Early Risers.

[Happy Hippo]

9 hours ago, Barry O said:

Careful the flying bits hurt... an awful lot!

 

I am trying to develop the Multiple Headed Ballistic Flinging Teddy. It isn't as sharp as awls or spears but its shape allows more bang - and it can be fired from the Multiple Awl Fling Device...

 

Baz

I did some work for Martin Baker some years back.

 

I sat in the back seat of the Meteor.  There was a Bang WHOOSH!

 

I felt a slight jolt in the region of my posterior...................

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and the seat fell out of the bottom of the aircraft.

 

After that the  only way the military would let me parachute was via the medium capacity pallet system

[TheSignalEngineer]

7 hours ago, grandadbob said:

During this the ####### Dyson decided to play up and wouldn't stay switched on

AARGH Dyson. We had an upright in the early days, probably our shortest-lived machine. Our first hand-held wasn't bad but eventually died. The current one has abysmal battery life on full power. It keeps shutting down because it's difficult to keep the filters clean. Don't think we will be buying another.

[Erichill16]

I don’t really want to get involved in a debate regarding the sale of OTC pain killers and in particular codeine containing products, as I come on here for relaxation. Though I would like to say a couple of things.

One minute we as a profession are slated when we don’t intervene in the sales of these products but often seen as busy bodies when we do. As a matter of fact codeine containing  products have recently been reclassified are now only available with a prescription in Australia.

I have ‘ customers’ who will buy as many codeine containing products as I’d sell them. We have to have our whits about us with ‘excuses’ to buy these products. Last thing I want is someone overdosing at home with a housefulof OTC medicines with my name on. 

On one occasion my new assistant sold a chap a bottle of ‘cough medicine’ only to see him drink it all in one go and throw the empty bottle over the nearest wall.

Its a pharmacists duty to ensure  patients use their medicine safey and effectively. 

Sorry if there are any typos but I’m watching my team on tv.

regards

Robert

 

 

[Erichill16]

51 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

I did some work for Martin Baker some years back.

 

I sat in the back seat of the Meteor.  There was a Bang WHOOSH!

 

I felt a slight jolt in the region of my posterior...................

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and the seat fell out of the bottom of the aircraft.

 

And did anything fall out of your bottom?

[New Haven Neil]

Evening.

 

Our Dyson is restored to health after a complete and utter dismantling to clean bits out that shouldn't need cleaning out - but it works afterwards!

 

HH, funnily enough the population of sheeps was under discussion by the chief tree maker last night.  I await developments.  There is a bird in one of the trees I notice!

 

I have a soft spot for electricery traction I think because of having being born within buffer-clanging distance from the Harton Electric Railway, a pioneer colliery in electric traction.  Having the Manx  Electric Railway handy nowadays help fulfil by needs.

 

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. A rather surprising fact about the Great Eastern. It was not the wealthiest or most profitable of railway companies but of the companies that made up the LNER it paid the highest salaries and wages across most grades. The agreement was at grouping that to level up salaries and wages they would all be raised to the highest rate paid by the constituent companies. So employees of all the companies making up the LNER had a pay rise except for most of those from the GER.

2 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

this size?

https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/giant-jaffa-cake.html

Or how to wrap a hippo round your little finger.

 

[JohnDMJ]

 

21 minutes ago, Erichill16 said:

And did anything fall out of your bottom?

 

Probably most of his internal organs!

[brianusa]

8 hours ago, Simon G said:

Morning all from a cloudy but dry and calm Cumbria.  It has been a busy morning so far, with a trip in the car to coll3ct more horse manure, some soft fruit picked and made into a summer fruit pudding mix, and final clearance of the old shed site in preparation for assembling the new shed.  Suitable lengths of old wood have been found to make into a base for the shed, and I will fix some damp-proofing plastic to the base to prevent water seeping up into the shed.  Assembly of shed planned for Thursday as it seems to be the day with the best forecast this week.

 

Next tasks include more fruit picking and staking up the tomato and cucumber plants we were given a few weeks ago.  The hedges are also starting to look rather ragged again, so another quick trim is required soon.  A gardeners work is never done!  With that, it is back to work!

 

We felt the same way so we hired a gardener.  Now we don't feel so bad!

    Brian.

[PhilJ W]

Nearly forgot, having been looking for a new garden wheelbarrow of course I've been getting the ads for the same. Including this https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/293607704270

A bit overkill for my garden but some ER's might find one useful.

Edited June 30, 2020 by PhilJ W

[brianusa]

3 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Our postie drives a yellow left hand drive van and has worked her route out round the village so that she can reach all the mailboxes without getting out. If she's got a parcel or needs a signature she toots the horn and we wander down to get it. 

 

Jamie

Interesting!  Same procedure over here!!

      Brian.

[Barry O]

9 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Morning all from Estuary-Land. I went to pour my morning tea this morning and there was white bits floating on top. A quick eyeball of the milk revealed nothing apparently wrong neither did a sniff test. There was a lump of the white bits in the bottom of the mug. Not wanting to risk anything I threw the rest of the 2 pint plastic bottle (about a quarter of a pint) away though the use by date was 3rd.July and it had been kept refrigerated. I managed to squeeze my usual 2 mugfuls out of the pot.

Interesting prototypes. I notice that a couple of the vehicles are right hand drive.  This is because many American homes have a mailbox kerbside and the postie can deliver without leaving the vehicle.

 The 502/503 classes had a very long life and a wide range of liveries from LMS maroon through various shades of green with different applications (or not as the case may be) of yellow ends. All over blue and ending up in blue/grey. It would be great if an enterprising manufacturer could produce a model of these units. 

Judith Edge have produced kits for the 503 for a long time

Baz

[J. S. Bach]

4 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Nearly forgot, having been looking for a new garden wheelbarrow of course I've been getting the ads for the same. Including this https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/293607704270?norover=1&mpt=[CACHEBUSTER]&ff5=2015619496&ff8=71090846546&audid=aud-377140961966&device=c&ff7=www.rmweb.co.uk&siteid=3&ipn=admain2&mkevt=1&mkrid=710-155981-406004-9&mkcid=4&placement=520562&gclid=CjwKCAjwxev3BRBBEiwAiB_PWH22QGhDlRmBk8Lel3pxv8RJQB79jmcPuH5aaFJ8tTTLp5sr8GExHBoClwcQAvD_BwE

A bit overkill for my garden but some ER's might find one useful.

A note, this is all of the link that needs to be posted; the rest is excess electronic bloviation:

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/293607704270

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Hmm.  The largest Pre Group company in terms of route mileage was the GWR with a network of 3005 miles at the time of amalgamation.  Second  came the 'greater LNWR' (i.e after it had amalgamated with the L&YR). with a route mileage of 2667.5 miles, previously it had been  1935 miles but that was in 1912; the Midland had 2179.75 route miles.   The NER was the largest company in the LNER group with 1757.75 miles and although its receipts were not top of the league in terms of return on capital it was the most profitable large railway in England (the TVR made a greater return on its capital). 

 

Interestingly the Midland's return on capital steadily declined between 1892 and 1910 as did its productivity.  I wonder if that was a consequence of a small engine policy?

 

Route mileage is one measure, but how intensively and productively were those route miles used? Even before the amalgamation with the L&Y, the LNWR was the most highly capitalised company. In 1907, the LNWR was the second largest employer in the United Kingdom after the GPO. I haven't been able to track down any good tabulation but the LNWR also, I believe, led the field in passenger receipts, at least for long-distance travel. The LNWR was of course the Premier Line from the point of view of its national importance, linking the capitals - the Irish Mail route was of the greatest strategic importance in the 19th century. The LNWR and Midland both served all the principal industrial regions of England - from that angle, the GWR was very much a regional rather than a national line. The NER had the largest wagon fleet but this reflects the unique character of its mineral traffic, a very large proportion of which was pit-to-port using the company's own specialised wagons. The Midland wagon fleet was the next largest but, again, a large proportion was in use for mineral traffic, whereas the LNWR and GWR did not have large fleets of mineral wagons, relying on the private owners.

 

As to the decline in return on capital, that was a national trend, driven by rising costs - including the reduction in working hours - exacerbated by the economic stagnation after the end of the Boer War. 

 

Midland locomotives were by no means small in the last decade of the 19th century - rather the opposite, larger than the average - certainly those vast numbers of 8'0" + 8'6" wheelbase goods engines were larger than those on other lines, where 7'3" + 8'3" was typical (various LNWR 0-6-0s, Dean Goods, and NER P). On the LNWR, Webb had led the way with big goods engines, with his Class A and B compound 0-8-0s, but otherwise Midland engines only seem small viewed through the wrong end of the telescope - from a post-Grouping perspective. I think part of the problem is that some classes of Midland engines survived to the 1950s - and were small compared to more modern types - whereas their contemporaries from the LNWR were long gone, so the comparison could not be made. The Midland locomotives of the 20th century were economic and effective in the context of the Midland's way of operating; that wasn't necessarily the same as other companies' ways of going about things. On the passenger side, little and often was appropriate to routes serving a high density of major traffic centres; the GWR (apart from between London and the West Midlands), East Coast, and to some extent LNWR, had principal main lines that avoided major traffic centres, leading to a different approach to long distance passenger services.

Edited June 30, 2020 by Compound2632

[PhilJ W]

5 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

A note, this is all of the link that needs to be posted; the rest is excess electronic bloviation:

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/293607704270

Thanks, duly amended.

[Happy Hippo]

41 minutes ago, Erichill16 said:

And did anything fall out of your bottom?

No.  fortunately I'd laid off the fruit  and vegetable curry.

[Happy Hippo]

14 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Nearly forgot, having been looking for a new garden wheelbarrow of course I've been getting the ads for the same. Including this https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/293607704270

A bit overkill for my garden but some ER's might find one useful.

That looks just the sort of machine suitable for the delivery of an individual portion of sherry trifle.

[BoD]

Thank you for the good wishes good people.

 

Things are much the same here. Big plus though is my niece who is a registrar at a hospital somewhere or other had a word with mum and persuaded her to talk to an occupational?? therapist about suitable aids. Even one of those rollator/walkers would help.  Mum refused to listen to me or my sister - but you know how they think of grandchildren -  especially those with not just one but several ologies to their name.

 

For the first time in 3 months we went for a run out in the car, just to test the eyesight you understand.  Although we didn’t stop anywhere a visit to the North Pennine dales has perked me up a bit.

 

 

Stay safe, stay well.

 

 

 

 

[Happy Hippo]

25 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

 

Or how to wrap a hippo round your little finger.

 

Safest method is place box/packet on ground and retreat at a brisk walk to a safe distance.

 

A bit like setting off explosives.

 

You really wouldn't want your little finger, or any other part of the anatomy anywhere near that box once I'm in cake rage.

[brianusa]

2 hours ago, AndyID said:

The Pressed Steel 303s (in original form and livery) were hard to beat. Not so many photos on the Web but one here.

 

Did kids all look like that really?  I've been here too long!

     Brian.

[Barry O]

Managed to collect myour prescription between rain showers.

@Two_sugars..I saw them paint the old station for the Queen visited Peterlee (not the place to be). It was then locked up and eventually demolished.they should have kept the platforms. .it could of saved a bit when they built this new station. Glad to hear the village is back on the train map...Easington next?

 

Will people use the new station??  Wonder how many millions of toys of coal have passed through that area?

 

Picked some goose gog and we had an oatmeal topped goose gog crumble for our pudding tonight. excellent!!baz

 

[Erichill16]

6 hours ago, Tony_S said:

I have been out to the garage and photographed the red car. 

 

Also here is an in progress photo of the current kit. Well not really a kit as all the parts were bought separately. The chassis is 3D print from Spain. Lots of slot car bits come from Spain or Italy. 

The motor is yellow!
Tony

Not sure how this ended up at the end of the post!

They look like nice ‘models’, the HO cars are more of an approximation.

Heres a few I’ve had something to do with, from my blue period.

The GT40 is a clear plastic body supplied by AFX and finished by me.

The Cobra is a bit more of a kit, bumpers, roll cage, and exhausts etc to fit and then paint. The others are resin bodies made by a friend and fettled and finished by me.The Porsche and Datsun are in ‘second hand’ condition as they were raced on club nights.

[New Haven Neil]

Baz, I've a friend lives at Station Town (Wingate) but it's been a while since it had track never mind platforms!

[Barry O]

@BoD  glad to hear it has been a better day.

 

Baz

[Erichill16]

14 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

 

Is this not "S" scale?

 

Curiously the philatelic sales department of the US Postal Service just sent me a catalogue with a number of USPS die cast (presumably) vehicles in 1:64. They actually looked really nice and included a number of distribution vans including a full tractor trailer.

 

The USPS issued a 50th anniversary sheet of stamps commemorating Hot Wheels cars. They had models of these cars as well.

Originally HO slot cars were to HO scale as an accessory to model railways but the two hobbies diverged and the cars were subsequently made to 1/64 but the name stuck. 

[Coombe Barton]

Don't think it's a hippo, but ...