Early Risers.

[J. S. Bach]

Good night owl from the Piedmont.

[BR60103]

The Windermere that I operate on used to have a good turntable control.  There was a dial (rotary switch?) that you pointed to the desired track, then pushed a button to start. The turntable would rotate the same way as the dial was last turned.

After 20 to 30 years of operation the control wass shot and the original information had gone missing. It now has a center-off speed control.

I saw a spokesman criticised for his explanation of the propagation curves of the virus.  I think he was trying to explain seond differentials without algebra.

 

Edited April 4, 2020 by BR60103
better post

[JohnDMJ]

 

 

5 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

If possible don't set the handbrake if you are not going to be driving it for a while. Leaving it in first or reverse should be quite enough, or "P" if it's an automatic. If it is on a slope you could also chock the wheels. You'll still get a layer of rust on the disks/drums but at least the brakes won't seize.

 

Fair comment. At least it's a petrol engine; I'd NEVER leave a Diesel engined car in gear as it doesn't need the electrical system on to fire! (Compression only combustion, no spark plugs. OK, fuel pump, injectors, etc. on the modern engine are electric but...)

 

Snag is that when I park, I never know how long it will be until I will next use the car; could be tomorrow, could by three months. Before this week, I last used her in January. When I wanted to use her later in the month, I had to get a taxi instead as the battery had gone flat.

[AndyID]

13 minutes ago, JohnDMJ said:

 

Fair comment. At least it's a petrol engine; I'd NEVER leave a Diesel engined car in gear as it doesn't need the electrical system on to fire! (Compression only combustion, no spark plugs. OK, fuel pump, injectors, etc. on the modern engine are electric but...)

 

 

Despite the fact that petrol engines are quite capable of "dieseling" with all the electrical power turned off it's impossible to push or tow-start a petrol engine in first or reverse (either the wheels won't turn or the gear-train has a catastroscope). The mechanical advantage is going entirely in the wrong direction. It's even less likely with a diesel engine because diesel engines have such high compression ratios.

[Ozexpatriate]

RIP Bill Withers who passed away at 81 from heart complications.

 

"Lean on Me" has had a recent resurgence (not that it ever went away) for people looking for comfort during the pandemic.

 

"Lean on Me" From Soul Train 1972.

[TheQ]

Mooring awl, inner Temple Hare, 

A reasonable nights sleep, about 7hours.

 

Since my garden is effectively flat, and the driveway gravel, leaving brakes off is not a problem.

 

Have the 06:00 intro music has started,  Ben the clock watching Collie has got up. 

 

I've just had to ask the gadget what day is it... With out the fixed intervals of life this is getting confusing.. 

 

 

I'm getting the stare.. 

 

Time to,  follow instructions be back later.. 

 

 

 

 

[chrisf]

Greetings one and all

 

I’ll start with the good news and there isn’t much.  Many thanks to 45568 for passing on the good news of Anwen and the other four koalas who have been returned to the wild after getting caught up and burned in the bush fires.  So many koalas were not so lucky and perished.  Even though awareness of koalas and the uphill struggle that they face has increased of late following the media coverage of those horrific bush fires and the wonderful work done at the Port Macquarie koala hospital, some experts say that the species is facing extinction within 30 years.  Now you know why I care.

 

There have been two more victims of the great plague.  One is Swindon Pride, which I was hoping to visit on my way home from Sidmouth because Railwells has been cancelled.  The other, as I had feared would be the case, is Sidmouth Folk Festival, where I have grown accustomed to spending a week and a bit in August and a great deal of money.  The festival has been an important part of my life for over 40 years and means a considerable amount to its host town whose economy relies heavily on it.  Apart from Folk By The Oak in July, there is now nothing left in my diary to be cancelled.

 

It is clear that custard is a great divider of opinion.  When I fancy a treat I slice a banana into a bowl of custard and relish the skin which forms as it cools.  I like my custard chunky rather than lumpy but if it is to accompany fruit pie I try to make it runny and pour it over the crust.  I take Flavio’s point that what is sold as custard is not for purists but mixing the powder with hot milk is easier.  However, buying custard in cans or cartons, allegedly ready to serve, is for me quite beyond the pale.  Do we have to discard one more culinary skill?  If we are as lacking in discernment as to buy that stuff there is no shortage of accompaniments.  The one I most like to ridicule is ready sliced apples.  For pity’s sake!  Are we next to have our food pre-digested?  Why not serve us all baby food and have done with it!

 

I felt better for that rant!  Best wishes to all except those who use ready to serve custard.

 

Chris

[iL Dottore]

Morning All,

 

a bit of a rough night: my recently revised knee has been playing up. Normally, I would simply pop round to my surgeon, get a provocative Polaroid taken, discuss options, get some happy pills and get the on-duty torturer to put me on the rack. Unfortunately, my scheduled post-op follow up radiology and check-up, plus my regularly scheduled physiotherapy have been cancelled due to the current situation. Of course they are treating emergencies, but as I am not immediately post-op, the surgical incision is healed and the knee mostly functional, I certainly don’t consider myself to be in any sort of emergency. But it IS getting a bit tedious.

 

Regarding the use of “hoover” vs “vacuum”, I read somewhere that if a product dominates the market either when the market is maturing or when it completely changes the market (as the iPhone did), then their brand names can become used as generic descriptive terms for such product types. Hoover and Sellotape being, perhaps, the best known examples. This, as you can imagine, is a two edged sword for the manufacturer: instant product recognition but at the cost of competitor products coming under the same umbrella term. I think that iPhone and Google may be heading towards that same fate, notwithstanding armies of patent lawyers (taking on the vox populi? Don’t make me larf).

 

John: regarding your infrequent and quite possibly random usage of your car, have you considered buying into one of those car sharing schemes? We have one in CH called Mobility: for a fixed fee each month you have access to a fleet of cars which are always roadworthy, ready to be driven, up to date with the MfK (Swiss MOT) and - usually - new(ish). Presumably, the type of car you can access depends upon your membership plan. One of the few drawbacks I can see with this scheme is that, firstly, you can’t use the interior as one  (might) normally do - so no piles of takeaway boxes on the back seat, cigar butts in the ashtray or dog hair in the footwells (if you are of that persuasion) and, secondly, all but ALL vehicles in the scheme are painted bright red with Mobility emblazoned in big white letters on the side.

 

Skimming the news, I recently read that whilst the UK government is prepared to provide emergency loans to help struggling businesses, it is doing so through the (private) banks, some of whom do not want to take part in the scheme as Banks will be banned from doing such customer friendly things as asking company owners to guarantee loans with their own savings or property when borrowing up to £250,000, even though the Treasury has not capped the interest rates banks can charge. So it’s no wonder that although the  government has pledged to guarantee £330bn of loans only £145m has been lent so far (source: BBC News). Oh, and to pile misery upon misery, apparently the process of getting such a loan is bureaucratically complicated and very slow (6+ weeks according to the Beeb). No wonder so many people consider banks/bankers as an unavoidably necessary and repugnant evil - and that’s when they are feeling charitable... (personally, I think of them as self-important, overpaid money-lenders who no longer know their proper place - and role - in society).

 

And on that financial note, I’m off to check on the basket of major currencies - in untraceable notes - hidden under the mattress and on the gold bars buried under the compost heap...

 

Stay well, stay safe, stay sane!
 

iD

[Ozexpatriate]

6 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

I’m off to check on the basket of major currencies - in untraceable notes - hidden under the mattress and on the gold bars buried under the compost heap

Not a Swiss Bank then?

 

[iL Dottore]

3 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Not a Swiss Bank then?

 

Why do you think it’s an “either, or” situation? 

[BoD]

Morning all.

 

I think I may just have a quiet day at home today.

 

Stay safe and well.

[Barry O]

Good Morning ERs!!!!

(Good night to some)

The sky is blue, the sun is shining, it makes me feel very positive.

But, the nuggets are already taking their cars for a spin (a lot more cars out and about today). 

I just hope they do what they have been told to..I somehow doubt it.

 

Once my mugate has been drunk breakfast will be prepared and eaten then....gardening to take place. 

 

Like Flavio I am suffering from a knee problem. Her indoors reckons its "housemaids" knee. Well she is welcome to have it back!

 

Get the most you can from today!

Positive thoughts to all ERs. Hopefully a few missing ones  can check in over the coming days!

Baz

[Erichill16]

Morning all,

No post last night as I fell asleep earlier than usual.Gardening for me as well but may have to do a bit of house chores first.

Hopefully may get bit of modelling done later.

Enjoy the day and don’t go AWOL.

Regard Robert

 

 

[jamie92208]

Good moaning. It's sunny here and warming up nicely.  Could be a good day.  I found out online yesterday that La Poste has only been doing 3 days of deliveries a week since the start of lockdown.  This policy has now been reversed so that daily hewspapers can be delivered as normal and to keep morale up.  Hurray.  Whichever numpty thought up the 3 day policy has obviously never seen studies about how armed forces mail is considered to be an absolute essential for morale purposes.  At least one friend of mine helped in a friendly invasion of IIRC Tanginykya in 1964 when he was in the Marines.  Apparently  they got their mail but someone had forgotten to pack any ammunition. They thus had letters from home but only the ammo in their webbing. Anyway we should now see post more regularly next week. 

 

Not a lot else to say, the fire went well so much garden rubbish has now gone. Today was decreed to be a day off but only time will tell if that policy is reversed.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

[45156]

Morning All

 

What a start to the morning - a very long sleep (9.30 pm to 6.45 am with two pee breaks), then tried to get logged on here - coudn't - logon stuck at home page.  Shut down Firefox which decided to update itself and took ages to do so - it appears that my Broadband is very slow this morning - and I don't have fibre, but my normal speed of about 12k is normally adequate.  Seems to be getting a bit better now.

 

All posts read and rated, and the usual generic greetings are on offer.  Let's hope that the idiots don't start to break the rules and decide that they are the only ones with the idea of "just popping to the beach for half an hour, it won't do any harm".

 

Apropos of Jamie's comment, I met our postie doing his round at 5pm (normally about 1) and he said that they are delivering to most addresses every other day - this is down to the fact that the sorting office is very cramped, and they can't all work in there and keep a good distance, so some posties are having to wait until the others are gone.  Also in most parts of town, two posties share a van to cover adjoining areas, and that has gone by the board, so there's not enough vans for every postie to have one each - and then there's the large increase in the number of parcels and packets being delivered due to the number of people buying by mail order.

 

And finally for now, the clown in the White House has said that everybody should wear a face mask - but he won't.  At the same time, one of our advisors was on TV saying that the use of a face mask was not all that beneficial.  Anyway, there's not enough for the NHS in this country let alone 66 million people,

 

Back later (internet permitting)

Regards to All

Stewart

Edited April 4, 2020 by 45156

[roundhouse]

Good morning form a misty one here in the  South East.

 

Just been listneing to the news of reports that Police have been questioning why people have bene buying Easter eggs - I hope this isnt going to be the new normal so that we have to sneak certain goods out of shops. The regular 'stay in except for...' speeches by the Govt. appear to have dropped helping vulnerable people so I hope that doesn't mean that I cant do food shopping for Mum and take it the 8 miles to her in the car. We havent left the house at all since last Tuesday, so today we will be doing a long walk ( approx 3 - 4 miles round trip) for exercise and food shopping on the way back. If we get stopped then we will not be happy if told that we cant go for a long walk. We will be switching our mobiles off before we leave the house now that G@@gle have publicly stated that they will be making such data available (the Govt have been using data from 02 sim cards for a while). I suspect that many others will be doing the same.

 

At least we have a garden and I have plenty to keep me occupied but it is starting to get hard to not be travelling somewhere but I feel for those couped up inside with no garden and even more to those in the NHS etc having to deal with so many unwell people.

 

EDIT

 

Just spoken to Mum. Shes 87 but apparently not eligible for home dleivery as the illnesses she has dont count as vulnerable by Waitrose. So she is now trying to get hold of other stores - all very misleading.

Edited April 4, 2020 by roundhouse

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Grey sky here but a dry day with sunny spells is forecast.

I had a terrible night and have been awake since 3.00am. Feeling somewhat carp and aching all over.

The Boss is still in bed as apparently I kept her awake all night.

No plans made so far apart from awaiting a Sainsbury's delivery after lunch.

Have a good one,

Bob.

[TheQ]

Mooring awl part 2...

It's chilly outside,  scattered clouds, 

As the gadget said its Saturday today,  I won't be spending a long day hour at work... 

 

Porridge,  had the first serving of an alternative version you wouldn't have thought two brands of rolled oats could taste so different.  Oats are bland anyway but this one is so bland i'll be adding bananas tomorrow. 

 

Has the Google snooping got so intrusive that it reads RMWEB? This morning after Shakespeare getting mentioned yesterday ,  I'm getting adverts for books of his works.

 

I'm off to the garage to wind some nuts.. 

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. And a foggy morning it is/was too. Flavio, I agree entirely with you regarding wbankers, if I said here what I think of them I'm likely to get banned. Even worse are the insurance companies, bookies with the odds firmly fixed in their favour. I will not be venturing out tomorrow, not even into the garden as the pollen count is predicted to go through the roof. Now to do battle with Farcebook, be back later.

Edited April 4, 2020 by PhilJ W

[roundhouse]

54 minutes ago, 45156 said:

 

 

And finally for now, the clown in the White House has said that everybody should wear a face mask - but he won't.  At the same time, one of our advisors was on TV saying that the use of a face mask was not all that beneficial.  Anyway, there's not enough for the NHS in this country let alone 66 million people,

 

 

Just heard the above - completely agree with your comments

[AndyID]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Regarding the use of “hoover” vs “vacuum”, I read somewhere that if a product dominates the market either when the market is maturing or when it completely changes the market (as the iPhone did), then their brand names can become used as generic descriptive terms for such product types. Hoover and Sellotape being, perhaps, the best known examples. This, as you can imagine, is a two edged sword for the manufacturer: instant product recognition but at the cost of competitor products coming under the same umbrella term. I think that iPhone and Google may be heading towards that same fate, notwithstanding armies of patent lawyers (taking on the vox populi? Don’t make me larf).

 

 

The VOX POPULI ain't stupid. The great thing about the English language  (unlike certain other languages slightly to the South of England - without mentioning any names) is that it grabs on to the most convenient and well understood parlance that happens to fit the current situation. To "hoover" is a brilliant example . It can be applied in all sorts of situations that would otherwise require a verbose description. Here's one example:

 

"MrsID just hoovered my wallet".

 

 

[Joseph_Pestell]

56 minutes ago, roundhouse said:

Good morning form a misty one here in the  South East.

 

Just been listneing to the news of reports that Police have been questioning why people have bene buying Easter eggs - I hope this isnt going to be the new normal so that we have to sneak certain goods out of shops. The regular 'stay in except for...' speeches by the Govt. appear to have dropped helping vulnerable people so I hope that doesn't mean that I cant do food shopping for Mum and take it the 8 miles to her in the car. We havent left the house at all since last Tuesday, so today we will be doing a long walk ( approx 3 - 4 miles round trip) for exercise and food shopping on the way back. If we get stopped then we will not be happy if told that we cant go for a long walk. We will be switching our mobiles off before we leave the house now that G@@gle have publicly stated that they will be making such data available (the Govt have been using data from 02 sim cards for a while). I suspect that many others will be doing the same.

 

At least we have a garden and I have plenty to keep me occupied but it is starting to get hard to not be travelling somewhere but I feel for those couped up inside with no garden and even more to those in the NHS etc having to deal with so many unwell people.

 

EDIT

 

Just spoken to Mum. Shes 87 but apparently not eligible for home dleivery as the illnesses she has dont count as vulnerable by Waitrose. So she is now trying to get hold of other stores - all very misleading.

 

I am not planning to buy any Easter eggs. But if Plod were to stop me with one in my shopping bag, I would answer that question with "Because it's Easter. Go and do some proper police work". The Easter eggs have been in the shops since before lockdown and it is not going to add to the Covid-19 spread if people add an Easter egg or two to the rest of their shopping. If we all stop buying Easter eggs, it will have some very negative economic effects for no corresponding benefit.

A four mile walk is not "long" in the context of achieving the recommended 10,000 steps per day.

I am not the most reliable source of info about mobile phones but I don't think that turning it off will make you untraceable. You would need to leave it at home.

[tigerburnie]

Morning, looking dull and overcast here, not planning on doing much, maybe a bike ride for daily exercise later, we went out for a walk yesterday and as we crossed the bridge over the ECML there was a horde of "lemmings" coming towards us, so we about turned and found a quitter route(I say lemmings, because there were at least 3 different households, none of which were more than a few inches from each other, so I thought the term fitted the bill perfectly)

Have a safe day, might go run some muddles about later...…..choo choo

[polybear]

10 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

The Good Doctor had a not to bad day at work but one lady patient carted off to the JR as a 'positive' plus one probable still on the ward as of this evening.   And now the problem of hospitals looms because there seems a strong possibility that the lady who has positive symptoms contracted the virus on the ward.  No doubt proper PPE (apparently called Level 2 at the Oxford Trust) might help to make a difference to transmission rates particularly from infected members of staff?

 

Apart from that the GD seems to be coping well and at least she had s plenty to provide a rest for her mind when at home.

 

A friend's daughter is a nurse at the Lister, Stevenage.  Currently there are five wards of C-19 patients, and sadly 17 deceased so far.

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

Sunny here, the earlier mist has cleared.

Seems quiet out today. Though for all I know  there could be herds of wildebeest wandering along the A13.

Tony