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The Night Mail


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2 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

"I wasn't elected to represent your views, I was elected to represent your best interests." 

 

That is how our parliamentary system works - MPs are representatives not delegates. If they were not, we might as well have legislation by plebiscite. We've seen well enough where that gets us.

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2 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

… someone from the floor said to the MP, "Since you were elected to represent our views, doesn't it strike you that you need to change your standpoint?" The MP shook his head. "Oh, no," he said, "I wasn't elected to represent your views, I was elected to represent your best interests." He and the other politicos looked quite surprised that people began walking out shaking their heads.


Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

- Edmund Burke

 

Discuss. :unsure:

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Harking back to......the Monster Raving Loony Party - reminds me of one of my 'war stories' when, back in the early 90s whilst working nights and driving the local Panda car, my partner and I had occasion to visit a wine bar then located in The Pump House, Cardiff (also the erstwhile home of Messrs Lord & Butler ).

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In the wine bar we bumped into the one and only Screaming Lord Sutch who was drowning his sorrows after yet another by-election defeat.

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My partner and I got into conversation with him, and he found out we both staged quizzes and other fundraisers for local charities.

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In return for putting him in handcuffs for a publicity photo, 'Lord' Sutch donated his top hat, several other items, and some autographed fake £1 notes (showing Margaret Thatcher instead of H.M.) as raffle prizes for our next charity night.

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'Lord' Sutch then asked me "do you coppers still do gentleman's smokers ?"

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"Occasionally" I replied

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"Well, I've got just the speaker for your next smoker...." and he started dialling his housebrick sized mobile phone.

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"Hello love, it's David Sutch, I'm with my mate Brian, he's a copper in Cardiff and he's looking for a speaker at his next police smoker, are you interested ?"

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He then passed me the phone, and an interesting and very non-PC conversation developed between yours truly and the anonymous lady at the other end of the phone.

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"I'm sorry, but you have me at a disadvantage. I'm afraid David didn't introduce us"  I mumbled down the phone.

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"Just call me Cynthia, the lady said, Cynthia Payne"

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Nice though she appeared, but fearful of the fallout, I didn't book her for our next smoker.

.

Brian R 

 

Edited by br2975
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20 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

I had the same conversation with a roads policing officer a few years back.

 

The nearside headlight lamp had failed on my Fiat Tipo (which was a brilliant car).

 

I had the replacement and it's receipt on the passenger seat as I'd just bought it from the local motor factors and was going home to fix it in the morning.

 

I was stopped and asked whether I knew I had a defective front headlight.

 

I replied that I did, produced the bulb and receipt to show what a responsible person I was, and asked the member of the constabulary if he was that concerned, would he help me fit the new lamp to the vehicle, so I could drive home 'legally'.  I had tried when I got the new lamp but had been unsuccessful in my repairs.

 

Since it was cold, dark and raining, assistance was not really forthcoming and I was set on my way.

 

But not before he'd had a look, and had come to the conclusion that car designers were all failed gynaecologists, who still insisted in everything being able to be worked on through an awkwardly placed small hole.

 

The officer was probably taken aback when he stopped you - because you didn't come out with the stock response:- 

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"Shouldn't you be arresting real criminals, like murderers and rapists officer"

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And to top it off, you didn't remind him:-

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"I pays your wages too !"

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Afternoon all,

 

Summary of the last few days.

 

Cat blocked her GI tract, expensive surgery. Piping made for “Brunel.” Speech and Debate tournament tomorrow, I’m reading a prose. Humorous duet piece recorded today from memory. Fixed a teacher’s pocket watch.
 

Oh and winter arrived properly.

 

 

Douglas

 

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1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

I may be wrong, but  I believe Ernest Marples, who was the transport minister who oversaw the Beeching investigation into the railways had lots of shares in his own road building company. 

 

Of course, so there was not a conflict of interests, he was required to sell all his shares in the company.

 

He, being an honourable man, sold them on.....

 

To his wife!

 

Such was his impeccable character, that he later retired, rather hurriedly to Monaco and the South of France to avoid paying a rather large amount of income tax

Sorry, but this is at least the third time I have had to respond to this rumour on RMWeb.  No evidence was ever produced to show that Marple sold his shares to his wife, it was a rumour started about 55 years ago and has been retold as fact ever since.  He really was bent though - your comments about his later life are certainly true - and it says so much about deference towards politicians at the time that a man who co-owned a road building company was appointed Transport Minister and the media didn't absolutely crucify the government

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32 minutes ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

 ...snip... Cat blocked her GI tract, expensive surgery. ...snip...

Douglas

I sincerely hope that she recovers quickly; keep us informed please.

 

 

32 minutes ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

 ...snip... Oh and winter arrived properly.

Douglas

It better leave; improperly, quickly, any way at all!!!! Even on a slow boat to China! :jester:

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2 hours ago, pH said:


Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

- Edmund Burke

 

Discuss. :unsure:

Which would be all fine and dandy if our representatives got themselves elected on the basis of their impeccable judgment. :)

 

The tragi-farcical flip-flopping that has emanated from the Westminster banana skin factory over the past few weeks seems to indicate a sad dearth thereof where it really matters....

 

John

 

 

Edited by Dunsignalling
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10 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

I used to get my BA screws, washers and nuts from Clerkenwell Screws in units of a hundred at a cost of about ten percent of that charged by the modelling emporia. I don't know whether they are still in business as it's a few years now since I bought any but if they are, it's well worth going to them.

 

Dave

 

Oi makes me own :)

 

I made a 17 tooth gear that replaces the 18 tooth gear in a 18/54 compound gear on ye olde South Bend so that I can cut metric and Imperial threads. Actually there is a very small error which would only be detectable on a very long screw. The lathe's leadscrew is 8 TPI. Those who enjoy arithmetic puzzles can calculate the error :D (I do have a spreadsheet somewhere.)

 

It's possible to make the very small BA size screws this way but only if they are rather short. Nuts could only be made by using the lathe to cut a tap in tool steel.

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3 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

Oi makes me own :)

And I presume that you can repair things as well?

 

I’m NOT being facetious, but rather wondering if your tool making skills extend to repairing things?  I would imagine this to be the case.
 

Many of my acquaintances in the Verein I belong to can barely change the batteries in a remote, let alone fix things. I would say - at least from my (admittedly biased) observation of a small sample - that the “fixers” in the Verein are all > 50 years of age. So, repairing things seems a rare skill set amongst the “youngsters”.

 

But to be fair, too many things nowadays are designed to be unrepairable - or so it would seem: funny screwheads, clips designed to break instead of unclipping, things clipped screwed AND glued together, plastics that are unrepairable without very nasty not-available-to-the-general-public solvents (if repairable at all) and so on.
 

The latter (i.e. plastic repair) is a particular bugbear of mine. Too many times I’ve had a plastic part of something or other break - and the break is eminently repairable, yet none of the solvents (mekpak etc) or glues (“super” glue or two-part glues) I have in my workshop could glue the bits together (and I have many, many types). I think this (choice of unrepairable plastic) is deliberate on the part of the manufacturers. Recently, however, the gods of the repair shop smiled favourably upon me: I had dropped and cracked the clear plastic bowl of my elderly (but still VERY usable) Kenwood food processor - now long out of production (so no more spares) and I took the bowl to my workshop where a wash of mekpak followed by a wash of plastic magic repaired the crack (‘though not without frosting the plastic aside the crack). I’m not sure how long the bowl will last - but for the moment I’m a happy doctor.

 

Finally: [rant mode ON] has anyone noticed how f***ing, s***ing useless the so-called “super glue” is nowadays? Despite careful part prep the only thing it seems able to stick together are fingers….[rant mode OFF]

Edited by iL Dottore
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28 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

And I presume that you can repair things as well?

 

 

I'll take a shot at pretty much anything mechanical, hydraulic, electrical or electronic, I have been known to bin the entire thing and make my own version :D

 

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8 hours ago, br2975 said:

 

The officer was probably taken aback when he stopped you - because you didn't come out with the stock response:- 

.

"Shouldn't you be arresting real criminals, like murderers and rapists officer"

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And to top it off, you didn't remind him:-

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"I pays your wages too !"

And of course you didn't tell him that you knew or played golf with the chief constable..

 

As to repairing things. I must have i herited the genes from my father. He always repaired stuff.  I have actually earned brownie points in the past few years  with two jobs.

A) fixing a front tooth back on a denture with brass rods and araldite. It was still in use 2 years later.

B) making a new hinge for a pair of glasses from brass bar and securing it with 12 and 14 BA nuts and bolts (bought in), that lasted over a year whilst we navigsted thre French opthalmic regime.

 

As to pastics, a tube of the glue that DIY stores sell for glueing PVC plumbing parts together is very handy to have.  As to Mekpak, it's so wztered down these days it's not very strong. MEK it isn't.  I bought 2 litres of proper MEK on tinternet for not very much.

 

Jamie

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6 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

Oi makes me own :)

 

 

I used to do a lot of that, but suddenly found that my eventual demise is probably advancing rather quicker than I would like.  So spending a lot of time setting up and then manually turning/milling/fabricating parts that are readily available off the shelf, albeit at some cost, is a better use of my time.

 

Hence my rtr collection of 7mm scale stuff.

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8 hours ago, Northmoor said:

and it says so much about deference towards politicians at the time that a man who co-owned a road building company was appointed Transport Minister and the media didn't absolutely crucify the government

 

As if that sort of thing hasn't been going on all the time over the last 18 months with a blind eye being turned in many quarters of the media. At least there are hopeful signs now of chickens coming home to roost. (Or is it pigeons? Turkeys?)

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1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

As to Mekpak, it's so wztered down these days it's not very strong. MEK it isn't.  I bought 2 litres of proper MEK on tinternet for not very much.

 

Mekpak hasn't been MEK for at least forty years - even when I was involved with Slaters back in the 80s it was a concoction based on perchloroethylene. One of the best solvents I know of for welding polystyrene type plastics is dichloromethane, AKA methylene dichloride. It is sold as Plastic Weld and similar but is available on eBay in various sized bottles for a fraction of the price. I'm told that a much 'gentler' plastic welding substance useful for more delicate jobs is d-limonene, also available on the bay for about five quid for 100ml but I haven't any experience of using it.

 

Dave

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1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

 

As to pastics, a tube of the glue that DIY stores sell for glueing PVC plumbing parts together is very handy to have.  As to Mekpak, it's so wztered down these days it's not very strong. MEK it isn't.  I bought 2 litres of proper MEK on tinternet for not very much.

 

Jamie

AFAIK, Mekpak ceased to include any actual MEK many years ago, and has further changed at least once in the meantime. At one point the stuff smelled suspiciously similar to an industrial cleaning fluid being used in many public toilets at the time.

 

According to the label on my most recent bottle, MekPak now "Contains: Halogenated Aliphatic Hydrocarbon", whatever that is. It does seem more potent than the previous incarnation, though.

 

I, too, purchase the real thing, in bottles, via the internet. I have also obtained it in half-litre cans from plumbers' merchants. The labelling seems to change every time, but the most recent one describes itself as "Cleaner: PVC, PVC-C & ABS". MEK isn't mentioned, but the odour gives it away! 

 

Of the "small bottle" brands, Plastic Magic is very good for kit assembly, but too expensive for big plasticard fabrication jobs. My nearest model shop stocks EMA Plastic Weld which also seems pretty effective.  

 

John

Edited by Dunsignalling
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17 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

AFAIK, Mekpak ceased to include any actual MEK many years ago.......... MekPak now "Contains: Halogenated Aliphatic Hydrocarbon", whatever that is. It does seem more potent than the previous incarnation.......Plastic Magic is very good for kit assembly, but too expensive for big plasticard fabrication jobs.......... EMA Plastic Weld which also seems pretty effective.  

 

See my previous post. Back in the days when George Slater ran Slaters, Mekpak was basically MEK but after he was discovered one evening unconscious on the factory floor when a drum of the stuff had leaked, a slightly less hazardous formula was adopted in the early 80s.

 

Dave

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11 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Such was his impeccable character, that he later retired, rather hurriedly to Monaco and the South of France to avoid paying a rather large amount of income tax

 

Bear hopes to move to Fraggle Rock the day before I snuff it - just to p1ss off the UK Government and stop them getting any Inheritance Tax :laugh:  (FR has nil I.T apparently :clapping:).

Unfortunately timing it could be a bit tricky.....

 

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Many of my acquaintances in the Verein I belong to can barely change the batteries in a remote, let alone fix things. I would say - at least from my (admittedly biased) observation of a small sample - that the “fixers” in the Verein are all > 50 years of age. So, repairing things seems a rare skill set amongst the “youngsters”.

 

And the UK is dangerously close - if not already there - to be unable to teach the young 'uns anymore cos' the old uns' capable of doing so are past it/have zero interest in doing so/can earn far more in industry.

Bear's M.E. Evening Class College is seeking a Coded Welder to teach, er, welding.  Good luck with that one....

 

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

But to be fair, too many things nowadays are designed to be unrepairable - or so it would seem: funny screwheads, clips designed to break instead of unclipping, things clipped screwed AND glued together, plastics that are unrepairable without very nasty not-available-to-the-general-public solvents (if repairable at all) and so on.

 

 

Take a TV remote apart to give the keypad PCB a clean? Nonono - far too dangerous - 9v batteries n' all that.....:banghead:

 

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Finally: [rant mode ON] has anyone noticed how f***ing, s***ing useless the so-called “super glue” is nowadays? Despite careful part prep the only thing it seems able to stick together are fingers….[rant mode OFF]

 

Yep. :banghead:

 

37 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

I'm told that a much 'gentler' plastic welding substance useful for more delicate jobs is d-limonene, also available on the bay for about five quid for 100ml but I haven't any experience of using it.

 

Dave

 

Bear has some (from Ebay) - decidedly unimpressed; it seems to takes AGES to do anything at all.  Perhaps I have some from a dodgy seller, or perhaps it simply is Cr@p.  I'd like the chance to talk to the likes of Geoff Kent, as I know he uses it for the very thin plastic materials he so magically uses as it has far less (if any) chance of causing distortion IIRC.

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Di-Limonene is intended for particular needs and is supposed to take a long time to go off.

 

It's specifically formulated for jobs requiring extended working time, working with sub-10 thou sheet, and/or not marking plastic glazing.

 

John

Edited by Dunsignalling
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8 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Di-Limonene is intended for particular needs and is supposed to take a long time to go off.

 

It's specifically formulated for jobs requiring extended working time, working with sub-10 thou sheet, and/or not marking plastic glazing.

 

John

I'll not be using that to stick my 7 mm scale model of The Crystal Palace together!

 

I suspect I'll have gone off long before the adhesive will have had a chance to set.:laugh_mini:

 

Back to the muddy hollow, where the only thing that sticks quickly is the clay to my boots.

Edited by Happy Hippo
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I too will have a crack at ‘repairing’ anything. 9 times out of 10 I’m successful and on the odd occasion that I’m not, I will strip down the offending item and salvage anything that I think may be useful. Doing this has assisted me on more than one occasion to repair an item that would otherwise have been thrown away due to not having the right bits available! 

 

Some bits even end up up in models! 

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12 minutes ago, BSW01 said:

I too will have a crack at ‘repairing’ anything. 9 times out of 10 I’m successful and on the odd occasion that I’m not, I will strip down the offending item and salvage anything that I think may be useful. Doing this has assisted me on more than one occasion to repair an item that would otherwise have been thrown away due to not having the right bits available! 

 

Some bits even end up up in models! 

I'll have a go at repairing most things and if I can do this it's usually because I salvaged all the screws from that last piece of cheap flat-pack furniture we threw away.  Oh and that odd shaped piece of wood I had to cut to replace the rotten/broken bit at the end of the eaves used to be the end of a child's bed.  In fact that child's (high sleeper) bed was acquired secondhand without instructions, my wife couldn't believe I'd done that at the time.  It took us about three hours to get it together; it would have been nearer two but I'd lost the charger for the electric screwdriver.  Identifying everything  was just a process of elimination!  The desk part didn't fit together perfectly because that was intended to be built only one way round, but it never caused a problem in the next five years plus that my son used it.

 

While my son hasn't inherited my tinkering tendencies, I'm impressed that he usually wants to have a go.  The heating in his shared student house wasn't working the other week but he found the boiler instructions and tried to reset everything before doing a Facetime call with us to check what he was doing was right.  The three other lads in the house had all shrugged, not wanted to get involved and hid in their rooms with duvets round them or something.

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2 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

after he was discovered one evening unconscious on the factory floor when a drum of the stuff had leaked

 

That detail* I hadn't heard before. I had been going to comment on the hazards of genuine MEK but noting that @jamie92208 appears to live in a well-ventilated part of France. One of the dampers on my modelling progress at the moment is that all these solvents give off an odour and should be used in a well-ventilated space, which is hard to come by with my other half working at home and complaining of the cold if the doors and windows are open.

 

*Probably not a detail from George's point of view.

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4 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

That detail* I hadn't heard before. I had been going to comment on the hazards of genuine MEK but noting that @jamie92208 appears to live in a well-ventilated part of France. One of the dampers on my modelling progress at the moment is that all these solvents give off an odour and should be used in a well-ventilated space, which is hard to come by with my other half working at home and complaining of the cold if the doors and windows are open.

 

*Probably not a detail from George's point of view.

Yes the shed is well ventilated.  Perhaps i should employ the black redstarts to be my alarms like the canaries down the mines. I will ask them next time I see them. Translating their answer could be a tad tricky.

 

Jamie

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