jjb1970

I've heard it said that criticising Tim tams is al.ost as bad as criticising meat pies😲🤣

It was a regular on menu cards in P&O Containers.

The genre of steam punk seems to have evolved out of 19th century futurology, it's a fascinating niche of history.

Bak kut teh for dinner tonight, a hot and sour pork rib soup. To be honest it's not my favourite SE Asian dish but Mrs JJB is a great enthusiast of it and made it today.

I find this quite sad. Singapore is infamous for having a fiercely competitive view of the world and wanting to be first in stuff. I think a deep seated envy of Australia's global leadership in the field of dangerous wildlife with all those venomous spiders, boxing kangaroos, wild hogs etc has made Singapore try to join in. A sad sign of insecurity, surely the crocodiles or marauding gangs of homicidal macaques would be a better effort to try and look impressive.

The pay on offer for many UK based positions wouldn't be bad if tax was less and cost of living lower. And pay has been distorted by government benefits to subsidize industry by trying to top up people's income to something which is liveable. That doesn't just affect low pay, low skilled jobs, an awful lot of skilled and professional staff qualify for various benefits. The canard about people asking for lower annual pay rises to avoid crossing thresholds whereby they'd lose benefits isn't an urban myth, I had a few people quietly request it when I had people managing responsibilities. Which is properly messed up in my view, not the individuals who were acting in a rational way but a screwed up system.

The regulatory control on marine fuel is sulphure content. MARPOL VI regulation 14 limits sulphur content to 0.1% in emissions control areas (ECAs) and 0.5% outside ECAs(still massively higher than the 10ppm limit for fuel oils in Europe for automotive and industrial application). At the moment there are only a handful of ECAs around Europe and the USA though there are local restrictions in a few places (such as China) so the great majority of marine oil fuel is 0.5%. At the time MARPOL was revised it was thought this would push shipping onto either middle distillate fuels in the DM- series or LNG but the fuel suppliers developed low sulphur fuel oils, either by desulphurization or blending. A further issue is exhaust gas cleaning which is allowed as an equivalent means of compliance under MARPOL VI regulation 4 (there's a much more heated debate over EGCS water discharge). The result is that the principal marine oil fuel grades are still residuals in the RM- series. Apologies for this diversion, but if trains use oil on British rails it'll be 10ppm S compliant diesel/gas oil.

The PBY is in Danish SAR colours I think.

A thread about kettle names made me kind of nostalgic about ye olde British foods much loved by P&O cooks I have never had anywhere else. One was Cumberland sauce, named after the Duke, not the county. Ham with Cumberland sauce was a regular on P&O menu cards. Another was brown Windsor soup. Corned beef is another, not bully beef but beef brisket cooked in brine, never had that since leaving P&O.

Another nice example of Chinese outline, an SS1 electric in HO by N27. The SS1 was China's first serial production electric following the 6Y1 and 6Y2. The 6Y1 was largely reliant on Soviet technology while the 6Y2 was an Alsthom type. The SS1 is said to be basically an improved 6Y1 incorporating technology from the 6Y2. Despite the Soviet collaboration on the original 6Y1 I always think the SS1 looks much more Western European than Soviet. The N27 model is brass and beautifully done, it is fully equivalent to Korean brass in my opinion. This is one of the earlier style, later versions were more European looking. I picked this up on Yahoo Japan auctions for about £270 including shipping and GST which was a splendid bargain. You can still see them new for about £600-700 excluding shipping and GST (VAT). While not cheap, for a factory finished brass model that is very good value new. CMR do a plastic alternative which is also very nicely done.

One of the most hagiographic biographies of Cromwell is God's Englishman by Christopher Hill. This is interesting as to many on the left of the political spectrum Cromwell is akin to evil incarnate yet Hill was a Communist. His book presents an excellent counter argument to the detractors, far more eloquently than most on the Cromwell supporter side. Not saying his views were correct but if trying to form an opinion of the man all sides of the debate should be considered. Despite his political baggage Hill's works on 17th century English history remain invaluable in my view.

He got a sauce named after him instead. Ham with Cumberland sauce was a staple of P&O cooks (along with brown Windsor soup). I once commented that I had lived in what had been Cumberland all my life at that point and never seen Cumberland sauce so it was pointed out it was named after the Duke, not the county.

Look on the brightside, his fellow armoured war pioneer JFC Fuller was full on bat turd bonkers, but still had a few good ideas.

Cromwell's rather controversial place in history isn't a modern phenomenon, the way he has been remembered and thought of has been a bit of a roller coaster since his own lifetime in England and very negative in Ireland. As with most of these things the debate tends to get polarized between hagiography and seeing him as the prototype for a naughty national socialist from Austria. He was a remarkable man of prodigious political and military skills but both sides of the ledger should be considered. In that sense he's no different to other major political figures (with vanishingly few exceptions).

I am a member of RINA and have my CEng registration through them but I really object to the institute racket. Every year it gets harder to persuade myself to renew, so far each year I have decided retaining CEng registration outweighs my hatred of being forced to be a member of an institute to keep it but I really was close to shoving it this year.