Early Risers.

[Coombe Barton]

... and to quote Homer Simpson ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2023/10/11/covid-mask-wearing-again-and-news-from-the-school-for-the-gifted/

[The White Rabbit]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Didn't get as much done as intended this afternoon except putting the washing on and checking the garden. The foxes are definitely back, they left a 'message' on what was the lawn. It was spitting with rain when I put the bin bags out, (with a little addition to discourage the foxes).

 

And if anyone needed a/another reason to discourage foxes ...: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/oct/10/fox-news-why-the-cunning-beasts-are-causing-chaos-for-car-owners  There aren't many sightings in this street but other places locally do see a few. 

 

ION - well, quite frankly, it's something like, ARRRGH!  Rabbit's head hurts from bashing it against many brick walls... too many people being rear ends - it may take a few days to simmer down enough to say why without getting told off or banned for bad language... 

[Hroth]

If you're having trouble with urban foxes....

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67053171

 

I can think of a number of upgrades and improvements to the system!

 

[tigerburnie]

Simple way to deter Foxes from your garden, human urine round the boundaries, now this could be a bit smelly, but no worse than the smell of fox pee. You may also find there are a lot less annoyed neighbours and blue flashing lights if you pee in a bottle to dispense it rather than using draft............................

[PhilJ W]

47 minutes ago, The White Rabbit said:

And if anyone needed a/another reason to discourage foxes ...: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/oct/10/fox-news-why-the-cunning-beasts-are-causing-chaos-for-car-owners  There aren't many sightings in this street but other places locally do see a few. 

I read somewhere that dogs are attracted to brake fluid although it is highly poisonous. Foxes are members of the dog family so there may be a connection.

28 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

Simple way to deter Foxes from your garden, human urine round the boundaries, now this could be a bit smelly, but no worse than the smell of fox pee. You may also find there are a lot less annoyed neighbours and blue flashing lights if you pee in a bottle to dispense it rather than using draft............................

But it must be male urine. Thats why I can put my bin bags out the night before without worrying about foxes tearing them open.

[Hroth]

7 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

But it must be male urine. Thats why I can put my bin bags out the night before without worrying about foxes tearing them open.

 

I fear that your disclosure is possibly TMI....

 

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[pH]

The NHL season started last night. In one game, the team that had the top pick in this year’s draft (Chicago) was playing a team (Pittsburgh) lead by one of the top players in the league.

 

The two players started the game by facing off against each other. Sidney Crosby is starting his 17th season in the league, this was  Conor Bedard’s first NHL game.

 

There was this nice moment from the ref:

 

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tOPi7zL1jRU

 

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[polybear]

Bear here......

The morning was spent faffing around on dross stuff, whilst the afternoon was spent with yet more playing & experimenting in the muddlin' room, ably assisted by the delivery of half a litre of MEK (the real stuff, aka Butanone) purchased from the 'bay for nine quid, which is rather a lot cheaper than your local muddle shop (if you have one, that is....) flogs it for.  Tick.

 

Hopefully there'll be no dross that needs doing tomorrow, meaning I should be able to play in the muddlin' room all day, which will be a Tick.

 

ION.....

I discovered earlier that today is Wednesday; I thought it was Monday......

 

BG

[polybear]

56 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

I read somewhere that dogs are attracted to brake fluid although it is highly poisonous.

 

I think it may be antifreeze, though I could be wrong.....

[Tony_S]

20 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

I think it may be antifreeze, though I could be wrong.....

Both frequently a glycol based substance.  It tastes sweet but is certainly toxic to humans. Ethylene glycol was added to wine to sweeten it some years ago. When this was discovered it adversely affected that countries wine sales for years. 

[Winslow Boy]

21 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Both frequently a glycol based substance.  It tastes sweet but is certainly toxic to humans. Ethylene glycol was added to wine to sweeten it some years ago. When this was discovered it adversely affected that countries wine sales for years. 

If memory serves me right I think it was Austria but I might be wrong.

[Ozexpatriate]

12 hours ago, Ian Abel said:

I got one of these a couple of years back, works great and also has power available from a cigarette lighter cable if the battery you're carrying is flat.

I have something similar, though your instrument looks nicer - particularly with the pressure display and probably works better. The one I have is quite slow in materially inflating the tyre on a car.

[Ozexpatriate]

15 hours ago, polybear said:

Insofar as Car Insurers are concerned in the UK they do seem to have a (deserved) reputation for paying out total loss claims at rock bottom prices, meaning the owner struggles to get a "like for like" replacement with the money paid.

It's not that the insurers are a rip-off but a mismatch of expectations.

 

I was rear-ended while driving a car with almost 100,000 miles on the clock. It was totaled and my insurer paid me a 'like-for-like' replacement. What I ended up with was a four-door, automatic version of the same model year of the same car platform in boring burgundy maroon that had almost 100,000 miles on the clock, rather than the two-door, six-speed, blue coupé that I had owned and repaired and loved for years. They had the same engine, but one was a lot more fun than the other.

 

Did I feel "cheated". Of course I did. Was I "cheated"? No. The insurer fully lived up to their commitment. No one said life was fair.

 

I am driving a car that will be 20 years old in a couple of months which I have owned from new. (Yes it's another two-door, six-speed blue coupé.) If it is damaged (at all) it will be totaled. It is worth very little to anyone except me. A new model of that car might cost $50,000. I might get $5,000 from the insurer. There's an 800% expectation mismatch to put replacement wheels under me.

 

The real point of insurance (for me at least) is to protect my assets if I am in an accident where someone else is hurt or their property is damaged.

[monkeysarefun]

8 hours ago, tigerburnie said:

Simple way to deter Foxes from your garden, human urine round the boundaries, now this could be a bit smelly, but no worse than the smell of fox pee. You may also find there are a lot less annoyed neighbours and blue flashing lights if you pee in a bottle to dispense it rather than using draft............................

 

 

Though it does apparently attract bears, mountain goats, locusts, reindeer, butterflies and some species of fish,  so its swings and roundabouts.

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

Though it does apparently attract bears, mountain goats, locusts, reindeer, butterflies and some species of fish,  so its swings and roundabouts.

And spiders???
(asking for a friend…)

[monkeysarefun]

11 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

And spiders???
(asking for a friend…)

 

 

Perhaps, if the song that we all had to learn in 2nd grade to sing for our parents at speech night is a true account.

Kind of like "Jerusalem", but for little Aussies.. 

 

e 

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from the Charente.  I got a good start in the morning and trimmed three bushes, two of which were prickely.  No one objected to this.  In the afternoon I had my weekly French class.  

 

Today I am off the leash and am heading east across the Greenwich Meridian to go and watch trains. 

 

Jamie 

[jjb1970]

12 hours ago, Tony_S said:

One interesting situation from surveys and questionnaires involves honesty. Some general elections ago when there were quite large deviations from poll predictions was how truthful were people when they answered pollsters. This didn’t surprise me. The college I worked used to survey all students and do various tests. However one of the tests was about “attitudes”. The students generally thought this was a waste of time and many of them once they knew it was anonymous chose the most negative answer. 
The vice principal was quite upset that it appeared we had a college full of unpleasant characters and what were we going to do. The general suggestion from the staff was to ignore the survey and don’t issue it again. 

 

I think this is a big problem. As well, there is a distorted view of political pulse as many prefer to keep their political views to themselves because it's easier than getting into arguments or dismissed as a right/left extremist if they go against the consensus. That might not be such a problem in itself but it can have odd consequences at election time or in political discourse if a significant part of the populace think it's easier to put an 'x' in the box every few years and avoid getting into political discussions.

[New Haven Neil]

Morning, from a dark rock.  Who turned the lights out? 9c, dead still and everything outside running with condensation, autumn is firmly here.

 

Today sees Old Fart Friday on Thursday, as the seaweed twirlers have given a decent day as their best guess, whereas tomorrow looks distinctly dodgy, so we have declared it Friday.  Bear will be even more confused.

[Barry O]

Ey up!

Need to go shopping first thing then a bit of shark wielding followed by some floor swabbing...apparently the rest of the day is my own..well apart from some more cricket admin..pah!

 

@polybearMEK is not Butanone. MEK welds plastic faster than Butanone.. you can buy both in bulk. You can also buy plastic weld in bulk.. but always 

Store it in a dark glass bottle.. it can escape from the plastic ones they send it out in.  

 

I also buy IPA in bulk.. use a bit of this for helping to get ballast to stick.

 

It got decidedly cool last night.. got back home.. heating had come on.. pah!

 

Right, time to getamoveon..shopping doesn't do itself!

 

Stay safe!

 

Baz

Edited October 12, 2023 by Barry O

[jjb1970]

13 hours ago, PMP said:

I don’t doubt or disagree with your professional experience. In all the training I have had on dealing with aircraft fuel related fires etc., is don’t use ‘water’ and try and deploy bunds if possible. In a fuel farm or airport apron that’s much easier than a multi storey car park with access ramps etc. There was a similar fire in the past few years in Scandinavia, with similar results. As I recall their investigation concluded that sprinklers may have helped, but wind speed and the lack

of compartments contributed to the spread of the fire. It apparently was burning for around 5 minutes before the first reaction which didn’t help, and no one used local extinguishers in an early preventative attempt. 
I’m lucky I guess in having some very limited fire training in dealing with fuel fires, most people haven’t and probably wouldn’t attempt an initial intervention, probably just film it for Tictok! I’d be hesitant to myself being totally honest, going safety first for myself and others as a priority.

 

For oil fires, foam blankets are very effective, application is critical and you don't just spray foam onto an oil fire but it's directed against bulkheads and such like to flow down and over the oil. Ships like oil tankers use foam smothering systems. When I worked in electricity generation we used high-fog in transformer bays outside, if the system is designed for the application they can be used outside.

[jjb1970]

9 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

But it must be male urine. Thats why I can put my bin bags out the night before without worrying about foxes tearing them open.

 

Just make sure the wind is blowing in the right direction and there are no women or minors around when you do your nightly rounds......😉

[Hroth]

32 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

 

Just make sure the wind is blowing in the right direction and there are no women or minors around when you do your nightly rounds......😉

Beer or lager in preparation?

 

I think the lager passes through faster, but the beer tastes better!

 

Moving on...

 

The bloke wot duz is slated to make another attempt to fit a moderately smart gas meter this morning.

Third time lucky?

Better pop down and read the old meter before he arrives!

 

Edited October 12, 2023 by Hroth
a bit more, and spelin