Early Risers.

[DaveF]

I decided to go to the south today, at least south of the Tyne to an exhibition of things we are not supposed to mention on here - if you want to know more see Night Mail.  It was in (to me) the south of the country, as I had to cross the Tyne to get there.   It is on the edge of Sunderland at the Nissan Sports and Social club, by the Nissan factory - which has an enormous amount of car parking space, is warm inside, does pleasant food and for those not driving has a bar.

 

It entailed passing through the Tyne Tunnel, at present the northbound Tunnel is closed at weekends so the other one has one lane each way.  Going south was easy, coming back this afternoon was slow - about 300 yards from the Tunnel we stopped and nothing much came south for some time.  Judging by the flashing lights on some of the tunnel vehicles at the north end when I finally got there there must have been a breakdown or something.  I will try to avoid it at weekends until the work is completed sometime next Spring.  On weekdays it works properly.

 

I used my Tyne Tunnnel account to pay the toll, I received an e mail a few minutes after passing through to confirm that payment had been made.  All I have to do is check from time to time that there is money in the account and top it up when required.

 

The sun has been shining but it is still cool.  The sweet peas have survived the wind so I was able to pick another bunch when I got home.

Edit - The hold up was a broken down motorcycle.

David

Edited 5 hours ago by DaveF

[monkeysarefun]

7 hours ago, DaveF said:

Looking at it again it could well be a nuthatch, I used to know birds......

 

Speaking of birds, Fred The Cockatoo, who lives in a Wildlife Sanctuary in Tasmania,  is about to turn 110.

 

He got a telegram from Her Maj in 2014 when he hit triple figures and if he does make it he'll equal another famous  centenarian cocky, Cocky Bennett - who reached that milestone back in 1937 before dropping off the perch.

 

 

 

 

 

Unlike Cocky Bennett however, Fred is still fully-hirsute as he is shown here.

 

This clip may also give you an idea of what Australian birdsong can be like. Having a dozen of these appear on your back deck and break out into a screaming competition as they do does not make for a peaceful start to the day!

 

[Ozexpatriate]

11 hours ago, polybear said:

I scoff my Pizza using a knife n' fork too

You'll never get elected in New York with that attitude. Based on the news there might be an opening there.

[Ozexpatriate]

6 hours ago, Grizz said:

Whilst we are there, back in time, can we please just pop across to Randers in Denmark and prevent the Thor Brewery from being sold off to a big brewing corp…..

Perhaps you could have superglued yourself to the mash tun? 😉

 

The whole brewing industry has seen a bit of a "Cambrian explosion / Ordovician extinction" cycle over the last 20 years. 

[Two_sugars]

Evening all . . . . . British bureaucracy at its finest. . . Applied for my new licence on the 25th(wed), . . .licence arrived this morning.

 

DaveF . . .I was going to go there tomorrow, but I think I'll stay at home. . . .the anti-biotics and steroids didn't work so I've booked an appointment with a  nurse practitioner for Monday.

He'll probably refer me to one of the Doctors. . . Don't feel too bad but, not taking any chances.

 

hey Ho . . .Say Lavvy . . .

 

John

 

[rockershovel]

11 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

That’s some seriously good stuff. I know it as pizza al metro (it goes by other names) and it’s a lot closer to the original pizza (leftover bread dough, baked with a few scant toppings) than what we now think of as “pizza”  And with pizza al metro, the sky’s the limit when it comes to toppings (although I have yet to see any kind of potato topping).

 

Italy, especially Southern Italy, has some decent street food (arancini, pizza al metro, piadina…..).

 

It does seem that good street food is associated with the poorer parts of the world. And I think that it makes sense: with no money to buy but just what one needs to eat, eating from a street stall saves money - you only buy what you immediately eat and you don’t have storage and cooking costs. And if most everyone eats from street stalls, then prices are kept down and quality is kept up (apparently, some new apartments in Thailand are built without kitchens such is the ubiquitousness of eating out at street stalls) 

I've eaten some shocking rubbish from street stalls, particularly in Africa. Had some nasty squitters too. 

 

A propos Plod, successive administrations have attempted to put them in the position of deciding what the law means, with the risk of being contradicted by the Courts. This isn't healthy or desirable, as some of their actions during Covid demonstrated plainly. 

[Coombe Barton]

... Successfully tested both upstairs and downstairs smoke alarms simultaneously last night. Other people might call it cooking supper. ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2024/09/28/postcards-from-home-2024-31-would-boris-really-have-invaded-the-netherlands/

 

[Ozexpatriate]

Another lovely early Autumn day here. It really is my favourite time of year. Trees are turning but mostly they remain green. That will change in a couple of weeks. The high should be around 24°C. We had a little rain last week but do not anticipate more until next weekend.

 

I have chores to do - like the laundry. I need to do a load of whites. While there are many college football games on television, the one I am the most interested in does not begin until 8:00pm. (It is barely noon as I type.)  I should get on with it.

 

A colleague hails from the North Carolina Piedmont. He has family there and in Tampa. A relative in Tampa saw 1" of water on their property but flooding is widespread in the Appalachian foothills - they're using the "1 in a 1000 year" term for the rain event in the area.

 

A mountain location saw 29.58" / 751mm in 48 hours. There were concerns that a local dam would fail, but these seem to have passed.

 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Ozexpatriate

[Gwiwer]

21 hours ago, TheQ said:

hence..

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Blogg

I have in my family tree the proof that was always quietly spoken of down that side of the family. 
 

Henry Blogg became family by marriage. 
 

That’ll do. I am tenuously but verifiably linked with the most-decorated coxswain in RNLI history. That and having known some of the Penlee crew ….. 

 

I never went to sea. Even growing up in a fishing village we were not, by then, sea-farers although some of the family had been two or three generations previously. One of mother’s great-grandfathers was a merchant seaman with a shore address given in Portsmouth. He was seldom if ever actually living there. Our family records show him listed as “Missing At Sea”. We shall never know whether he jumped ship for a girl in a distant port, was washed overboard or otherwise met an untimely end and was “disposed of”.
 

I have always felt the need to be by the sea. But not in nor on it. Waist-depth in the shallows is as far as I go with a very few exceptions that could pass for swimming. But take me away and the yearning to be back gets stronger every day. Whether it be Brighton or Bondi Beaches or our wild rocky Cornish shores. It’s all the sea. It has waves. They sing their song in all their different moods. They claim whom they want at a time and place of their own choosing. 
 

[Gwiwer]

37 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

Successfully tested both upstairs and downstairs smoke alarms simultaneously last night. Other people might call it cooking supper. ...

Toast alarms, we call them. 
 

The cottage is equipped with two hard-wired battery back-up heat detectors (in the kitchen and in the boiler room) and four battery smoke detectors. Those are located just inside both front and back doors (the exit routes in a hurry), the top of the stairs and outside the bathroom / our bedroom at the greatest distance from the stairs. 
 

None has yet been tested inadvertently here!  
 

Upon the Hill of Strawberries the managing agent had installed smoke (not heat) detectors in every kitchen meaning every slice of toast made would set the thing off. Ours or a neighbour’s. 
 

We were all thoroughly sick of that. Some of us removed the batteries; others tried “smoke-free” cooking. One flat resorted to using a portable bbq on the balcony only to discover that set off all the alarms in the block!  
 

We never did get that resolved. Smoke alarms for bedrooms and exits. Heat alarms in kitchens. Please. 

[New Haven Neil]

Morn...oh.  Well I was busy, honest.

 

Took Mrs H to be Pilated, went for a walk myself, train to Laxey, posh lunch, train back, motorbike building (electrical nightmare) all that sort of stuff.

 

Like Gwiwer, we both prefer to be by, or close to, the sea.  Mrs H is Cornish (Looe), and grew up in Guernsey, myself being from South Shields and from a family of sea-farers, it was always going to be in my blood.  I loved the Merch, I was gutted when made redundant but that was how we met, and it's not a life for a married man really.  So beside the sea we have always lived, this is actually the furthest ever away, 3 miles or so.

 

Dave probably met some of my old pals as the exhibition, I really miss being on both sides of the barriers.

[Ozexpatriate]

2 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

Smoke alarms for bedrooms and exits. Heat alarms in kitchens. Please. 

I have a combination smoke/CO detector in the opening between the great room and the entry hall. I don't remember it going off.  There is an extraction fan over the stovetop/hob that I always use. Presumably it is far 'enough' away to not be sensitized to regular kitchen smoke.

 

In my old apartment there was a smoke detector down the hall from the kitchen. It was frequently alarming particularly when using the broiler/griller - or even steam from the adjacent bathroom. It also went off when it filled with water from a leak that pooled above it.

[BoD]

7 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

Dave probably met some of my old pals as the exhibition, I really miss being on both sides of the barriers.

For the third year in a row life has conspired against me attending the exhibition at the Nissan Social club facility.  Curdyturses.

 

This is becoming a bit of a drag actually.  I volunteer with the NT on Sundays* and Saturdays usually prove to be quite busy.  Saturdays at exhibitions tend to be more crowded too, roads are busier etc, so the only exhibitions I have been to over the last couple of years have been Model Rail Scotland, which usually, neatly, ties in with family events, and York on the Monday.   I really enjoy exhibitions so need to try to address this before I get out of the habit.

 

* I enjoy this too, so it is swings and roundabouts 

[jjb1970]

8 hours ago, rockershovel said:

The CUSTOM (not law) of the sea is that seafarers are obliged to offer assistance to seafarers about their legitimate business, in danger through no fault of their own. Their is NO obligation to offer rescue at no cost, or to rescue those who have placed themselves in harms way for their own purposes. 

 

 

SOLAS V Reg 33 (mandatory requirements of the Convention) states (underline by me):

 

1 The master of a ship at sea which is in a position to be able to provide assistance, on receiving information from any source that persons are in distress at sea, is bound to proceed with all speed to their assistance, if possible informing them or the search and rescue service that the ship is doing so. This obligation to provide assistance applies regardless of the nationality or status of such persons or the circumstances in which they are found. If the ship receiving the distress alert is unable or, in the special circumstances of the case, considers it unreasonable or unnecessary to proceed to their assistance, the master must enter in the log-book the reason for failing to proceed to the assistance of the persons in distress, taking into account the recommendation of the Organization to inform the appropriate search and rescue service accordingly.

 

 1-1 Contracting Governments shall co-ordinate and co-operate to ensure that masters of ships providing assistance by embarking persons in distress at sea are released from their obligations with minimum further deviation from the ships’ intended voyage, provided that releasing the master of the ship from the obligations under the current regulation does not further endanger the safety of life at sea. The Contracting Government responsible for the search and rescue region in which such assistance is rendered shall exercise primary responsibility for ensuring such co-ordination and co-operation occurs, so that survivors assisted are disembarked from the assisting ship and delivered to a place of safety, taking into account the particular circumstances of the case and guidelines developed by the Organization. In these cases the relevant Contracting Governments shall arrange for such disembarkation to be effected as soon as reasonably practicable.

 

Therefore there is a clear, explicit requirement to render assistance to persons in distress for any ship flagged to a Party of the SOLAS Convention, regardless of any reasons why such persons might be in distress, along with obligations on disembarkation (which are ignored by many Party states, including those in Europe. 

 

[Gwiwer]

5 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Having a dozen of these appear on your back deck and break out into a screaming competition as they do does not make for a peaceful start to the day!

Never mind a partridge in a pear-tree. 
 

In Australia our neighbour’ backyard was home to a most enormous pear tree. We estimated it at 25m high and very prolific with its fruiting. 
 

That was great for our bees. With a hive on the drive (permitted in parts of Australia subject to conditions and registration) ours were delighted by the annual flowering of the pear. The honey had a distinct peary taste to it. Coupled with a hint of aniseed as they also feasted on our fennel flowers. 
 

But as soon as the flowers gave way to fruit in came the flockatoos. At least 100 of them shrieking, fighting for the best spot, plucking the fruit and eating some before discarding the tougher innards on the ground. 
 

And where those Sulphur-Crested Nuisances were so were the galahs. Another noisy bird. All pink and grey and again squabbling noisily for feeding rights. 
 

And the magpies. And the aptly-named Noisy Miners. Not so much feeding on pears but all noisy, all in large numbers and all at the same time. 
 

A couple of weeks later when the tree had been picked clean all that was left was the cores (most of which fell on the neighbour’s side but not all) and the guano - ditto. Peace broke out again for the next 50 weeks!