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Canal Digger

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  • Location
    Moonraker country
  • Interests
    Diecast (& other) Train Collection has been described as eclectic and eccentric. Current project: 00 scale, working (with water) canal lock, in planning stage.

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  1. It's getting to be hard work keeping up here!
  2. My sixpennyworth ... A few years ago we did part of the Irish Wild Atlantic Way, in a campervan hired from Dublin. Made our way up to the NE corner and worked our way anti-clockwise until we ran out of time part way down the west coast. Then back to Dublin, back into our car, south to Rosslare via beautiful Wicklow Mts, caught ferry to Fishguard and M4 etc to home. The worst part, the depressing, mile after mile, village merging into village, Ribbon Development in County Donegal. Empty, modern bungalows, low maintenance gardens, tightly drawn curtains. Luckily in the van we could see beyond these 2nd homes but if you were in a car, hard luck. Local economy = lawn cutting
  3. Was Sgt Smith put on a charge, he should have looked up the reg's on arrival? Sorry for being late on parade, have spent 1 1/2 days in hospital having a minor op common to a lot of men our age.
  4. Reminds me of on my older cars, I regularly had to adjust the fan/ alternator (dynamo)/ water pump belt.
  5. It must be Spring, I saw a Hedgehog last night, while out with the dog
  6. A tale of woe ... Last week (Wednesday) the cooker (main oven) failed tripping the mains, soon reset. Decided that the element had probably fused, so given age , a new cooker required. SWMBO done the research and decided that we were going to a certain, national electrical goods supplier (hint: Indian food). Local shop limited display, so off to Bristol we go [where someone went into the back of our car = minor dent], found the one that fitted requirement best and paid the extra for delivery/ installation on Friday as Saturday we were going to Sandown Racecourse Swapmeet (a good day out). Friday morning and new Dual Fuel cooker delivered and installed, only to find that one of the burners wouldn't light, OK we say and fault got reported up the chain, cooker disconnected from gas main for safety. Today, Service Engineer from manufacturer arrived, to find that the installation guys had taken the gas hose away with to make sure that we didn't use any of the 3 working burners and no he didn't have a spare hose. Spent about 50 min on phone being passed around various desks (retailer, manufacturer, retailer), to get a new cooker sometime, currently awaiting a call ... . Another night out. I feel a compensation claim building ...
  7. There is also the 'carbon footprint' resulting from the transport of the coal/ coke from wherever to take into account. madness, utter, complete ...
  8. A 2-seat smart car that we had a few years ago had a conventional looking, central between the seats, handbrake, however instead of pivoting/ rotating the driver lifted the lever so that it was still at the same angle but higher. For such a small difference it took some getting used to
  9. Back to handbrakes if I may A few years ago I spent the day driving a Dumper Truck up and down the towpath of a local canal (Wilts& Berks Canal https://www.wbct.org.uk/), hence my name here. No problems, the handbrake being on the RH side, with a catch to release operated by the little finger. Went home in a Ford Ranger with an Umbrella Stick handbrake, again no problem. Went out that evening in an ordinary Ford Mondeo, had to put on the interior light at the traffic lights to find the handbrake release! Only been driving for 40 years (not non-stop before someone picks me up on that point). The strangest (to me) parking brake was on a Ford 350 based RV in the States, a left foot operated, pedal brake. Doing hill starts, trusting the Automatic Gearbox not to allow me role backwards took some getting used to.
  10. I seem to remember a brief discussion in the first year of my degree by “Clever Trevor” (so named because he did music analysis with us) about some experiments done in the late 1960s/early ‘70s with non-music-reading children which showed that the human eye/brain could “chunk” graphic information presented on a five line stave but adding additional lines (as opposed to ledger lines) almost immediately reduced the efficiency. I don’t remember any real details, but do remember it came about due to a question from our year’s resident genius composer Matthew Hind (who had been writing music since the age of 6) along the same lines as yourself. He wrote music you could enjoy listening to, but could also do “experimental” stuff and his question arose I think from some ideas he had about notating the latter. He even wrote something using coloured music notes to represent dynamics (volume) to see if that worked better than traditional ways of notating (it didn’t, but was fun trying it out!) Matt should have won the Composition Prize in our final year, but his music was simply too melodic (he refused to write anything other than what he wanted to hear himself) and it was instead awarded to someone who wrote avant garde “stuff”* that had no melody, discernible aural structure or point (to most listeners) but her efforts “fitted” with the academic leanings of the composition department. (Myself and my best mate similarly wrote “tunes” instead of “plinky plonk bang crash” monstrosities, and were marked down for that!) Yes, there is a mathematical/physics basis to the “octave” which is a fascinating rabbit hole to dive into for a few hours, especially now that some very good YouTube videos explain it all in an entertaining and far less academically dusty manner! You are quite right about the old Joanna’s white keys being confusing starting on A but everything referencing middle C, but that is because “middle C” sits on the ledger line exactly half way between treble and bass clefs! Seen separately, middle C in the treble clef sits on the first ledger line below the stave. Middle C in the bass clef sits on the first ledger line above the stave. Place the treble stave above the bass stave (as for piano) and there is just one ledger line separating the two staves - write a note on that line and in treble clef it is the middle C and in bass clef it is also the middle C … hence the name “Middle C”. (In practice in order to show which hand is playing which notes, notes can be shown on more ledger lines above the bass or below the treble stave that could/should be easier to read written on the appropriate clef!) On a traditional piano, middle C was close to the centrally placed keyhole for locking the lid, so once the pattern of white/black keys was established, it was easy to direct anyone learning to the middle C key - “Look for the keyhole, now look for the closest pair of black keys, and middle C is the white key directly to the left of the lower of the two black keys” (plus, of course, being physically shown that whilst being explained and most people can find a middle C on a piano!) Of course, keyboards don’t have a keyhole … 🫢🤣 Steve S * Personally, I simply can’t call such assemblages of apparently random notes “music” even if it meets the philosophical criteria of “organised sounds” I know that this is English, I can recognise the individual words, but I have no idea, what you are talking about. Many years ago in a 'compulsory' Music lesson at school, I tried to learn how to learn t o play the Recorder, eventually I learnt that a 'symbol' meant the note 'C' and that meant that I had to position my fingers so, then the next symbol meant A, so fingers ...., by this time the rest of the class were on the next line!
  11. I know it's not ebay (perhaps seller has also listed it there and I've missed the post here, in which case sorry!), but someone on the Fb Model Railway Trading Group is offering a Red & Cream Triang Coach for £20, just needs some TLC
  12. lifted from another site, not ery sure what I can say ... l
  13. turn is mounted on the wall. Expand Oh that came out odd - iD, they're great, at the best part of a grand perhaps a bit spendy for me. Canal Digger, yes, that's exactly what I'm looking for, did you make them or can you say where they came from please? Sorry, but they came from an auction locally. The glass cabinet did not have lights in until I fitted them, sourced from flea-bay. Glad that you like them
  14. Please any thoughts on made what IMHO looks like a simple diecast representation of the 1930s Bugatti Railcar? Someone on another site tells me that I am quite wrong and that the model is of 3-car loco hauled train
  15. Confession Time. Last week (or perhaps the week before) there was a series of posts about TNMs range of scales/ gauges/ prototypes etc. I was busy at the time so could not join in, so here goes ... My muddling has taken a 'back seat' recently in favour of me collecting diecast, cast iron, card, glass trains. I'm sure most of you will know Lone Star or the Dinky A4s, so apart from them Tootsietoy from the 30s Cast Iron Wallwork from the 1890s and a other curiosities like the Main Line fish like 'thing', green Bakalite body, 3rd rail pick up, driven by a coil pulling on plates in 'the 4ft', speed controlled by the mark-space ratio of insulation on 3rd rail! Scroll back to June 23 or search for Main Line in Collectable/ Vintage for more info. Anyway, some of this collection is in glass, wall-mounted cabinets in the Dining Room, I have to compete for space, SWMBO collects Teddy Bears, including 30+ Cookie Jars around the top of the Kitchen Cabinets. Confession over
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