Castle Aching

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

54 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Unfortunately the image is not on-line [DY 13594]. 

 

Well that's because the internet wasn't invented then ........ 

Edited December 7, 2019 by Malcolm 0-6-0

[CKPR]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

"[Ayn Rand] a shallow thinker appealing only to adolescents"

 

Discuss 

 

 

 "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs"

Edited December 7, 2019 by CKPR

[RedGemAlchemist]

7 hours ago, Annie said:

My ex was a keen enthusiast for the writings of Ayn Rand; - more than likely one of the reasons we're not together anymore.

Probably one of the most cynical writers and philosophers ever in my honest opinion. Don't get me wrong, Atlas Shrugged is a good book. Just try not to read too much into the meaning as it's both depressing and overly mean-spirited.

Edited December 7, 2019 by RedGemAlchemist

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

generally pro-European

There is a world of difference between being pro-European and being pro-EU bureaucracy.

[Nearholmer]

OLE powered lorries:

 

“Hmm, we shall see.....”

 

Early days, St Enodoc., early days. They’ve clearly done nothing more than directly apply railway/tram technology for the proof of concept trial, and it is clearly not optimal.

 

The trucks follow the wires under automatic control, of course, and the trial is really about getting that right, rather than simply collecting juice, which is a well-understood subject.

 

Ayn Rand:

 

the only person I’ve known who was a firm adherent into adulthood was a Danish guy who, at first, came across as a really decent, nice, family guy, but one I’d got to know him properly, emerged to have some really quite scary nietzschean/social-Darwinist views that, to me at least, seemed to border on the F word. His wife eventually got shot of him over what amounted to a political disagreement, because she supports what I would call typical danish social democracy, and he was campaigning to get a Thatcherite elected.

 

K

[Compound2632]

55 minutes ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

 

Well that's because the internet wasn't invented then ........ 

 

The Derby Registers have been catalogued and are on line with a keyword in context index. A number of the photographs have been digitised, e.g. here's one I recently used in this thread, with the appropriate citation.

[CKPR]

Seeing as how CA often seems to be a hybrid of  'Only Connect' and 'Mornington Crescent' in which all the answers are supposed to relate to the pre-grouping era, I've been musing on how we go from Ayn Rand back to the old-time railways (to use the Rev. Beale's terminology) and so alighted on Sir Wilfred Lawson, '2nd Baronet (4 September 1829 – 1 July 1906) was an English temperance campaigner and radical, anti-imperialist Liberal Party politician who sat in the House of Commons variously between 1859 and 1906... the leading humourist in the House of Commons'. And director of the Maryport & Carlisle Railway, which contrary to his nom de plume is CKPR's main interest.  Sir Wilf seems to have been the antithesis of Rand's heroes as he clearly cared about his constituents and employees, exercised a beneficent autocracy over north west Cumberland and was by all accounts a decent if rather eccentric cove who was  generally well regarded. Shame about the temperance nonsense though. 

Edited December 7, 2019 by CKPR

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, St Enodoc said:

There is a world of difference between being pro-European and being pro-EU bureaucracy.

 

Perhaps, then, there is also a difference between the Truth and what dishonest journalists* have been saying about European Bureaucracy for years and what dishonest politicians** having been saying to, and on behalf of, "the People".

 

If you want a Buchanesque conspiracy, there's one for you.  It's brilliance is that it uses the forces of democracy to subvert it, because, in a democracy, no politician can afford to point out that "the People" are unwittingly whistling the tune of a plutocratic elite.  The People will learn the hard way, by which time it will all be too late.

 

* See Boris Johnson

** See Boris Johnson

 

Anyhow Bl00dy Stupid Johnson is not the recipient of my Tw*t of the Day award, which has to go to Elon Musk.

[runs as required]

I’ve just read that Plaid Cymru’s manifesto includes re-opening the Manchester & Milford. They definitely would get my vote.

So how would the Cardiff to North Wales train get from Aberystwyth northwards without passing through England ie  Oswestry, Salop?

Answer: it would have to be mixed gauge! A modern electric/battery train built to pass through the Glaslyn tunnels would be most exciting. Presumably it would split at Porthmadog with the announcement: “y ddau gar blaen yn unig i Carnavon a Holyhead, y cefn i Blaenau Ffestiniog y Wrecsam”

 

edit 

then forwards (summer only) Wrecsam to Manchester Victoria via ex GCR Queensferry, thence ex GWR via Warrington?

Edited December 7, 2019 by runs as required

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Bl00dy Stupid Johnson 

 

That is a calumny on the twisted creative genius of Pratchett's character.

 

Here's some Johnson to cheer us up:

 

 

S.W not B.S. and certainly not  A.B. de P.

[runs as required]

Like!
Is the gothic shed Holbeck and a roundhouse ?

[St Enodoc]

15 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

Perhaps, then, there is also a difference between the Truth and what dishonest journalists* have been saying about European Bureaucracy for years and what dishonest politicians** having been saying to, and on behalf of, "the People".

 

If you want a Buchanesque conspiracy, there's one for you.  It's brilliance is that it uses the forces of democracy to subvert it, because, in a democracy, no politician can afford to point out that "the People" are unwittingly whistling the tune of a plutocratic elite.  The People will learn the hard way, by which time it will all be too late.

 

* See Boris Johnson

** See Boris Johnson

 

Anyhow Bl00dy Stupid Johnson is not the recipient of my Tw*t of the Day award, which has to go to Elon Musk.

A good argument but flawed for me as, in my opinion, there is no such thing as "the Truth". We each distill our own version of truth from the information available - accepting some of it, rejecting some of it and finally deciding what it is that we really believe. After all, one man's "dishonest journalist" is another man's Pulitzer prizewinner.

 

I agree with your last line though.

[Compound2632]

22 minutes ago, runs as required said:

Like!
Is the gothic shed Holbeck and a roundhouse ?

 

I was just looking that up. Yes, I believe this is the double roundhouse (rectangle-house!) at Leeds Holbeck. According to Summerson*, 1400 was allocated to Leeds in 1880 but was at Carnforth by 1892 - which certainly wouldn't prevent it being photographed at Holbeck. I believe the livery is early red rather than green, i.e. after 1883, There's no M R on the tender - this was applied from 1892. The middle section of the splasher is flat rather than having the Neilson-inspired reverse curve that came with reboilering in the 1890s.

 

*S. Summerson, Midland Railway Locomotives Vol. 3 (Irwell Press, 2002).

Edited December 7, 2019 by Compound2632

[ian]

3 hours ago, TheQ said:

 

In Norfolk we have of course a traditional problem with trams, they don't work under water...

 

 

Are you sure about that?

 

 

http://www.urban75.org/railway/brighton-sea-railway.html

[Compound2632]

15 minutes ago, ian said:

 

Are you sure about that?

 

 

http://www.urban75.org/railway/brighton-sea-railway.html

 

I saw that and thought: Martian invasion!

[Edwardian]

59 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

A good argument but flawed for me as, in my opinion, there is no such thing as "the Truth". We each distill our own version of truth from the information available - accepting some of it, rejecting some of it and finally deciding what it is that we really believe. After all, one man's "dishonest journalist" is another man's Pulitzer prizewinner.

 

I agree with your last line though.

 

Ah, the trap of False Equivalence.

 

That's Trump thinking; I can refuse to accept that anything true is true by calling it fake news, and assert the truth of anything I fake by calling it true. 

 

This is the 'logic' behind teaching Creationalism in US schools; I mean, after all, both it and Evolution are just theories, right? So, they're both equally valid?

 

We've been lied to for years and years and it's consequently very difficult for any of us to really discern solid fact-based truth, so I don't blame anyone for failing to do so.

[Edwardian]

Inspired by James Harrison's, in my view, brilliant idea of juxtaposing War of the Worlds with Three Men in a Boat, I've been indulging in my own form of escapism and proudly announce ...

 

The BBC Presents

 

Peter Harness Adapts the Classics

 

Three Men in a Tripod (To say nothing of the Martian)

 

Prologue – Woke in Woking

 

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man. And this was for good reason, because we, the Martians I mean, had been doing the watching, and we, as it turned out, would struggle to out-think a small dog.

 

It wasn’t meant to be an invasion.  We thought we’d do a bit of trading, lay down the odd colony here and there.  Genocide was very definitely optional, so far as we’d been concerned. In retrospect, it might have been better to land nearer to Whitehall and engage immediately in High Level Diplomacy. Instead we landed in village Surrey and gave the local rustics one almighty fright. I don’t think they were quite ready to meet extra-terrestrials. These people were still struggling with the concept of a loving long-term relationship without the sacrament of marriage, and with the existence of the French, so, you can see, it was all quite hopeless.  

 

I have since endeavoured to discover quite why we chose to land near Woking. Of course nobody knew; nobody at the observatory on Mars ever does know where a cylinder is going to start from, or where a cylinder when it’s shot off is going to, or anything about it.  The gunner who fired the first cylinder thought it would go to London, as this was the Capital of Empire, while another gunner, with whom he discussed the question, had heard a rumour that it was supposed to go to Berlin, as German industrial production had a exceeded Britain’s as early as 1870 and, thus, represented the greater World Power. The stella ordnance-master, on the other hand, was convinced, if that were the case, the cylinder must have been bound for New York. “You have to bear in mind the need to appeal to the US audience”, he added sagely.

 

To put an end to the matter, I went upstairs, and asked the expedition superintendent, and he told me that he had just met a passer-by, who said he was sure that the first cylinder was bound for Peking, on the basis that, in the long run, the Western Powers were finished anyway, and didn’t need much of a helping hand. In the end I decided that H G Wells had probably slipped him half-a-crown and begged him to send it to Woking.

 

It started well. I mean at least we avoided landing on anyone. While it was unfortunate that blaring Elgar at them on a gramophone caused the occupants of the first cylinder to panic and get a bit free with the heat-ray, it was really the complacent imperialist xenophobia of the provincial Englishman that got us all riled up.

 

The heat-ray was designed as a scientifically efficient way to clear ground for settlement, whereas the black smoke was intended as a mild disinfectant.  Possibly we underestimated the potency of these, and certainly we were rather non-plussed at being shelled by artillery.  Of course, Wells sensationalised the whole thing – he had a novel to sell after all – but it’s fair to say that things got a little out of hand for a time, though we soon had to admit defeat.    

 

We had reckoned without the Suffragettes and Sir David Attenborough, of course, and were completely unprepared for Public Meetings in which we were relentlessly lectured upon the Evils of Colonialism, the Vital Importance of Female Suffrage, and the Countryside Code (always close gates to prevent the escape of livestock, never litter, and try not to incinerate too much of our native woodland (as this quite annoying and also contributes to Climate Change)).  I think, though, the decisive point in our re-education was when Mrs Pankhurst argued that Martian Tyranny was just to replace one out-moded oppressive patriarchy with another, albeit it even slimier, one, and that, if we didn’t want a nail-bomb shoved up our heat-ray funnel, we’d better get Woke pdq.   

 

So, with the expedition barely begun, we were stopped in our tracks by the power of Socially Progressive Thinking.  That and the fact that we all came down with a really nasty bout of ‘flu.

 

For the next few years we led blameless lives keeping to our pit on Horsell Common, taking The Manchester Guardian, inventing a wind turbine, reading all the great feminist academics (intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic), and learning how to recycle single-use plastics.

 

In an effort to get out more, I joined the local Society of Free Thinkers where I met the companions, whose journey with me I now have the privilege of laying before the Reading Public.

 

Chapter 1

 

There were four of us—George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency.  We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were—bad from the point of view of our sufferings I mean, of course. 

 

We were all feeling seedy, and we were getting quite nervous about it.  Harris said he felt such extraordinary fits of post-colonial guilt come over him at times, that he hardly knew when to insert a suitably recriminatory monologue into the day; and then George said that he too had fits of Imperial Angst, but hoped that joining the Fabian Society and Living in Sin would cure it.   With me, it was my Martian physiology that was out of order.  I knew it was my Martian physiology that was out of order, because I had just been Googling "Martians - proneness to disease", where links detailed the various bacteria that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.  I had them all.

 

At this point, Ms Deliveroo knocked at the door to know if we were ready for supper.  We smiled sadly at one another, and said we supposed we had better try to swallow a bit.  Harris said a little something in one’s stomach often kept radical politics in check; and Ms Deliveroo brought the tray in, and we drew up to the table, and toyed with a little steak and onions, and some rhubarb tart. Had I but realised that eating beef was destroying the earth faster and more effectively than red weed, I might not have had seconds.

 

This duty done, we refilled our glasses, lit our pipes (we were Hipsters to a man), and resumed the discussion upon our state of health.  What it was that was actually the matter with us, we none of us could be sure of; but the unanimous opinion was that it—whatever it was—had been brought on by overthinking.

 

“What we want is a rest from the tired clichés of classic literature,” said Harris.

 

“Rest and a complete change,” said George.  “The efforts of sympathy with late nineteenth century modes of expression and social mores, even those penned by a popular Free-Thinking author, cause overstrain upon our brains and produce a depressing craving for the anachronistic touches of a dumbed-down re-write, relevant for a supposedly dull-witted modern audience. Change of plot, and absence of the necessity for thought, will restore the mental equilibrium.”

 

Debate then ranged to and forth upon the possible means of achieving such a change, and an expedition of our own was mooted.

 

George said:

 

“Let’s hire a Tripod.”

 

He said we should have fresh air, fine elevated views and they couldn’t be wheel-clamped; the constant change of scene would occupy our minds (including what there was of Harris’s); and life at higher altitude would give us a good appetite, and make us sleep well.

 

Harris said he didn’t think George ought to do anything that would have a tendency to make him sleepier than he always was, as it might be dangerous.  He said he didn’t very well understand how George was going to sleep any more than he did now, seeing that there were only twenty-four hours in each day, summer and winter alike; but thought that if he did sleep any more, he might just as well be dead, and so save his board and lodging.  It was at this point that I think I annoyed Harris by pointing out that I was indefatigable (when I hadn’t a head cold, of course).

 

Harris said, however, that a Tripod would suit him to a “T” and that I’d know how the drive one. Harris and I both said it was a good idea of George’s; and we said it in a tone that seemed to somehow imply that we were surprised that George should have come out so sensible.

 

The only one who was not struck with the suggestion was Montmorency.  He never did care for heights, did Montmorency.

 

“It’s all very well for you fellows,” he says; “you like it, but I don’t.  There’s nothing for me to do.  Scenery is not in my line, and I don’t smoke.  If you ask me, I call the whole thing bally foolishness.”

 

We were three to one, however, and the motion was carried.

 

 

 

Edited December 7, 2019 by Edwardian
formatting

[St Enodoc]

5 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

Ah, the trap of False Equivalence.

 

That's Trump thinking; I can refuse to accept that anything true is true by calling it fake news, and assert the truth of anything I fake by calling it true. 

 

This is the 'logic' behind teaching Creationalism in US schools; I mean, after all, both it and Evolution are just theories, right? So, they're both equally valid?

 

We've been lied to for years and years and it's consequently very difficult for any of us to really discern solid fact-based truth, so I don't blame anyone for failing to do so.

This will be my last word on this particular topic then I'll try to stick to trains, boats, literature, art and the rest. It seems to me that you've fallen into that very trap by asserting that what you believe to be the truth is true and what the other fellow believes must, therefore, be false. In the example you quote, Creationists believe that they are right and Darwinists do too. They probably can't both be right, and based on current evidence one is more likely to be right than the other. However, until one view can be entirely disproved then yes, they are both just theories. That is the scientific method.

 

Going back to 1905, that was of course the year that Einstein published his four famous papers that turned many then-accepted truths of science on their head.

[Compound2632]

13 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

For the next few years we led blameless lives keeping to our pit on Horsell Common, taking The Guardian, 

 

 

The Manchester Guardian - or is your production department so sloppy? It'll be moon-cheese by Pendolino next.

[runs as required]

23 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

The Manchester Guardian - or is your production department so sloppy? It'll be moon-cheese by Pendolino next.

But in those days God definitely came into MGuardinistas' thinking - as in the famous Charlton cwm Hardy Methodist Minister's extemporary prayer:

"Oh God! As thou hast doubtless read in the Manchester Guardian ..."

dh

Edited December 7, 2019 by runs as required
repeatedly tried to correct the spelling of Chorlton--Hardy. Aha, Chorlton does still exist in Welsh!

[Annie]

Perhaps what we all need is a good tonic to clear our heads and smarten ourselves up.

 

[James Harrison]

50 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Inspired by James Harrison's, in my view, brilliant idea of juxtaposing War of the Worlds with Three Men in a Boat, I've been indulging in my own form of escapism and proudly announce ...

 

The BBC Presents

 

Peter Harness Adapts the Classics

 

Three Men in a Tripod (To say nothing of the Martian)

 

Prologue – Woke in Woking

 

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man. And this was for good reason, because we, the Martians I mean, had been doing the watching, and we, as it turned out, would struggle to out-think a small dog.

 

It wasn’t meant to be an invasion.  We thought we’d do a bit of trading, lay down the odd colony here and there.  Genocide was very definitely optional, so far as we’d been concerned. In retrospect, it might have been better to land nearer to Whitehall and engage immediately in High Level Diplomacy. Instead we landed in village Surrey and gave the local rustics one almighty fright. I don’t think they were quite ready to meet extra-terrestrials. These people were still struggling with the concept of a loving long-term relationship without the sacrament of marriage, and with the existence of the French, so, you can see, it was all quite hopeless.  

 

I have since endeavoured to discover quite why we chose to land near Woking. Of course nobody knew; nobody at the observatory on Mars ever does know where a cylinder is going to start from, or where a cylinder when it’s shot off is going to, or anything about it.  The gunner who fired the first cylinder thought it would go to London, as this was the Capital of Empire, while another gunner, with whom he discussed the question, had heard a rumour that it was supposed to go to Berlin, as German industrial production had a exceeded Britain’s as early as 1870 and, thus, represented the greater World Power. The stella ordnance-master, on the other hand, was convinced, if that were the case, the cylinder must have been bound for New York. “You have to bear in mind the need to appeal to the US audience”, he added sagely.

 

To put an end to the matter, I went upstairs, and asked the expedition superintendent, and he told me that he had just met a passer-by, who said he was sure that the first cylinder was bound for Peking, on the basis that, in the long run, the Western Powers were finished anyway, and didn’t need much of a helping hand. In the end I decided that H G Wells had probably slipped him half-a-crown and begged him to send it to Woking.

 

It started well. I mean at least we avoided landing on anyone. While it was unfortunate that blaring Elgar at them on a gramophone caused the occupants of the first cylinder to panic and get a bit free with the heat-ray, it was really the complacent imperialist xenophobia of the provincial Englishman that got us all riled up.

 

The heat-ray was designed as a scientifically efficient way to clear ground for settlement, whereas the black smoke was intended as a mild disinfectant.  Possibly we underestimated the potency of these, and certainly we were rather non-plussed at being shelled by artillery.  Of course, Wells sensationalised the whole thing – he had a novel to sell after all – but it’s fair to say that things got a little out of hand for a time, though we soon had to admit defeat.    

 

We had reckoned without the Suffragettes and Sir David Attenborough, of course, and were completely unprepared for Public Meetings in which we were relentlessly lectured upon the Evils of Colonialism, the Vital Importance of Female Suffrage, and the Countryside Code (always close gates to prevent the escape of livestock, never litter, and try not to incinerate too much of our native woodland (as this quite annoying and also contributes to Climate Change)).  I think, though, the decisive point in our re-education was when Mrs Pankhurst argued that Martian Tyranny was just to replace one out-moded oppressive patriarchy with another, albeit it even slimier, one, and that, if we didn’t want a nail-bomb shoved up our heat-ray funnel, we’d better get Woke pdq.   

 

So, with the expedition barely begun, we were stopped in our tracks by the power of Socially Progressive Thinking.  That and the fact that we all came down with a really nasty bout of ‘flu.

 

For the next few years we led blameless lives keeping to our pit on Horsell Common, taking The Manchester Guardian, inventing a wind turbine, reading all the great feminist academics (intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic), and learning how to recycle single-use plastics.

 

In an effort to get out more, I joined the local Society of Free Thinkers where I met the companions, whose journey with me I now have the privilege of laying before the Reading Public.

 

Chapter 1

 

There were four of us—George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency.  We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were—bad from the point of view of our sufferings I mean, of course. 

 

We were all feeling seedy, and we were getting quite nervous about it.  Harris said he felt such extraordinary fits of post-colonial guilt come over him at times, that he hardly knew when to insert a suitably recriminatory monologue into the day; and then George said that he too had fits of Imperial Angst, but hoped that joining the Fabian Society and Living in Sin would cure it.   With me, it was my Martian physiology that was out of order.  I knew it was my Martian physiology that was out of order, because I had just been Googling "Martians - proneness to disease", where links detailed the various bacteria that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.  I had them all.

 

At this point, Ms Deliveroo knocked at the door to know if we were ready for supper.  We smiled sadly at one another, and said we supposed we had better try to swallow a bit.  Harris said a little something in one’s stomach often kept radical politics in check; and Ms Deliveroo brought the tray in, and we drew up to the table, and toyed with a little steak and onions, and some rhubarb tart. Had I but realised that eating beef was destroying the earth faster and more effectively than red weed, I might not have had seconds.

 

This duty done, we refilled our glasses, lit our pipes (we were Hipsters to a man), and resumed the discussion upon our state of health.  What it was that was actually the matter with us, we none of us could be sure of; but the unanimous opinion was that it—whatever it was—had been brought on by overthinking.

 

“What we want is a rest from the tired clichés of classic literature,” said Harris.

 

“Rest and a complete change,” said George.  “The efforts of sympathy with late nineteenth century modes of expression and social mores, even those penned by a popular Free-Thinking author, cause overstrain upon our brains and produce a depressing craving for the anachronistic touches of a dumbed-down re-write, relevant for a supposedly dull-witted modern audience. Change of plot, and absence of the necessity for thought, will restore the mental equilibrium.”

 

Debate then ranged to and forth upon the possible means of achieving such a change, and an expedition of our own was mooted.

 

George said:

 

“Let’s hire a Tripod.”

 

He said we should have fresh air, fine elevated views and they couldn’t be wheel-clamped; the constant change of scene would occupy our minds (including what there was of Harris’s); and life at higher altitude would give us a good appetite, and make us sleep well.

 

Harris said he didn’t think George ought to do anything that would have a tendency to make him sleepier than he always was, as it might be dangerous.  He said he didn’t very well understand how George was going to sleep any more than he did now, seeing that there were only twenty-four hours in each day, summer and winter alike; but thought that if he did sleep any more, he might just as well be dead, and so save his board and lodging.  It was at this point that I think I annoyed Harris by pointing out that I was indefatigable (when I hadn’t a head cold, of course).

 

Harris said, however, that a Tripod would suit him to a “T” and that I’d know how the drive one. Harris and I both said it was a good idea of George’s; and we said it in a tone that seemed to somehow imply that we were surprised that George should have come out so sensible.

 

The only one who was not struck with the suggestion was Montmorency.  He never did care for heights, did Montmorency.

 

“It’s all very well for you fellows,” he says; “you like it, but I don’t.  There’s nothing for me to do.  Scenery is not in my line, and I don’t smoke.  If you ask me, I call the whole thing bally foolishness.”

 

We were three to one, however, and the motion was carried.

 

 

 

 

 

Brilliant, I love it

[St Enodoc]

6 minutes ago, Annie said:

Perhaps what we all need is a good tonic to clear our heads and smarten ourselves up.

 

Thanks Annie. I've been looking for something to cure my mercurial eruptions for quite a while now.

[James Harrison]

8 minutes ago, Annie said:

Perhaps what we all need is a good tonic to clear our heads and smarten ourselves up.

 

 

I hear introducing electricity to water can cure anything, principally by inducing a cleansing bout of mortality.

[Hroth]

19 minutes ago, Annie said:

Perhaps what we all need is a good tonic to clear our heads and smarten ourselves up.

 

 

If we're going to have a tonic, I'll have a splash of it with my gin, if you would be so kind!