milburn.

 

Link to the museums page and pictures about the Pitmen Painters: https://museumsnorthumberland.org.uk/our-collections/the-ashington-group/

 

It was a very enjoyable morning, and I shall go again from time to time.  The food and coffee were good too.  Next time I go I'll try to get some photos of more of it - you can photograph anything as long as you don't use flash.  The shop is well stocked too.

 

Woodhorn Museum pithead gear

 

Woodhorn Museum part of "The Cutter" building

 

Woodhorn Museum cage at the top of the shaft (the shaft is capped so no one falls down it)

 

Woodhorn Museum  one of the winding etc engines

 

Woodhorn Museum Miners' banner - there are several on display.

 

David

Edited August 20 by DaveF

[iL Dottore]

That's a great looking museum @DaveF. It seems like... well, a proper museum.

 

I have often lamented the demise of the Science Museum in London. And it seems that I'm not the only one that remembers it was a proper museum. This fellow certainly does

 

https://pocketbookuk.wordpress.com/2018/04/17/who-remembers-the-childrens-gallery-at-the-science-museum-in-london/.

 

It's actually somewhat painful to view this blog page and contemplate what has been lost from the museum - much of which was willfully thrown away.

 

I wonder whatever happened to this fascinating vehicle from the old museum:

 

Edited August 20 by iL Dottore

[TheQ]

The stuff from the science museum hasn't been thrown away, there are 300,000 items  in hangars at the science and innovation park near Swindon. On the former  site of RAF Wroughton.

[Tony_S]

4 minutes ago, TheQ said:

The stuff from the science museum hasn't been thrown away, there are 300,000 items  in hangars at the science and innovation park near Swindon. On the former  site of RAF Wroughton.

I think JET1 is still at the Science Museum. My Dad worked for Rover at that time. He said it was considered quite exciting but not practical. He always would have liked to own a Rover and his very last car was one of the late 1980s 800 series. 

[DaveF]

I thought I would do the rest of the day as a separate post.

 

On the way home from Woodhorn I went round the "big" roundabout on the spine road and noticed a broken down car which had been pushed on to the verge, as I passed it an AA an arrived.  There was a long tailback the other way.

 

Back home it was time for lunch then I spent most of the afternoon outside the front of my house chatting to neighbours.  Just about everyone on my part of the road is friendly as are their dogs.so doing a quick bit in the garden can take a very long time - in this case nearly 2 hours.

 

I managed to get the gap between the fences at the bottom of my garden thoroughly weed killed.

 

By then it was teatime.

 

As for the museum - Northumberland is a long way from London, also very many civil servants, advisors and others seem to think it is not in England but Scotland, so we go our own way for a lot of the time.

 

David

Edited August 20 by DaveF

[iL Dottore]

23 minutes ago, DaveF said:

As for the museum - Northumberland is a long way from London, also very many civil servants, advisors and others seem to think it is not in England but Scotland, so we go our own way for a lot of the time.

 

David

Oh dear, Dave.
 

How unfortunate! So far from London, overlooked and ignored, and totally totally without the benefit of having all those “new, innovative, exciting, cutting-edge, groundbreaking developments” that Londoners are spoilt with.

 

You must be utterly bereft.

 

Edited August 20 by iL Dottore

[iL Dottore]

24 minutes ago, TheQ said:

The stuff from the science museum hasn't been thrown away, there are 300,000 items  in hangars at the science and innovation park near Swindon. On the former  site of RAF Wroughton.

Well they might as well have been thrown away, given that the contents are unavailable to view, except by a select few (and I really wonder how often the Science Museum curators actually go beyond the M25 and visit Swindon?) 

 

Disused hangers don’t seem to me to be appropriate storage for many valuable and often fragile items.

 

Would it be very cynical for me to speculate that whilst “Joe public“ may not get access to the contents, what is stored in those hangars get plenty of visits of those cheerful characters, Mr Rust, Mr Rot, Ms Corrode and Cousin Mould?