Castle Aching

[Donw]

I  dont know who is responsible for whether a river is classed as navigable. In the past the Admiralty had a large say and I cannot see them wanting to sail up the Mawddach.  Natural resources of Wales seems more interested in the tourism and nature of the area the estuary is a SSSI noted for its Bird population.  Barmouth Harbour is on the seaward side of the bridge and it is a long time since anyone built a large ship between the bridge and Dolgelley.

 

Don

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

13 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

With working practices in Leicester’s garment factories coming under scrutiny, readers might wish to note the rather interesting name of the building mentioned in this report from last year, before the word took-on sinister connotations.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48226187

 

 

Early in the days when the plague hit I noticed a delivery van from a food product distributors. Their name was Corona, and the van had on it Corona Delivery ........ haven't seen it since.  

[Hroth]

And there was also Corona soft drinks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_(soft_drink)

 

Corona ended up with Britvic in 1987, its old factory was closed down then and use of the brand fizzed out in the 1990s.

 

 

Edited July 7, 2020 by Hroth
Ugh....

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

And now due to sudden resurgence of the plague after some restrictions were lifted in June metropolitan Melbourne has gone back into lockdown again. That's over 5 million people back on stage 3. We've gone from a situation of 1 or a couple of cases a day to low three figures a day in the space of a week. I really shudder to think what is going to happen in countries where the restrictions have been eased or lifted. This damn thing isn't going away at all. Those pics I've seen of crowds gathering are I suspect just a brief moment before the reality hits.

Edited July 7, 2020 by Malcolm 0-6-0

[Edwardian]

I am even less, rather than more, inclined to go out. 

 

The economy, followed by fear of civil disorder, not science, is the chief driver of the easing of restrictions here.  Lock-down was only necessary in the first place only because (i) we failed to take measures to control or monitor the spread and (ii) the NHS was deemed vulnerable.  HMG said it would ease restrictions once track and trace was up and running, but they stuffed up that too (lost count of the litany of fundamental mistakes) but they've eased anyway. The UK will always be fighting blind, it seems. 

 

That said, I spoke to my parents this weekend about a visit now that is legally possible. They have been keeping as isolated as possible and I have been as careful as I possibly can. The conclusion we reached was that now was about as safe as things were likely to become and that the spread of infection would probably rise again.  If we were to see each other, if not now, then when?  If we were to wait until the threat was removed, we'd never see each other. Rural Leicestershire is probably as safe as rural Durham and a closed car between the two without stopping (and carrying plenty of PPE) was probably safe enough. 

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Lock-down was only necessary in the first place only because (i) we failed to take measures to control or monitor the spread and (ii) the NHS was deemed vulnerable. 

 

Lockdown would have been necessary whatever was done wrt (i) on account of (ii). But the loss of life in April, particularly among NHS staff, could have been much reduced by entering Lockdown earlier. We have travelled to bubble with my parents in law and my father, at a fortnight's interval, whilst othe family members have been making socially distanced visits to them, waiting their turn to bubble at a fortnight's interval after our visits. As far as we can work out, that's the recommended and legal procedure but it's all rather confusing. Meanwhile, I'm offered up as the most disposable member of our household, being sent out with my gloves for the weekly Tesco shop. 

 

I feel most at risk on my daily stroll round the lake, diving off the path out of the way of oncoming runners and joggers, sweating and expectorating past without regard for social distancing. Vigorous outdoor exercise should have been prohibited from the start!

 

I was initially doing a lot of railway modelling but that seems to have slowed down in the last couple of weeks - to some extent, lethargy is setting in but it's also those dratted Archer resin rivet transfers for which I only have enough patience to do a couple of dozen at a time out of a target of about 400 - and that's just two wagons.

 

 

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Texas may have it’s problems, but their health authority issued this, which I think is quite useful in an ‘every man for himself’ (‘person for themselves’ ?) world.

 

 

Our youngest is back at school part-time now, so we now exist at Texan Risk Level 6, and not having a Texan mentality that bothers me (the benefits to youngest’s mental wellbeing justify it though).
 

As for re-opening pubs this week: I’d really like to see the cost-benefit analysis behind that one. 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 7, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

Our lockdowns are pretty punitively controlled. My state Victoria is now closed off by our two neighbour states NSW and SA. The fines are hefty for anyone trying to sneak from Victoria into either. The suburban lockdown here in Melbourne is for the whole metropolitan area. But that also means that you cannot travel from one municipality in the metropolitan area to another unless it is demonstrably work. Otherwise it comes back to work from home if you can, no visitors, only shopping for necessities and you might as well walk to the shops because that's the only exercise you are allowed. Hefty on the spot fines etc. 

 

Two large complexes of 19 storey tower blocks for public housing have been sealed off - the residents not allowed out because of the concentration of infection. Something like 3000 people involved in that (not all infected). The resurgence resulted from a couple of things, the most important was that the quarantine hotels for returning travellers were controlled by under trained rent-a-cops. They were transmitting the plague to their families. They've now been replaced by guards from our prisons who are properly trained. Then, after the brief lifting in June, we had the mass demos by the BLM crowds which didn't help as we don't know how many were infected even mildly at those. People were asked not to participate but no we had to have our fashionable bit of social justice. social justice when lives are at stake from a very nasty and unpredictable disease. As if a bunch of inner city hipsters and Greens could do anything about black lives anyway - but they had their brief moment to display their principles. Idiots! 

 

At least the people in the country where there are no infections have been spared the compulsory stay at home rules. But it was the lifting in June of the stage 3 restrictions that caused it all. The government foolishly believed that people are intelligent enough to keep up sensible things like social distancing and avoiding unnecessary contact - gee whiz, they should listen to old cynics like me. Most people can't tie their shoelaces unaided much less understand simple things like how COVID-19 is spread. I thought when the crowds started gathering that we were stuffed and well I was right, like a lot of other people who wisely avoided crowds. 

 

I wonder how long before the dimmer bulbs will realise that until there's a vaccine then behaving sensibly and not taking risks is the only safe thing.

 

     

Edited July 7, 2020 by Malcolm 0-6-0

[St Enodoc]

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

Our lockdowns are pretty punitively controlled. My state Victoria is now closed off by our two neighbour states NSW and SA. The fines are hefty for anyone trying to sneak from Victoria into either. The suburban lockdown here in Melbourne is for the whole metropolitan area. But that also means that you cannot travel from one municipality in the metropolitan area to another unless it is demonstrably work. Otherwise it comes back to work from home if you can, no visitors, only shopping for necessities and you might as well walk to the shops because that's the only exercise you are allowed. Hefty on the spot fines etc. 

 

Two large complexes of 19 storey tower blocks for public housing have been sealed off - the residents not allowed out because of the concentration of infection. Something like 3000 people involved in that (not all infected). The resurgence resulted from a couple of things, the most important was that the quarantine hotels for returning travellers were controlled by under trained rent-a-cops. They were transmitting the plague to their families. They've now been replaced by guards from our prisons who are properly trained. Then, after the brief lifting in June, we had the mass demos by the BLM crowds which didn't help as we don't know how many were infected even mildly at those. People were asked not to participate but no we had to have our fashionable bit of social justice. social justice when lives are at stake from a very nasty and unpredictable disease. As if a bunch of inner city hipsters and Greens could do anything about black lives anyway - but they had their brief moment to display their principles. Idiots! 

 

At least the people in the country where there are no infections have been spared the compulsory stay at home rules. But it was the lifting in June of the stage 3 restrictions that caused it all. The government foolishly believed that people are intelligent enough to keep up sensible things like social distancing and avoiding unnecessary contact - gee whiz, they should listen to old cynics like me. Most people can't tie their shoelaces unaided much less understand simple things like how COVID-19 is spread. I thought when the crowds started gathering that we were stuffed and well I was right, like a lot of other people who wisely avoided crowds. 

 

I wonder how long before the dimmer bulbs will realise that until there's a vaccine then behaving sensibly and not taking risks is the only safe thing.

 

     

I concur with all the above except the last sentence. I believe that we must plan and proceed on the basis that there never will be an effective vaccine.

[TheQ]

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

Our lockdowns are pretty punitively controlled. My state Victoria is now closed off by our two neighbour states NSW and SA. The fines are hefty for anyone trying to sneak from Victoria into either. The suburban lockdown here in Melbourne is for the whole metropolitan area. But that also means that you cannot travel from one municipality in the metropolitan area to another unless it is demonstrably work. Otherwise it comes back to work from home if you can, no visitors, only shopping for necessities and you might as well walk to the shops because that's the only exercise you are allowed. Hefty on the spot fines etc. 

 

     

Should be interesting for the farms an property owners that stradle the border.. there's bound to be some..

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

I wonder how long before the dimmer bulbs will realise that until there's a vaccine then behaving sensibly and not taking risks is the only safe thing.

The trouble with this thing is that up to somewhere around 50yo the risk to the individual is truly, objectively very small. Thereafter the risk climbs pretty steeply.

 

So, what is being asked, and certainly in the UK very un-clearly indeed, is that the “young” restrict their lives By taking many precautions and not doing a lot of enjoyable stuff in order to protect the “old”.

 

The risk increases with age was crystal-clear visible in the stats from China back in Feb/March, and I predicted then that it would lead to inter-generational tension down the road, which I think we now see signs of.

 

The messaging in the UK has been really wafty IMO, and the whole national response has had the feeling of a church bazaar about it, all paths of least resistance, bonhomie, and airy-fairy amateurism.

 

We could all benefit from a bit more plain-speaking and Strongly-worded and overt appeals civic duty, followed swiftly by compulsion.

 

Face coverings? Why does the UK have to be the stupidest nation on earth over this? Despite all the insane political hullabaloo and gun-waving, mask-wearing in the USA is far more common than It is here, where there is apparently a silent national consensus that wearing them is “not the done thing”. Very odd!

 

I suppose each country is prey to its own form of madness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 7, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Northroader]

You’re not standing for a politician then?

[Guy Rixon]

7 hours ago, Hroth said:

And there was also Corona soft drinks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_(soft_drink)

 

Corona ended up with Britvic in 1987, its old factory was closed down then and use of the brand fizzed out in the 1990s.

The yoof of our village have been gathering in the park to drink and flirt all the way through lockdown. Corona is their preferred beer, and I'm forever picking Corona-branded bottle-caps out of the grass. I don't think they understand about foreshadowing.

[Hroth]

Moving away from doom, doom, we're all doomed...

 

Edwardian is sitting on a goldmine with his "Lion" model.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OO-scale-Titfield-Thunderbolt-0-4-2-locomotive-Kit-built/264776434739?hash=item3da5e7c433:g:tDQAAOSwGRFe9bvz

 

Eeep!

 

Well, not actually sitting, as it were... 

[Edwardian]

13 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Moving away from doom, doom, we're all doomed...

 

Edwardian is sitting on a goldmine with his "Lion" model.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OO-scale-Titfield-Thunderbolt-0-4-2-locomotive-Kit-built/264776434739?hash=item3da5e7c433:g:tDQAAOSwGRFe9bvz

 

Eeep!

 

Well, not actually sitting, as it were... 

 

Someone paid a high sum in Idiot Tax.

 

 

This is a straight from the box super-sized N gauge design printed to OO, with some Hornby 08 wheels and a £40 motor bogie.

 

 

I approached mine as a "scratch aid", because I could not live with:

 

- Chimney out of proportion and too short

- Lack of bolt-head detail on the frames and stays

- No detail on the spring

- Boiler cladding planks about 3 times too wide

- Splashers not deep enough

- The thickness of the metal rails round the footplate

- No rivet detail on smohebox, tender etc

- 'moulded on' handrails

 

etc

 

Still, my efforts to upgrade are pretty rustic. 

[webbcompound]

25 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Edwardian is sitting on a goldmine with his "Lion" model.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OO-scale-Titfield-Thunderbolt-0-4-2-locomotive-Kit-built/264776434739?hash=item3da5e7c433:g:tDQAAOSwGRFe9bvz

 

 This sale  appears to be a result  of a bidding war between 2***6 and u***c which started when one of them bid £100. Three days, and 40 bids later they had reached £450 at which point r***4, who had started the bidding at £40 and then dropped out jumped back in with 5 seconds to go on the clock and bid £460.  Most of the bidding took place around breakfast time each day, so them being drunk seems unlikely. Perhaps they were teenagers, just about to go to school, with access to dad's ebay account. That still doesn't account for r***4 sniping at the end, unless he had put the wrong settings in his sniping software. All in all a stunning microcosm of human folly.

[Nearholmer]

59 minutes ago, Northroader said:

You’re not standing for a politician then?

 

I've reached that happy state normally associated with barbers and London cab drivers: because I am certain that what I say will never be listened to or acted upon, I feel completely free to spout whatever nonsense enters my head.

[Florence Locomotive Works]

2 hours ago, Guy Rixon said:

The yoof of our village have been gathering in the park to drink and flirt all the way through lockdown. Corona is their preferred beer, and I'm forever picking Corona-branded bottle-caps out of the grass. I don't think they understand about foreshadowing.

I myself am a teenager, and yes most of us seem to not care. I sadly haven't seen any of my friends for about  4 months now, except for one by shear chance at a restaurant. I think a few who have been personally effected have seen the better way, but that number isn't high, but its growing sadly. 

[Edwardian]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

I've reached that happy state normally associated with barbers and London cab drivers

 

but not popular historians

 

Quote

 

: because I am certain that what I say will never be listened to or acted upon, I feel completely free to spout whatever nonsense enters my head.

 

Or so he may have thought .... 

 

 

I should add that your nonsense, Kevin, is of an entirely palatable kidney.  Whereas Starkey has always spouted a good deal of offal.

Edited July 7, 2020 by Edwardian

[Donw]

Perhaps the best thing to do about people running it to start coughing as they approach to force them to give you a wide berth.  What surprises me though is those people whether running or walking who cannot actually stop for 10 secs or so where it is wider to pass but will go into the now busy roads risking life and limb for a few seconds.

 

Don

[Regularity]

12 hours ago, Hroth said:

Corona ended up with Britvic in 1987, its old factory was closed down then and use of the brand fizzed out in the 1990s.

Did the business go pop, then?

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Regularity said:

Did the business go pop, then?

 

No, as @Hroth says, it lost its sparkle and went flat.

[monkeysarefun]

 

For Sydneysiders, this pestilence kerfuffle is   all just so  very 1900..

 

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/bubonic-plague-sydney-how-a-city-survived-the-black-death-in-1900/news-story/f36b9184eba49c72ae9791c574f7b826

 

Ah, 1900 - when our rat-catchers dressed better than  todays public figures and PPE was not a thing because we had that Fishers Phospherine stuff from a few pages ago..

 

 

 

Edited July 7, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[Buhar]

25 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

For Sydneysiders, this pestilence kerfuffle is   all just so  very 1900..

 

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/bubonic-plague-sydney-how-a-city-survived-the-black-death-in-1900/news-story/f36b9184eba49c72ae9791c574f7b826

 

Ah, 1900 - when our rat-catchers dressed better than  todays public figures and PPE was not a thing because we had that Fishers Phospherine stuff from a few pages ago..

 

 

 

That's a pretty poor haul for a dozen blokes, there's probably twice that number of rats around the average grain store.

 

Alan

[Nearholmer]

“He had been pulling dead vermin from his toilet before falling ill.”

 

I’ll be careful not do do that then.