The Night Mail

[Tony_S]

There is an annual scarecrow contest/display at the Hyde Hall RHS garden. There are a lot of entries. Walking up the hill to the tea rooms is like the final scene of Spartacus. On one of the other hills the scene always looks rather (unintentionally I am sure) biblical. Not all of the scarecrows are human characters. Peter Rabbit fixed to a cross looked a bit scary. Didn’t seem to upset any children though.

[bbishop]

Breaking news!  I now have a full tank of petrol.  Yup, on the way back from church, I found the only garage in South East London that had fuel.  Queued for exactly zero minutes.  Mind you, the price was eye-watering.  Bill

[Tony_S]

5 minutes ago, bbishop said:

Breaking news!  I now have a full tank of petrol.  Yup, on the way back from church, I found the only garage in South East London that had fuel.  Queued for exactly zero minutes.  Mind you, the price was eye-watering.  Bill

One of the options on my cars satnav is to offer the current price of fuel at nearby garages. It doesn’t actually state if they have any though. However most garages are open without any queues now. The only empty pumps are the higher octane unleaded option. 

[polybear]

1 hour ago, Oldddudders said:

I think Richard's introductory post/poem 15 months ago made it clear that TNM is an inclusive thread. I have no great interest in history either side of the Atlantic, nor in Rugby Football, but skipping past those posts, just like some of the more technical discussions about building model locos or clocks, is something I can manage.

 

Should it become abusive, Richard will distribute red and yellow cards as required, I am sure. 

 

When presented with questions/problems/concerns/worries/opinions etc. etc. of a political nature, Bear has the answer every time:  Eat cake until the problem goes away.  Seems to work pretty well, too.

[laurenceb]

I once had cause to put down slug pellets in a farm shed, the following morning I counted 50 of the da*n things!

[Stubby47]

7 minutes ago, laurenceb said:

I once had cause to put down slug pellets in a farm shed, the following morning I counted 50 of the da*n things!

 

Why would you count slug pellets ?

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, Oldddudders said:

"Southern42 meets Stubby47" Brill!

I first met Stubby at the Redruth show in IIRC 2010. I obviously hadn't mastered the local accent ass I was convinced that he had introduced himself as Stupid47.  It was several months before I realised my mistake.

 

Jamie

[Stubby47]

2 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

I first met Stubby at the Redruth show in IIRC 2010. I obviously hadn't mastered the local accent ass I was convinced that he had introduced himself as Stupid47.  It was several months before I realised my mistake.

 

Jamie

 

You've met SWMBO...

[Tony_S]

54 minutes ago, laurenceb said:

I once had cause to put down slug pellets in a farm shed, the following morning I counted 50 of the da*n things!

If you had chucked a hosta into the shed you could have attracted hundreds of slugs. 
I shall pass on the earlier advice in this thread about blue hostas to my gardener. 

Edited October 10, 2021 by Tony_S
We don’t really have a gardener.

[Happy Hippo]

I have just had a fruitful time picking apples!

 

Clearing our Bramley tree didn't take too long, and the bowls are divided into those that were picked and those that fell.

 

Far more productive (and time consuming) was going next door as our neighbour had given me permission to pick the eating apples from his tree.

 

Two large bags done, and still more to go tomorrow when I'll deploy a ladder.  One of the bags has gone to another friend and neighbour.

 

 

[Tony_S]

Does undoing six screws and replacing a small pcb with a decoder count as modelling? My new loco isn't sound equipped and I will have to make do with my imagination. I have no idea what it should sound like though.   Some research beckons I think. Not chuff chuff or brrm brrm though.

[Winslow Boy]

3 hours ago, Tony_S said:

If you had chucked a hosta into the shed you could have attracted hundreds of slugs. 
I shall pass on the earlier advice in this thread about blue hostas to my gardener. 

 

Just to be clear that I do not wish to be held responsible for any panic buying of blue coloured, large leaved hostas. I have no wish to switch on my TV and see long queues outside nurseries/garden centres of persons wanting to purchase said hostas.

[Happy Hippo]

34 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Does undoing six screws and replacing a small pcb with a decoder count as modelling? My new loco isn't sound equipped and I will have to make do with my imagination. I have no idea what it should sound like though.   Some research beckons I think. Not chuff chuff or brrm brrm though.

Poop poop and nee naw if you are doing Wind in the Willows where Toad gets pulled by the Fuzz.

[Tony_S]

32 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

Just to be clear that I do not wish to be held responsible for any panic buying of blue coloured, large leaved hostas. I have no wish to switch on my TV and see long queues outside nurseries/garden centres of persons wanting to purchase said hostas.

I have just spoken my hosta fan but she said the Essex slugs ate the large blue hostas she had too. We wont use slug pellets so Aditi decided no more hostas . We have tried, garlic pearls, copper tape and have tried to make hedgehogs happy but nothing works .

[Tony_S]

1 minute ago, Happy Hippo said:

Poop poop and nee naw if you are doing Wind in the Willows where Toad gets pulled by the Fuzz.

I didn't think toads had hair or fur.

The sounds I need appear to be wooshing and whistling with overtones of hairdryer.

 

[Happy Hippo]

38 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

Just to be clear that I do not wish to be held responsible for any panic buying of blue coloured, large leaved hostas. I have no wish to switch on my TV and see long queues outside nurseries/garden centres of persons wanting to purchase said hostas.

I think the Daily Wail has been stirring it again with their taking of pictures outside Costco.

 

For our overseas correspondents who may not be aware, Costco is a 'Cash and Carry' where things are bought in bulk, so queues forming outside before they open and then pictures of the same people trundling trolleys full of say,  bog roll and bottled water, is perfectly normal behaviour outside a bulk buying emporium.

 

Although that trailer full of Hosta did look a bit suspicious.

Edited October 10, 2021 by Happy Hippo

[Happy Hippo]

2 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I didn't think toads had hair or fur.

The sounds I need appear to be wooshing and whistling with overtones of hairdryer.

 

A recording of a working microwave oven might do it (Minus the Ping* when it's finished)

 

*Popty Ping is colloquial Welsh for a microwave oven.

[Happy Hippo]

9 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I have just spoken my hosta fan but she said the Essex slugs ate the large blue hostas she had too. We wont use slug pellets so Aditi decided no more hostas . We have tried, garlic pearls, copper tape and have tried to make hedgehogs happy but nothing works .

We have a number of Hosta in pots that sit on those small clay 'feet' and have a layer of horticultural grit over the soil.

 

That does seem to work.

Edited October 10, 2021 by Happy Hippo

[Florence Locomotive Works]

22 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

I seem to recall that Hawaii was a soveign state with its own 'monarch' and that the USA annexed it but I might be wrong.

Yes rich western industrialists made a habit of messing about with its monarch. At some point during the IRC the 1880s, a high ranking rep from John Fowler & Co Leeds was making a sales tour of the pacific, and stopped off in Hawaii. He was received by the King, and after various formalities began attempting to sell him some ploughing engines, which in those days cost around 30-40,000 pounds for a set with ploughing and labor. The king flatly refused, and the party moved on to dinner. 
 

This sales rep also just happened to be an extremely good poker player, and after the gentlemen had finished dinner he suggested that the King and himself have a game of poker, but first they should sample some spirits. 
 

Needless to say he got the King completely drunk and proceeded to make him gamble out somewhere in the region of 170,000-200,000 pounds in 1880s money. Once the game had finished and the King discovered his mistake, he was forced to beg the Rep to cancel the debt as the monarchy simply couldn’t afford that, being roughly equivalent to $23,000,000 today. The Rep agreed, but only under the condition that the King buy several dozen sets of Ploughing tackle.
 

 

The Hawaiian Monarchy was also famously bullied by US based banana company’s. Similar situation happened in India with regard to railways and with Mineral rights here in Oklahoma. “Killers of the Flower Moon” etc etc.

 

It’s a weird world gents.

 

 

Douglas

Edited October 10, 2021 by Florence Locomotive Works

[simontaylor484]

I used to use slug pubs plastic beakers buried in the soil up to their rim and filled them with whatever beer was cheapest in Tesco they did work but i stopped using them when we got Rolo the dachshund.

  I have patrolled the garden by torch light and with a set of litter pickers removed them to the bird table.

 

At our last house we seemed to get massive slugs 

 

I used to love chucking a bit of salt on slugs when I was younger.

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

We have a number of Hosta in pots that sit on those small clay 'feet' and have a layer of horticultural grit over the soil.

 

That does seem to work.

Aditi did say growing them in pots with grit was the only solution though slugs climbed up some quite tall pots (with feet too), crossed the gritty stuff and ate the first lot of courgette plants Aditi had grown before they were big enough to move into the garden veg bed. So it is possible the local slugs are more energetic than others.

[pH]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

For our overseas correspondents who may not be aware, Costco is a 'Cash and Carry' where things are bought in bulk …

Costco world headquarters are about 150 miles down the road from us, just outside Seattle. 

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

A recording of a working microwave oven might do it

I found a film on YouTube showing the original loco. Being in black and white didn't matter but unfortunately the film was silent.

[rockershovel]

I don't know about scaring crows, but if anyone knows how to scare squirrels, I'd like to hear it. We have a plague of them at present, digging furiously in the lawn for items known and unknown and digging up potted bulbs to Bury them elsewhere. They clearly lack joined-up thinking on the subject, because you might think that retrieving them once from the plant pots, as required was the easiest thing? It does occur to me that the recent drain flooding, which appears to have repelled the local.fox or foxes, might be part of the answer? 

[rockershovel]

Fowlets must have employed some mighty salesmen. I remember seeing a pair of Fowler ploughing engines parked in a factory yard in Benguela, Congo: abandoned there in the 1960s during the civil war and still there AFAIK