Early Risers.

[Ozexpatriate]

2 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

The phrase "wielding the shark"  however still lives on

For some reason I'm thinking of a bunch of Parrotheads doing the moves to "Fins".

Quote

Can't you feel 'em circling, honey?
Can't you feel 'em schoolin' around?
You got fins to the left, fins to the right
And you're the only bait in town
You got fins to the left, fins to the right
And you're the only girl in town

 

[J. S. Bach]

Finally managed to catch up on all of the ER posts missed during my Ohio trip so Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[AndyID]

On 07/11/2022 at 15:56, pH said:

Snow on the ground, and more falling (somewhat sideways - there’s a wind with it.)
 

 

We got a bit more, and it's still here 😀

 

 

[Gwiwer]

6 hours ago, Darlington_Shed said:

Reminds me of a lyric: "Home is made for coming from, for dreams of going to, which with any luck will never come true". Internet points for those who know 🤠

I surprised one or two friends by managing to render that note-perfect at a karaoke session. 
 

From “Paint Your Wagon” it’s Wanderin’ Star as performed somewhat better by Lee Marvin. 

[chrisf]

For some weeks now I have been smitten by aches and pains, mostly in the region of the lower back and upper legs.  As with all pains, some days are better – or less worse - than others.  It hurts much more when I move about than when I sit still.  If I am stuck with the pain for much longer I may have to opt out of the Tolworth show at the weekend, which will not please me one bit.  Apart from that, I discovered at 3.30 yesterday afternoon that I had forgotten to buy my lottery tickets.  Fortunately I discovered the omission in time to buy them yesterday.  As I was doing so I found that I had neglected to buy them last week as well.  When I do remember to buy tickets I get a lucky dip.  What if one or more of the tickets that I should have bought had been a winner?  Perhaps fortunately, I will never know.

 

Chris

[monkeysarefun]

13 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

I surprised one or two friends by managing to render that note-perfect at a karaoke session. 
 

From “Paint Your Wagon” it’s Wanderin’ Star as performed somewhat better by Lee Marvin. 

Or  Julian Cleary.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7_Bf2fbQ98&ab_channel=Mamba2105

[Barry O]

Ey up.

 

My curry based tea has got Ed Cold on the run. Yiiiiiippppppppiiiiiiiiidddddddooooo!

All set to go to Horden Comrades Clubfor ourschoolreunionthis com8ng Friday. Great!

 

As it happens, I watch a lot of Police Interceptors programmes. From this and a recent experience on the M1 can I offer the following..

 

BMW X5..too slow and heavy.

BMW 3 and 5 series..too skittish

VOLVOs .. not as b8g inside as they seem to be. Unmarked V60is OK but withal the gear fitted into it far too small.

Skoda Oc5avia vRS.. now you don't want one Of those on your tail!

Floated this past my mate (ex Met Police Driving Instructor who is stilla driving instructor).. he reckons I am not far off. His worst police car..a mini .. he is 6' 3" and 16 stone..but he loved the Morris minors..

 

Time to drink my tea and check that my head is Ok. 

 

Love the snow scenes but please feel free to keep it in your location.

 

@Ozexpatriate hope the job front improves soon.

 

Stay safe !

Baz

 

 

[jamie92208]

15 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

When I was a lad most police transport seemed to consist of pedal cycles. Seems like things have moved on since then.

 

Dave 

I patrolled my 2 villages on a pushbike for 3 years in the early 80's.  The scrotes complained that they couldn't hear me coming. I caught several disqualified drivers that way.  The classic Traffic car for me will always be the ztriumph 2.5 PI.  They ruled the road in the early years of my career.   As a PC in 74 I had to make do with an 1100 Mk2 Escort. The Sgt had a 1300.

 

It's misty and foggy here but is supposed to get sunny.  An afternoon  of trainspotting is in store.

 

Jamie

Edited November 10, 2022 by jamie92208

[TheQ]

MK police had an MGB V8, supposedly it then had to be turbo'd as it still couldn't keep up with the Aston Martins coming out of Newport Pagnell .

I did see the MGB going at exceeding speed once.. Then we caught up with it at a traffic accident.... which was one of our fellow students whose Triumph Spitfire had hit a car that had pulled out on him..

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Dull start and today should be dry, breezy, cloudy, mild and sunny although not necessarily in that order.  Currently 11°C possibly rising to 16°C.

One bin lorry due and it's late.  Sainsbury's have notified us that everything we've ordered is available so The Boss is in a good mood.

My Christmas case of wine etc  arrived yesterday and has been lovingly unpacked and the contents put in the "cellar."  Wonder if it will actually last until Christmas.  🤔  One parcel that was due has not arrived, maybe it will get here today.

Our friend came for tea, cake and a long chat yesterday.  Mixture of sadness and laughter but it's apparent that she's been finding things very difficult since Col died and her health and mobility are not great but at least she's got two daughters living with her.  She does plan to sell up and move to the coast in the New Year as her son and family are doing likewise.  Hope it works out for her.

We're going to Nicki's this afternoon for tea and cake.  

Have a good one,

Bob.

[polybear]

9 hours ago, Erichill16 said:

Oh, I’m not that sure.

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

 

Shouldn't it fold in the middle?

£2200 for one of those seems rather a lot to this Bear.  Should've gone to Halfords

 

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

As it happens, I watch a lot of Police Interceptors programmes. From this and a recent experience on the M1 can I offer the following..

 

 

Bear can add the following:

Most scrotes seem to:

(a) Be released pending further investigations (= they got away with it), or

(b) Be released "due to insufficient evidence" (even though they're on camera doing 130 in a 30 limit....), or

(c) Go to court for the umpteenth time, only for the Judge to dish out a fifty quid fine and a suspended sentence/community service.  Again.

Yep, Rant.

Where's Judge John Deed when you need him?

 

58 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

I patrolled my 2 villages on a pushbike for 3 years in the early 80's.  The scrotes complained that they couldn't here me coming. I caught several disqualified drivers that way.  The classic Traffic car for me will always be the ztriumph 2.5 PI.  They ruled the road in the early years of my career.   As a PC in 74 I had to make do with an 1100 Mk2 Escort. The Sgt had a 1300.

 

 

The local Village Plod** had a car for a while - though the word is it was taken off him cos' he kept speeding in it.....

A certain young Cub used to help the local Milkie many moons ago; it was always strange to see the Plod Car parked outside Mr. Plod's house** every time we visited that street.  Now there's a coincidence....

(**Those were back in the days when a Police Officer could quite happily - and safely - live in the same place as their Beat Patch.  Previous neighbours of Bear's were both "in the job" - it was quite a while before they let a certain Bear know what they did for a living; he said they used to live in the same place as their "patch" and that was never a good idea as sooner or later someone would recognise them and word would go round amongst the scrote community PDQ).

 

Incidentally, the presence of a Village Bobby (we actually had our own Station House in the Village, with a staff of three) are now long, long gone - the station is two private houses now.  Of course the village is now much, much bigger and the time taken for a 999 visit would be "significant" cos' the nearest stations are some miles away.  

 

Bear here......

Well I woke up again this morning after all.  That's kinda handy.

PS splurging again - that bit's not too bad.  I'll also give a call to the PS Supplier (there's a very helpful lady there that knows all about it) and ask about Bear's Toffee escapades last night; I'm wondering if it may have anything to do with the fact that I didn't cover the stair stringer with plastic sheet as I wasn't leaving it overnight.  We'll see.

After that it's a MIUABGA day....

Bear gone.

Edited November 10, 2022 by polybear

[5 C]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

I patrolled my 2 villages on a pushbike for 3 years in the early 80's.  The scrotes complained that they couldn't here me coming. I caught several disqualified drivers that way.  The classic Traffic car for me will always be the ztriumph 2.5 PI.  They ruled the road in the early years of my career.   As a PC in 74 I had to make do with an 1100 Mk2 Escort. The Sgt had a 1300.

 

It's misty and foggy here but is supposed to get sunny.  An afternoon  of trainspotting is in store.

 

Jamie

If we're talking classic Traffic cars then as a former Vauxhall man, I have to vote for the Senator 3.0 24v. Used by almost every force in the country in the 1990's (with the possible exceptions of Essex, Warwickshire and the Met), officers would recount that an 8 hour shift in a Senator was much less tiring than other vehicles on the fleet. Some would even find any reason to defect that other vehicle so they could take out a Senator.

 

Started off sunny and cold here. Now it's just grey and cold. Forecast is for it be warm later with near record temperatures for this time of year. If it stays dry, I may mow the lawns.

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

Today is a sort of topsy turvy sort of day, no Zumba for Sheila as she is having her hair cut, Charlie isn’t coming round as he had his shift swapped, so he’s working today when he should have been off! Also, as Sheila wants to go to RHS Bridgewater tomorrow, I’m going to the butchers this morning as well as the Trafford Centre! That’s going to confuse me for the rest of the day! 

 

Best get cracking, back later. 

 

Brian

Edited November 10, 2022 by BSW01

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Apart from a few grumbles before I got out of bed this morning Arthur Itis is staying away. I see that a certain former Health Secretary has arrived in Australia and was almost immediately voted on to crawl through a sewer with various unpleasant liquids pouring on his head. I just hope they don't vote him off too soon. On police vehicles the Essex police underwater rescue unit once had a large twin wheel Sherpa van fitted with the Range Rover V8. I saw it at the Essex show one year and one of the crew told me it could carry more gear than the biggest Transit and still do 100 mph and was fitted with extra anti-roll bars to keep it out of ditches.

[New Haven Neil]

Morning, late on due to being knackered!

 

One of the garages that Mrs NHN does admin for is the police here - she does all the blue light services - and I could recount some tales, but had mostly better not.  However .... we do have one less motorcycle than we did, and it was a one vehicle accident.  Ooops.  Also, what goes bang in the night (and day) - BMW's - big expensive ones too.  There's a tale behind that one which may come out in the press elsewhere, it's not just ours that grenade.

 

One of the guys that used to work for us at Trackshack was an ex-Essex police ARV Sergeant, really nice bloke, he had a few tales!  It was his team on one of those Police Interceptor programmes when they first started, he was never on camera though, his choice.

[TheQ]

I used to sleep in the cells... Well actually the Cell, an Aunt had bought the village police house, which had the police station built sharing a wall..

It had it's own front door and a door through to the kitchen of the house at the back. Unusually the cell was upstairs above the entrance door, which must have been fun getting a unncooperative scrote up there.. the cell used to be my bedroom when we visited...

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, 5 C said:

we're talking classic Traffic cars then as a former Vauxhall man, I have to vote for the Senator 3.0 24v. Used by almost every force in the country in the 1990's (with the possible exceptions of Essex, Warwickshire and the Met), officers would recount that an 8 hour shift in a Senator was much less tiring than other vehicles on the fleet. Some would even find any reason to defect that other vehicle so they could take out a Senator.

That was the basis of our Commodore except  that had a 3.8L V6 or 5L V8  which along with the equally large  Ford Falcon was pretty much every police car here until Ford and Holden shut up shop.

 In 2006 or so when Opel or Vauxhall or whoever dropped the large chassis worldwide Holden went alone and designed one from the ground up for Australian conditions, so we got a few extra years of police Commodores, including one  HSV  version which had a supercharged 6.2L V8.

[grandadbob]

All collections and deliveries have now been made.  Missing parcel turned up but with a new Evri/Hermes driver and it has been decreed that "we" don't like him.  Up to now the ones we've had have been great but the jury is definitely out on this one.  The Boss doesn't like people who don't answer her questions or just shrug their shoulders.  Neither do I for that matter.  We shall see.  Unfortunately one of the contents of the parcel have been rejected by Herself so a return needs to be made but that can be done via our little local Asda rather than using Evri's collection service or RM ("we" don't like the local post office either and won't set foot in there.  In case of any doubt "we" in this case doesn't include me. 🙃)

The foxes left another couple of deposits in the garden along with presents of a bone, a ball and an old sock.  Guess who cleared that up.  Jeyes fluid has been deployed.  Don't like the new stuff, doesn't seem to be a patch on the original formula.

Muggatea now being supped and before too long thoughts will be turning to lunch.

 

 

 

 

                                          

Edited November 10, 2022 by grandadbob

[BSW01]

I’m now back home from my 2 shopping trips, in fact I’ve been one almost 30 minutes. The shopping has now been put away and I’m sat at the dining room table with a well deserved muggertea. Sheila is happy with her hair cut, she’s had to go to a new hairdresser as her old one has moved to a new shop and it’s too far for her to walk. This one is at the top of the road and is actually closer than the one she used to go to. So all in all, the day has gone well so far and I have an afternoon to do as I please. I would like to head down to the workshop, but then I’d need to change clothes and I can’t be @rsed, so I’ll do something downstairs in the office instead. 

[DaveF]

It's dull, dry and mild today but with a very strong wind so it feels cool.  I've been to the usual communion service.

 

Yesterday was also mild but not too windy.  After breakfast the kitchen had a good clean then as I mentioned yesterday I read my e mails, several of which needed replies, including one about permission to use one of my photos non commercially, which I granted as usual.  There was also an e mail from the solicitor which had to be dealt with.  Now probate is done they simply needed to know the  amount of money I've received from Mum's bank together with evidence that monies due in the form of pension payments have been received.  I'm pleased I'd kept detailed records so the information only took a few moments to find but ages to type up.  They also sent their bill which is almost exactly what I thought it would be from my preliminary discussions.  They are happy to wait for payment until the flat sale is completed so they can then have one payment for both jobs.  They must think the flat sale will not take long to complete!  In due course I must speak (yet) again to Inland Revenue to check there is no tax owing/to be repaid.  Last time I spoke to them they were waiting for information from her pension providers.

 

After that was done I went to the beach and had a very pleasant walk for about 40 minutes and found a number of shells.  There were also some interesting seaweeds to try and identify and a lot of bits of crabs mixed in with it.  

 

Part of the afternoon passed pleasantly thinking about a possible change to my 0 gauge layout and checking that the Swiss n gauge stock still works as not all of it is on the layout at any one time.  Later I went into the greenhouse and cleaned the inside of the glass and removed some moss, there will be a bit more to do along with the outside to clean in a few days.

 

Then it was time for a cuppa and a chat on the phone with my 90 year old aunt who seems to be OK though a bit annoyed with the way her gardener has cut part of a hedge. The evening was the usual mix of book, TV and music.

 

Late in the afternoon I noticed a strong smell of solvent outside, it turns out that next door's block paved drive has been cleaned and sealed with something.  By late evening the smell had about gone.

 

David

Edited November 10, 2022 by DaveF

[polybear]

1 hour ago, grandadbob said:

Jeyes fluid has been deployed.  Don't like the new stuff, doesn't seem to be a patch on the original formula.

                                        

 

Hey, what a surprise.  Let's add it to the list of all the others - Finnigan's Hammerite, the old Nitromors, oil-based Paint.....any others?

 

Bear here.....

PS splurged and covered; a second splurge will be added shortly and then left covered over until tomorrow.

I also phoned the PS Company to ask about the "sticky toffee" - the lady was most intrigued and has asked me to send photos if it happens again; her best guess at the moment is because I hadn't covered it over during the day.  The discussion progressed into the various uses and techniques of PS, including "The Nasty Stuff" (= old Nitromors) containing DCM; it seems that there were moves the ban it completely some years back, partly as the result of a couple of deaths in Germany apparently.  The problem is the fumes rise; after a while people can't smell it anymore and think it's all gone - but they're hiding up near the ceiling....so not ideal for a H/S/L refurb in an occupied Bear Towers....

Now the Nasty Stuff is for Trade Use (incl. Bears) only and not DIY, which was sufficient to fend off The Dogs in the EU and stop it from getting banned completely.  It seems the Boss (and Inventor?) of the stuff I'm using now was involved in giving presentations to those considering banning DCM to convince them not to.

Incidentally, Bear's can of The Nasty Stuff lives in the shed, still unopened.  I'll only use it for very difficult, small bits indoors (where the friendly stuff won't play) or outdoors.

Right, time to splurge....

[New Haven Neil]

A'noon.  Kitcheny bit nearly finished, he's just fitting some final bits of trim and tidying up stuff, as half the kitchen is the same cupboards etc as before, but moved/repurposed/altered to Her Ladyship's requirements.  Although it's me that uses the kitchen, but I don't get a say as to what or how anything is laid out.  Pah,  think is appropriate, but not unexpected!

 

Then Mrs NHN will return from work and spend the evening nest-making in there, filling cupboards and so on, then I will spend most of tomorrow trying to find anything I need to cook tomorrow's meals. Or go to the chippy.  Oh hang on, it's Old Farts Bike Club day tomorrow, so brunch out, saves one lot anyway.  Looks like it'll be dry so we will get a ride too, whoo.

 

 

 

 

[The White Rabbit]

Afternoon all,

 

A few years ago we planned to move (it didn't work out as planned!) and looked at various houses. Two were ex-police stations, one in Huby next to the railway line. This was a small village station in the days when such things existed (sigh) and the official part of the building was an extension to the original house. It would have made an excellent workshop and headquarters for my business. The office would have been in what was the cell. 

 

In Wales, several I have looked at (mainly window shopping online) have been ex-chapels. Some are not the type of building I'd want to live in but some looked possibles. It's not feasible at the moment but I keep being tempted. The last time I saw a village police station was when I tried to report a lost dog - it was running loose on an A road and I couldn't catch it myself, so drove in to the nearest village and to my surprise, found one. Unattended, he/she/they were dealing with other things, so just left a message. 

[TheQ]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

Hey, what a surprise.  Let's add it to the list of all the others - Finnigan's Hammerite, the old Nitromors, oil-based Paint.....any others?

 

 

Sodium Chlorate weed killer, creosote as mentioned before, TBT a boat antifouling that worked..

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Mention of Jeyes fluid reminded me that a great uncle had tried to commit suicide by drinking the stuff. This was way back in 1913 and he was serving in the army in South Africa at the time. He was doing well in the army if the number of good conduct awards is anything to go by. However the army medics couldn't do anything for him so he was shipped home via Netley Hospital (Southampton) and then discharged. He spent the next few years in a mental hospital in Maidstone until he died in 1919, not from flu as one would expect but of TB.