The Night Mail

[New Haven Neil]

Interesting to see how it has drifted off into housing - the housing they wanted to build on our beach to fund the marina was anything but affordable, but posh a'prat'ments for yuppie yacht owners, way out of the financial reach of locals.  Of course the worry is this would get built then the builders jump ship, leaving no marina, no beach, and rich buqqered-off developers.

 

They intended to build rather large concrete breakwaters, but I do wonder how long they would last.  This where they want to put it.....

 

Really.... they think a bit of breakwater will protect the little yachts from this - Ramsey in an easterly.  Good luck with that one boys.

[Oldddudders]

The idea of central heating for multiple dwellings is hardly new. In the early '80s, when Battersea Power station was scheduled to close, someone suddenly remembered that hot water from the place was piped across the Thames and provided central heating to a lot of homes. Lady Shirley Porter (Wikipedia has an informative article) might lose votes! Panic stations, and BR was contacted to see about provision of a new boilerhouse to replace the PS. Thus the headshunt for the sidings at South Lambeth, originally a GWR goods depot, was suddenly shortened to enable the new structure to be erected.  

[SM42]

I suppose the one disadvantage with centralised heating systems is; if it breaks down, everyone is cold.

 

But then again, the economies of scale could make an emergency back up affordable

 

Andy

 

[Northmoor]

2 minutes ago, SM42 said:

I suppose the one disadvantage with centralised heating systems is; if it breaks down, everyone is cold.

 

But then again, the economies of scale could make an emergency back up affordable

 

Andy

 

Yes and No.

A centralised heating system has redundancy (more than one boiler, for starters) to allow it to continue to run during maintenance periods.  Also consider that in winter, 100s of peoples' CH systems break down and the repairers need to drive all over the place fixing them all one by one, which may take days, even weeks in bad weather when they can't get around.  With a centralised system failure, the 100s of households affected are all waiting on the same repair, so the experts can focus on a single problem and not waste time travelling between jobs.  And when it's fixed (probably taking longer than a single house system, granted) everyone gets their heating back at once!

[AndyID]

3 minutes ago, SM42 said:

I suppose the one disadvantage with centralised heating systems is; if it breaks down, everyone is cold.

 

But then again, the economies of scale could make an emergency back up affordable

 

Andy

 

 

Been used for yonks on Manhattan Island, usually with steam I think. Another advantage is that the central facility can be converted to use different forms of energy without any impact of the customers' properties.

[rockershovel]

Centralised heating systems work better, the more extreme and predictable the climate. They are ideally suited to places like Manhattan, with little or no locally available fuel and a climate which means that everyone in the building wants their heating on 24 hours a day, between fairly predictable dates. The same applies in the Baltic and Scandinavia, where it is cold in winter. 

 

They were also ideally to the ideologically driven world of the Soviet Union; what could be more Communist than centralised heating, under Party control? Plus, the concept was well suited to the basic, system-built apartment blocks constructed everywhere in the USSR in that period.

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

And finally:

Talk about being sh1t on from a great height:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-58968692

There's the story of a New Zealand airline pilot who always made sure he done a number two when flying over Australia. This was back in the days when it was dumped out from the aircraft when it was flushed. Much the same way as railway carriage toilets emptied onto the tracks.

[Oldddudders]

2 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

There's the story of a New Zealand airline pilot who always made sure he done a number two when flying over Australia. This was back in the days when it was dumped out from the aircraft when it was flushed. Much the same way as railway carriage toilets emptied onto the tracks.

I had a colleague, DCC (shift supervisor) in Croydon Control who lived in Polegate. He insisted, when on night turn, on a decent bowel clearance on approaching his home station, timing the flush to the passage over the level crossing. Why? Because within the next hour his sister-in-law would be pushing a pram over it. Nice chap.

[SM42]

3 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

I had a colleague, DCC (shift supervisor) in Croydon Control who lived in Polegate. He insisted, when on night turn, on a decent bowel clearance on approaching his home station, timing the flush to the passage over the level crossing. Why? Because within the next hour his sister-in-law would be pushing a pram over it. Nice chap.

 

I take it he was not a fan of her then. 

Or was it some  practical joke that had got out of hand?

 

Andy

Edited October 19, 2021 by SM42

[AndyID]

5 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

I had a colleague, DCC (shift supervisor) in Croydon Control who lived in Polegate. He insisted, when on night turn, on a decent bowel clearance on approaching his home station, timing the flush to the passage over the level crossing. Why? Because within the next hour his sister-in-law would be pushing a pram over it. Nice chap.

 

Was he known as "Richard the T*rd" ?

[simontaylor484]

2 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

Was he known as "Richard the T*rd" ?

No Eartha Kitt

[polybear]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

There's the story of a New Zealand airline pilot who always made sure he done a number two when flying over Australia. This was back in the days when it was dumped out from the aircraft when it was flushed. Much the same way as railway carriage toilets emptied onto the tracks.

 

A buddy of mine was in the RAF; he told a story of the the Royal Flight - one of the ground crew enquired as to whether or not anyone* disappeared in the loo following a flight.  Apparently there is now a No.2 in a jar in the crew room that is supposedly of Royal descent.....

 

*A certain King in-waiting

[AndyID]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

This was back in the days when it was dumped out from the aircraft when it was flushed.

 

As described by Billy Connolly

 

My big brother had a Summer job with Loganair at Renfrew Airport (this was some time ago). The toilet tank on the small Loganair planes had to be removed and carried through the main cabin to be emptied. Yup, one his colleagues dropped a tank and made a big mess in the cabin.

[jamie92208]

8 hours ago, polybear said:

 

A buddy of mine was in the RAF; he told a story of the the Royal Flight - one of the ground crew enquired as to whether or not anyone* disappeared in the loo following a flight.  Apparently there is now a No.2 in a jar in the crew room that is supposedly of Royal descent.....

 

*A certain King in-waiting

When I had to supervise one of his visits he arrived qnd went for a No 2, then went out and made his official entrance.  His detective had to flush the loo after him.

 

Jamie

Edited October 20, 2021 by jamie92208

[SteveyDee68]

Of course, land owners are also responsible for the rise in prices of houses. Looking at how much houses could be sold for if their land was developed, they raised the cost of the land to developers. They passed the cost on to the house buyers, and the next land owner deciding to sell land looked at those increased prices and thought "I'll have a piece of that, thank you!"

 

Another trend was to see houses or old barns in need of renovation being sold to close to what they would be worth once renovated - the mentality appeared to be "I own this right now but can't be arsed (or afford, or have the vision) to do anything about it so how about you pay me what it will be worth when it is all done up nice (without me taking any of the risk in doing so) because I think that when you have done all the work you will sell it on for even more than what I estimate it to be worth!"

 

Must get down off my soapbox!

 

UPDATE

 

I wrote this hours ago (when housing and not royal poos were being discussed) and it only uploaded a few minutes ago. Please, let's remain on this hilarious train (groan) of lavatory humour rather than return to grumbling about the state of housing!

 

 

Edited October 19, 2021 by SteveyDee68
Clarification why my post is a several hour throwback to earlier topics!

[Happy Hippo]

53 minutes ago, SteveyDee68 said:

 

 

I wrote this hours ago (when housing and not royal poos were being discussed) and it only uploaded a few minutes ago. Please, let's remain on this hilarious train (groan) of lavatory humour rather than return to grumbling about the state of housing!

 

 

I'm curious as to how one preserves a Royal No 2.

 

Frozen or freeze dried.

 

Will it ever have any huge resale value, and if so will Douglas be in his dotage before it appears in  a jar on Antiques Road Trip?

[J. S. Bach]

4 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

I'm curious as to how one preserves a Royal No 2.

Frozen or freeze dried.

Will it ever have any huge resale value, and if so will Douglas be in his dotage before it appears in  a jar on Antiques Road Trip?

But with what provenance/proof that it is a royal t***?? Maybe it does not stink????

[pH]

21 hours ago, rockershovel said:

I find Oradour-sur-Glane an odd one. I just about remember the state of much of East London, well into the early 1960s when playing on bombsites was common and derelict, uninhabited houses still stood in many streets. No-one regarded this as particularly noteworthy at the time, despite high casualties.

Really? While what happened in East London and many other places was tragic, in my opinion Oradour and Lidice were something worse:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane_massacre

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidice_massacre

[SM42]

2 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

But with what provenance/proof that it is a royal t***?? Maybe it does not stink????

 

Cloning from the DNA there in

 

A sort of majestic Jurassic Park

 

Andy

[jamie92208]

6 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

I'm curious as to how one preserves a Royal No 2.

 

Frozen or freeze dried.

 

Will it ever have any huge resale value, and if so will Douglas be in his dotage before it appears in  a jar on Antiques Road Trip?

I know that archeologists find ancient poo on some sitesx, and apparently  get much information from it, so there must be a method. Didn't somecartist presrve her babies soiled nappies and getvpaid to display them a few years ago.

 

Welcome to TNM Steve. The beauty of this thread is that anything and everything  can be discussed including trains.

 

I even managed to assemble 3 coach bogie bolsters yesterday without pulling my hair out, only 4 more to go.

 

Jamie

[polybear]

8 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

When I had to supervise one of his visits he arrived qnd we t for a No 2, then went out and made his official entrance.  His dete tive had to flush the loo after him.

 

Jamie

 

Is HRH too posh to pull the chain?  Or has he never been taught how to?

Or perhaps it's simply a security thing in case the other end of the chain happens to be connected to something it shouldn't be, in which case poor security guy cops it (see what I did there?)

I can't help feeling that the taxpayer ends up paying someone to flush bogs though....

 

6 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

I'm curious as to how one preserves a Royal No 2.

 

Frozen or freeze dried.

 

Will it ever have any huge resale value, and if so will Douglas be in his dotage before it appears in  a jar on Antiques Road Trip?

 

How about pickled?

 

[jamie92208]

This thread really has gone fown the pan.

 

Jamie

[SM42]

20 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

 

Welcome to TNM Steve. The beauty of this thread is that anything and everything  can be discussed including trains.

 

 

Abandon hope all ye who enter here!

 

20 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

Is HRH too posh to pull the chain?  Or has he never been taught how to?

 

 

Perhaps he got once got a "penalty   for improper use."

 

Andy

Edited October 20, 2021 by SM42

[AndyID]

Some of us might be old enough to remember how the late Terry Wogan used to discuss the meaning of slightly obscure words on his morning radio program. On one occasion the word "leveret" was being kicked around. I sent him a letter which he read on the air where I pointed out that a leveret is the small lever used to flush a gents urinal and it was also frequently applied on BR trains with the inscription:

 

"DO NOT PULL THE LEVERET WHILE THE TRAIN IS STANDING IN THE STATION"

[jamie92208]

24 minutes ago, SM42 said:

 

Abandon hope all ye who enter here!

 

 

Perhaps he got once got a "penalty   for improper use."

 

Andy

I don't know but the cultural centre that he was opening only had a scratty biro for him to sign the visitors book with.  I happened to have a cheap Parker fountain pen that me daughter had given me one Christmas, with a cracked plastic lid.  It worked though so  that was used for him to sign with.   I wonder if I could profit from that in some years time.  I would of course provide a certificate of provenance.

 

Jamie