Reorte

I hesitate to wade in to the language discussion, but I can't help myself... I've heard people use the phrase "The proof of the pudding..." rather than "is in the", leaving the rest out. Saying part of a well-known phrase and leaving the rest hanging is fairly commonplace.

Came back to bite you?

A bash in a different direction to the usual: https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2024-04-30/motorist-captures-moment-yacht-gets-stuck-in-railway-arch

Wasn't there some talk a few years ago about possibly reinstating the avoiding lines? They've not been built on with more than the odd bit of car park AFAICT. Also seems odd that a small stub was left, although I suppose on a little-used line it might be easier just to clip the points in place than remove them. But the OHLE masts were removed.

Technically there are no identity cards in the UK (thank heavens, although the ever increasing expectation and demand for ID is unpleasant).

That can mean one of two things - either it's always the case of just looking back and it's all really the same, just our perceptions, or that things get less and less appealing. Although there were more Black 5s the 66 must still be one of the more numerous classes of locomotive ever to run in Britain, which is pretty good going for something relatively modern. There'll certainly be nostalgia for them at some point. How much actual genuine liking is a different matter. Maybe the same's true for the Black 5, and there's a definite element of the common being more appreciated when it no longer is common, personally I doubt that's all there is to it though.

It's quite a different circuit these days, but yeah, probably wouldn't be appropriate on this particular anniversary.

Not very useful if you hardly ever use it. No-one's going to get in the habit of keeping a phone charged that they never use.

I used to know someone who lived in Keswick but would commute out of it to help in his parents' pub just outside the Lakes. Used to go and watch Carlisle United with him. Glad I've not been doing that this year.

The economy of the place depends on it yet it drives out those people living there anyway. A certain level of tourism can be very good for a place, but start going beyond that and it's damaging, and in the extremes pretty destructive.

I've never heard that before (although I only know one person with a caravan). Is it an Aussie thing?

I take the view that if I've got a comms connection in to the house anyway (whether it was originally designed for a phone or not) it makes sense to use that for the phone, rather than have something additional, and I really can't see the bandwidth existing for 100% mobile for everyone connections, what with everyone wanting high speed internet. There's the odd payphone around that I think's still nominally in use. Whether they actually work or not is a different matter. I always used to regard them as handy enough on the rare occasion I needed to make a call when away from home, but they're not any more. That was usually no more than once a year - nowhere near often enough for it to make sense to carry something around with me all the time just in case.

I don't remember much about the details from the time but I was watching it. Ratzenberger's death had already left me feeling rather off, and followed by Senna was even worse. About all I can remember was Murray Walker sounding very subdued for once, wishing the race would just be stopped. Wasn't there also an incident with a tyre bouncing off and injuring someone in the same race?

Ones with defibrilators often have a different coloured sign, e.g. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.336105,-1.9695366,3a,40.3y,15.9h,91.85t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1saPuF_8edK8YXspkBRz9Ipw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?ucbcb=1&entry=ttu. No colour but it doesn't say phone: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.3299181,-1.9840673,3a,40.8y,308.26h,93.42t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sYWg91RMOUo7ttvyCOqB17A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?ucbcb=1&entry=ttu It's mostly the old red phone boxes that have been kept like that, since they're pretty much an iconic part of the scene throughout the country. The later ones are less likely to have stayed (although some have). I hadn't realised until now that the second one of those looks like it's been moved to that location, it's not there in older Streetview pictures (I suppose it could've been removed, cleaned up, and put back).

A van, not a caravan.

Still quite a lot of phone boxes around here but not all that many have phones in them, a lot have been repurposed in to defibrilator stations, book exchanges and various things like that.

Seen on the side of a van this morning: "No persons to be inside this vehicle while it is moving."

It is, but it's less likely to fail by all accounts. I've never had the phone line go down but I have had power cuts. To be honest it's all more of a minor nuisance than a worry, but overall the replacement of something with a less capable system isn't something to cheer about. Same as anyone would've done before anyone had a mobile, i.e. not really worry about it happening, and just figure out how to deal with it there and then if it does. Doesn't it worry you that you had a bit of a panic, even if only a mild one, when you realised you didn't have your mobile with you? Not having one shouldn't cause anxiety.

Not if they're making the assumption that you will anyway.

This'll be (hopefully only a minor) annoyance for me. Don't have a mobile anyway (and have absolutely no need or desire to have one), and the mobile reception's poor around my way in any case. Even if I did have a mobile if I'm going to need it maybe once every few years is it reasonable to expect me to remember to keep it charged? I get why it's happening and to be honest I wouldn't have too much of a problem with it if the response to such issues wasn't little better than a shrug. Even just admitting that there are downsides would be fine, what isn't to me is pushing things in a mobile dependency direction and pretending there's nothing wrong with that.

On the subject of Bugsworth basin there is a surviving wagon, in the NRM. I ended up having to ask the staff to find it, they seemed a bit surprised and weren't sure and had to look it up themselves. I can't imagine it's a common request! (I was interested because I live there - Buxworth, not the NRM!).

The few rails in place were restored there, but I believe they're originals dug out of the undergrowth. Plenty of blocks of course, most obviously in the basin but also in some places further along the tramway (don't know about the non-publically-accessible parts but some of those are probably even more likely to be there, buried under what's grown over them over the years). There's a rebuilt wagon sat in the basin, AFAIK it's using an original set of wheels but the rest's recreation. Coming down the inclined parts apparently they were braked by someone perched on the front, throwing a chain in to the wheels. Now that's a job that sounds like it's constantly an inch from disaster.

Doesn't stop the big companies trying sometimes - they can often rely on the small business going along with stopping rather than risk fighting the multi-billion business with loads of expensive lawyers.

On the preservation front and the sheer number of them I expect time will weed them out. Better to start with too many and work down than the other way around, and as unpopular as they were a few do deserve to be preserved - they have their place in history, both as a representation of the railway at that time (shouldn't just be the nicest bits!), and because they probably saved numerous minor lines.

I'd have thought that most Cornishmen would regard having to live in Devon as worse than any taxes!