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PhilJ W

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Posts posted by PhilJ W

  1. 17 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

    I think I have mentioned before but my sense of smell is quite odd. I don’t really notice smelly people at exhibitions. I do notice people who smell of tobacco. I find that a good reason to move to another layout. 

    I've had that sometimes with second hand books. Open them up and it's like opening an ashtray. I'm lucky in that I have a spare room that is both cool and airy to place them for a couple of weeks for the smell to evaporate.

    • Like 5
    • Agree 1
    • Friendly/supportive 5
  2. 3 hours ago, Tony_S said:

    Aditi went out yesterday for a haircut and came back with cake. She said she just stopped on the way back to the car park and noticed a new patisserie and had a look in the window. Two cakes were obtained in a medium sized box. Unless of course some didn’t make it home! 

    I pass your way a couple of times a month, can you give directions please? (To the cake shop.)

    • Like 8
  3. 35 minutes ago, TheQ said:

    Eerr no, vehicle regulations are not backdated, you can drive your 1901car without seatbelts, lights, brakes that work  and still pass the emission regulations cos there wasn't any.. just as well for my 1984 land rover.

    Like this one.

     

    • Like 7
  4. 2 hours ago, SM42 said:

    If switch on  the TPS (?) function, the travel news is automatically louder, assuming the radio station sends out the required signal to tell the car travel news is on.It does on mine at least. Don't use the function  though, find it rather annoying in a what's it doing now kind of way.

    Andy

    I've turned mine off and now I only get the national travel news on radio 2. The reason I turned it off is that where I live three local radio stations overlap, Essex, London and Kent and I could get any one of them. The only one relevant to me is Essex as I very rarely travel all that far from home.

    • Like 7
  5. 3 hours ago, SM42 said:

    If not done properly, all cars made since around 2016 would suddenly become illegal to use. ( the use part of that legislation) 

    Maybe that's the point ( tin foil hat at the ready) 

    Andy

    They can't change the law retrospectively but any such cars might be difficult to sell. Any construction and use regulations will only apply to vehicles registered after the C&U regulations came into force. 

    • Agree 6
  6. 3 hours ago, SM42 said:

     

    Er no, she has a point.

     

    Technology is  now very intrusive. 

    It beeps, it steers it brakes 

     

    It has no idea what it is doing half the time and is quite frankly, in all thoses cases, a dangerous distraction or function. 

     

    Other things that used to be manual are electric and so flippin' inconvenient, like handbrakes

     

    If I park too close to the house so I can't get the bin past on bin  day, I get in, take the handbrake off and roll forward a couple of feet. No need to start the engine, and all the rigmarole that is nowadays ( just in case you are incompetent) and run it for 5 seconds.

     

    If it should break down,  it can be pushed / rolled out of the way.  Not with an electric brake.

    The police turn up and close the road while they wait for the recovery truck to drag it  onboard, flat spotting the tyres in  the process. 

     

    Basic controls are moving into touchscreen menus; want the wipers on? Too hot? Too cold?

     

    Start scrolling through menus whilst looking at the dashboard not the road, or pull over to do it.

     

    Buttons and levers are instinctive and can be operated  by touch, no need to look. 

     

    Do I need the car to beep and tell me I've turned the wipers on? I know I have, I did it and I can see them moving. 

     

    Some tech is useful and that is the unobtrusive stuff you talk of, tyre pressure monitors, reversing sensors and cameras, engine management and so on. All good stuff to assist in efficient running and safe operation of the vehicle. 

     

    Suddenly jamming the brakes on cos you are going up a steep hill and it thinks you are about to collide with the road, steering into oncoming traffic  ( and then beeping frantic warnings) because the road is a bit narrower and you are getting close to the kerb to avoid that traffic, beeping to  warn you of the parked car you are passing, making you instinctively look down at the very time you should be looking up,  is not.  

     

    It's some of the unobtrusive she doesn't want.

     

    She likes a few simple buttons and levers to operate the basic controls.

     

    Simple is good ( might explain why she married me 😁) too much technology is not.

     

    Doesn't want cameras, Bluetooth and so on ( though I suspect she may convert with some of these once she starts using them) and certainly no TV in the dashboard. 

     

    The more I see of modern cars, the more I'm inclined to agree with some of what she says.

     

    Andy

    My car is sixteen years old and has many features (it started out as a dealers demonstration model and is loaded with all the extras. Some I do like such as the automatic headlights but the automatic wipers I don't use. I also like the radio controls on the steering wheel, I have the volume low and only turn it up for the traffic news. It still has analogue instruments, the only digital item is the milometer/tripmeter.

    • Like 11
  7. 7 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

    Elsewhere in Milligan's Memoirs, ISTR a tale of North Africa, where orderlies used petrol as a disinfectant in the latrines. This could provide spectacular results for anyone smoking while completing his daily requirements.....

    My dad told me of his cousins who in the 1930's lived in a tenement in South London where several families had to share an outside WC. One of their neighbours was the local bully who would occupy the privy every Sunday morning with his copy of the Sporting Life and a packet of five Capstan Full Strength which he would smoke while checking his bets on the horses. If anyone was occupying the privy he would throw them out irrespective of age or gender. So my dads cousins and a few of their mates decided to do something about it and someone suggested dropping a *carbide tablet into the pan before he entered the privy. Come Sunday morning instead of putting one tablet into the pan they put a handful and then hid and watched their victim enter the privy. after about ten minutes there was an explosion that almost demolished the privy. The bully was found laying face down in front of what was left of the privy with a scorched and blackened backside.

    *Carbide tablets were used to produce acetylene gas used up until after the war for vehicle and bicycle lamps. When dropped into water they gave of the gas.

    • Like 9
    • Round of applause 8
  8. I have a lot of similar pieces* in various drawers and boxes, problem is which drawers and boxes are they in? As I'm unlikely to use them it might be a good idea to sell them on. 

    * Things such as Scale Link etches which have only been partly used and spare 'alternative' bits from plastic building kits etc. All are in 4mm (00) scale.

    • Like 1
  9. 1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

    We must be thankful that both the Nazi regime and the Japanese Military regime interfered politically with their military. Had, for example, Hitler allowed strategic retreats and switched aircraft production away from bombers to fighters, he would have still lost the war, but at a far, far higher cost than that that was eventually paid.

    Also so many resources was expended on the 'Final solution', the Holocaust that it reduced the effectiveness of the German military.

    • Agree 6
    • Interesting/Thought-provoking 4
  10. I understood that the rolling broadside was first used by Nelson whereby the Royal Navy ships used to sail at right angles to the enemy ship and fire into the stern whereby the cannon balls went the length of the vessel being attacked.

    • Like 3
    • Interesting/Thought-provoking 2
  11. Perhaps the '8th Army in Normandy' refers to the SAS or units of them. The SAS was formed in North Africa hence the confusion. My dad served in Burma and the nearest thing to the SAS was the Chindits, who in my dad's opinion were 'as mad as hatters'.

    • Like 5
  12. 50 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

    I did wonder when Stukas were mentioned if this incident happened in 1940.

     

    Jamie 

    Almost certainly, they were withdrawn from the B-o-B in August 1940 IIRC, due to the heavy losses.

    • Like 2
    • Agree 2
  13. 1 hour ago, SteveyDee68 said:

    I may have said this before but…

     

    One of the older chaps at the brass band my father played with had served in a tank regiment in World War II. He rarely spoke about the war, but one Remembrance Sunday after the band had played for a parade and were taking “refreshments” at the British Legion Club he told one story which stuck with my dad, who retold it only after the chap in question had passed away.

     

    His tank was midway in a column making their way along a road hemmed in on both sides by earth banks, and he (the driver) had a very bad feeling about it. He spotted a gateway and turned off out of the column; he said he knew he’d be in big trouble but that he had an overwhelming urge to get out of the line. His tank commander (Captain?) started yelling at him but just as he did so a German aircraft (Stuka?) suddenly flew over and bombed the front tank in the column, bringing them to a halt. A second plane bombed the rear tank and planes then proceeded to bomb the trapped column one by one. A couple more exited via the gate he had taken whilst he drove into trees to take cover from the planes. He said four tanks from the column survived that attack, and then wouldn’t say any more. 😔

     

    I’ve no way of checking the facts of that story. I do know that John had an impressive amount of medal ribbons on his blazer whenever he marched on Remembrance Sunday, and after hearing that story I did wonder - would he have been given a medal for his actions that day, or a dressing down for breaking formation?

     

    Another tank related story - taking a group of sixth form students to an Armed Forces recruitment day, I got to sit in a more modern tank - no thank you very much, definitely not for me. I remember asking where the ignition slot would be and being told it was automatic start up (no keys required) - in a battle situation, you wouldn’t want to be searching for the keys! At which point I asked whether that meant all the vehicles being clambered over by our (not exactly angelic) students were “live” (including the missile launcher trucks) and getting an answer that made me slightly nervous (again, due to our student cohort!) 🫢😆

    Tanks are very vulnerable to air attack, as the Russians have found out recently in Ukraine. As described above being in a column only makes it worse.

    • Agree 7
    • Interesting/Thought-provoking 1
  14. 1 hour ago, Johann Marsbar said:

    Japanese 1/32 scale bus kit - finally got round to building it after the thing had sat, unmade, in a cupboard for over 13 years!

     

    DSCF0229.JPG.e9ddc0c0c583e67a8fd8c57b45adee8e.JPG

     

    Instructions totally in Japanese, but seems to represent an Osaka city bus, one of quite a range of that scale bus kits that Aoshima produce.

    Photograph the instructions and paste into Google translate.

    • Like 2
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