Castle Aching

[wagonman]

The Boys Brigade was definitely active in London by the 1920s as my father was a member. Oddly, later in life he became a Freemason, which did nothing to assuage our sometimes fractious relationship.

[Hroth]

...

 

Because a "road station" would not distinguish 'bus travel from private or hackney carriage road travel, a distinction that it is unnecessary to draw in the case of the railway.

 

... 

A "Road" station implies a long walk to your final destination!

 

Perhaps you could incorporate a small halt, say "Aching Road", further down the line....

 

 

Whoa there! I didn’t suggest those words.

 

Boys Brigade: my brother and I joined when we were c11 and c8, because (a) they played football indoors, in the non-conformist church hall, when it was too wet to play outside; and, (b) we understood that membership was a direct route to membership of the Freemasons.

 

We had no idea what the Freemasons was/were, but we had heard that all the more prosperous tradespeople and councillors in the town belonged, so it seemed like a good idea.

 

We left after three sessions, not having even got a uniform, when we discovered that it involved church parades and bugles.

My brother and I were in the Cubs, then Scouts.  Living in a coastal town, we had a Sea Scouts unit, with a smart Naval hat, scarf with woggle and a natty jumper with Sea Scouts across the chest!  The local BB group in contrast, seemed to rely on the school blazer, a silly little hat on the side of the head and a webbing belt with a uselessly small pouch.

[Donw]

Good point, well brought out.

 

Not to mention frocks, of course.

 

 

 

Almost everyone does, including BBC reporters, and it grieves me deeply.

 

Hello World!  We have news.  That place to which you go to catch a train is called a "railway station"!!!

 

Just as the place to which you go to contract MRSA is a "hospital".  You wouldn't call it a "patient contamination facility", for instance. 

 

Also, the place where caravans pause on their journey is a caravanserai, not a caravan site, because a "caravan" is not a flimsy box on wheels that causes traffic congestion en route to a Hellish but mercifully brief sojourn in a damp field.  Rather, I like to think, it is a group of people, especially traders or pilgrims, travelling together across a desert in Asia or North Africa. 

 

After all, Barbara Dickson wasn't singing about a weekend in the Cotswolds with a Lunar Clubman ES, was she?

 

A "static caravan", then, save when employed to describe said group of people at rest in a caravanserai, is as linguistically absurd as it is poor as a lifestyle choice.

 

Thus, of course, a caravan, properly understood, is a species of train.

 

Exculpatory Note: Sorry for any offence caused, but I have "history" with a caravan (of the wrong sort).  Objectivity is not possible where phobia applies.

 

Some interest things there a caravan which is towable but is usually left in the oned place is called a static caravan but a bigger one still on wheels but never intended to be towed is called a mobile home there is no logic to a lot of our language. The word caravan probably derived from the gypsy caravans so called presumably because their nomadic lifestyle seemed akin to the eastern caravans.

 

Don

[Edwardian]

The Boys Brigade was definitely active in London by the 1920s as my father was a member. Oddly, later in life he became a Freemason, which did nothing to assuage our sometimes fractious relationship.

 

Freemasonry was a hot topic last week on R4. 

 

Beyond the Magic Flute, I can only plead complete ignorance.  Rather like that other mysterious organisation, MI5, I was never asked to join! 

 

Clearly they both know a feckless waster when they see one!

 

 

A "Road" station implies a long walk to your final destination!

 

Perhaps you could incorporate a small halt, say "Aching Road", further down the line....

 

 

Yes, "Road" is railway jargon for "nowhere bloody near".  Rather like "Parkway" 

 

Nice idea, Aching Road, but how about Aching Bottom? 

 

Much Aching? Great Aching?

 

I could go on.

 

(don't need much encouragement)

[Marly51]

Whoa there! I didn’t suggest those words.

Boys Brigade: my brother and I joined when we were c11 and c8, because (a) they played football indoors, in the non-conformist church hall, when it was too wet to play outside; and, (b) we understood that membership was a direct route to membership of the Freemasons.

We had no idea what the Freemasons was/were, but we had heard that all the more prosperous tradespeople and councillors in the town belonged, so it seemed like a good idea.

We left after three sessions, not having even got a uniform, when we discovered that it involved church parades and bugles.

My brother loved the Boys Brigade - think it was an escape from all the women folk at home and Dad thought it was a good thing! There was the Girls Guildry in some churches in Edinburgh which was the female equivalent of the BB. I tried the Brownies and lasted only six months - too tame for me I'm afraid, when there were other more exciting things to do elsewhere! My poor mum bought the full Brownie outfit, but think she managed to pass it on to a cousin.

[runs as required]

I had an interesting Mondeo ECS journey north from Rugby to Tyneside yesterday (wife riding shotgun in daughter's car with grandson later in the day).

 

I went M6 (WCML) northwards as far as Preston then diverted via Whalley and Clitheroe to Settle.

I stopped briefly to check out the new UK DCC Concepts shop opened by Richard Johnson in the Sidings between Settle station and the inhabited CI sectional water tank (once featured in George Clarke's "Restoration Man" TV series).

After 20 mins, I resumed on a blissful route via Malham Tarn, Arncliffe, Kettlewell and Leyburn to join the A1(M) at Scotch Corner (ECML thence to Blaydon). A brave February sun at my back lit up the limestone tops as a Bellini opera (the Pirate) blasted out of the radio full belt; every tenor aria attracting ridiculous OTT applause. 

It is fun on such transepts to carry your pre-grouping map in your head while driving, ever alert to long shut former over-bridge coping stones.

 

I mention DCC Concepts to thoroughly scare Edwardian.

I enquired about some wiring issues I have with my unadventurous off the peg Peco points and trackwork and they have neat little demo panels you can lift out and take 'selfies' of with your phone.

But they will then explain there are at least a couple of other ways it can be wired up.

Half an hour later up on the tops, I try to recall the words I need to read up about on the net when I get home and.....oops...what were those terms? Ah yes, I can remember one: a "Diode".

They were packing a van up to go off to the Glasgow Show. It looked a good place to live and an exciting worklife.

dh

[Donw]

Consist and make-up are not grammatically incorrect: they have become nouns in their own right. A desire not to use them is a different matter, based upon personal tastes and period accuracy.

 

The point of language is to communicate: good grammar makes this clearer and more elegant, and to the educated avoids confusion.

 

E.g. their: “belonging to them”; they’re: short for “they are”; there: a place, “not here”. These are homophones, so in speech there is no clear distinction.

Also: would’ve, short for “would have”, and not “would of”. When Terry Pratchet was using the latter, it was only in reported speech and was used to show that someone was poorly educated, or possibly a bit thick. These are not homophones: “would’ve” is more like “wood-uvv”.

Similarly, our (belong to us) as in our house: not “are house”, which is meaningless, but I hear people with PhDs and indeed BBC reporters saying the latter. These aren’t homophones, either.

 

Is it Geordies that say something like Whoorhouse doesn't sound like home to me.

 

I feel it is fruitless to fight against the misuse of words. I think the is an innate sense of duty in a British born person to mangle the language as much as possible. It could be to confuse foreigners (anyone from further away than the next village) or just for the fun of it. The Welsh of course have gone even better having a whole language that most people cannot pronounce although a Chinese girl born in Cardiff visiting a friend in North Wales did surprise the locals when telling them in Welsh that she shared their views on foreigners in the same colourful terms they had used.

 

Don 

[Northroader]

Boy Scouts every time, just for the summer camps:

A) two trips to Fairbourne, Mid Wales. The old FMR with “COUNT LOUIS” and “WHIPPET QUICK”, and views of the Cambrian Line trains, occasionally double headed “DUKEDOGS”

B) two trips to the Isle of Man, train to Birkenhead, IOM steam packet “KING ORRY”, camp near the Peel line. “FENELLA” and friends.

C)trip to Cahir, Southern Ireland. Train to Fishguard, the good ship “GREAT WESTERN” to Waterford, then meet the CIE, J15s, D5s, Woolwich Moguls.

What sort of undernourished childhood would I have had otherwise?

Sister Anna is carrying the Banner!

Edited February 23, 2018 by Northroader

[runs as required]

Freemasonry was a hot topic last week on R4. 

 

Beyond the Magic Flute, I can only plead complete ignorance.  Rather like that other mysterious organisation, MI5, I was never asked to join! 

 

Clearly they both know a feckless waster when they see one

My dad, in later life, a Middle Temple Barrister,  was obsessed with the secrecy of the Freemasons and 'neat' stitch ups between senior policemen and the judiciary. A Hot Topic perhaps 50 years ago with a great many books on the subject.

2

I once realised I was being approached for MI 6 work when working in Malawi in the Cold War years. I got very frightened and protested I was only in Africa for all the Sex Parties supposedly by the foreign aid organisations.

3

When in Malta a month ago, I learnt from the Sunday Times of Malta  that Baden Powell had been Aide Camp to his uncle (?) in Malta during the late C19 and had been noted for his running of amateur dramatics at the Manoel Theatre, with some very funny recitations.

He'd been obliged to join a Colonial regiment because he was the 10th son of an Oxford Professor of Mathematics.

 

dd

 

ED Here is the Sunday Times of Malta piece - it is an enjoyable read (and I was wrong about BP's order in the Oxford Prof's family)

Edited February 23, 2018 by runs as required

[Compound2632]

He'd been obliged to join a Colonial regiment because he was the 10th son of an Oxford Professor of Mathematics.

 

 

Did the 9th son get into the British Army? Or would BP have got in if his father had been a professor of Classics?

Edited February 23, 2018 by Compound2632

[Caley Jim]

I too had a long association with the Scouts and still meet regularly with friends I made then.

 

On the subject of words and the mis-use thereof, the one which really annoys me is people referring to the ground as 'the floor'! The floor is what you walk on inside a building. The surface you walk on outside a building is the ground!

 

Jim (edited to correct predictive text, as usual!)

Edited February 23, 2018 by Caley Jim

[Poggy1165]

One of my M&GN related books mentions a record of cattle wagons kept at Melton Constable. (Apparently the said record book is still extant, though it is not clear from the source who has possession of it.) The record includes entries from almost every British company, and I suspect the exceptions would be minor and light railways.

 

As for English usage, we have a living language which happily plunders words it finds useful from all over the globe. And as for Americanisms, not only do we plunder those that take our fancy, we often merely revive good, honest medieval words that the Americans have preserved but we have abandoned. "Trash" is a good example. So is "fall" in the sense of autumn. A medieval Englishman would not have known what you were talking about if you had referred to "autumn". There are lots more, and it's great fun making use of them in medieval fiction as it's really amusing to wind up people who don't know this stuff. 

 

If you want to communicate in a dead language, try Latin. That won't change much over time as all the changes have already been made. (Though a medieval monk's Latin would probably have baffled Julius Caesar,)

Edited February 23, 2018 by Poggy1165

[Compound2632]

If you want to communicate in a dead language, try Latin. That won't change much over time as all the changes have already been made. (Though a medieval monk's Latin would probably have baffled Julius Caesar,)

 

I did once hear tell that there's a monk in the Vatican - an American Benedictine - charged with coining new Latin terms. After all, there's a great many new things invented since the late middle ages, that the Pope might need to mention in an encyclical.

[Regularity]

A medieval Englishman would not have known what you were talking about if you had referred to "autumn".

But he would gave understood “autumnal”...

 

About 20 years ago, when I smoked, I mentioned I was just popping out for a fag to a visiting American colleague, to the expected guffaws of, “We would never put it like that!” I asked what he would say, and was astonished by his reply of, “Well I guess I would say I was going to suck on a butt.” After a brief pause, I asked why that phrase was OK as an alternative, to general hilarity in the office?

 

Talking of which, I do wish they would understand the difference between alternate (every other) and alternative (one other)...

[Edwardian]

Talking of which, I do wish they would understand the difference between alternate (every other) and alternative (one other)...

 

It is because they lack orientation.

[wagonman]

One of my M&GN related books mentions a record of cattle wagons kept at Melton Constable. (Apparently the said record book is still extant, though it is not clear from the source who has possession of it.) The record includes entries from almost every British company, and I suspect the exceptions would be minor and light railways.

 

As for English usage, we have a living language which happily plunders words it finds useful from all over the globe. And as for Americanisms, not only do we plunder those that take our fancy, we often merely revive good, honest medieval words that the Americans have preserved but we have abandoned. "Trash" is a good example. So is "fall" in the sense of autumn. A medieval Englishman would not have known what you were talking about if you had referred to "autumn". There are lots more, and it's great fun making use of them in medieval fiction as it's really amusing to wind up people who don't know this stuff. 

 

If you want to communicate in a dead language, try Latin. That won't change much over time as all the changes have already been made. (Though a medieval monk's Latin would probably have baffled Julius Caesar,)

 

 

If you read Norfolk Manor Court Rolls from the C18 when they were still written in Latin – or should that be 'Latin' – you can detect the Norfolk accent. I doubt if even a medieval monk would understand it.

[Edwardian]

I cannot get on with this new iron at all.  Result, apparently I no longer know how to solder.

 

Big step backwards.

 

Honestly, chaps, this is bloody hopeless.

 

I just don't have the skill or experience to do this.

 

This has been a stalled project for too many weeks.  It's not helping my somewhat frail mental state. In fact, it's getting me down.

 

I don't want to model another aspect of the project, because I can have no enthusiasm where I cannot see the way forward with even the fundamentals.

 

Trouble is, if I leave it, I know now that it will stay left.

[M Wright]

To return you to bucolic Norfolk can I suggest for a halt " Aching Parva" .  This suggests the terminus might be "Aching Magna" or if the council is packed with non-conformists and the local landowner keen on land reform it could also be "Aching Town".

[Nearholmer]

What wattage is the offending tool? Too low can be a frequent source of frustration.

 

If it proves to be a seriously bad buy, I suggest taking it outside and stamping it to a million tiny pieces. The venting of frustration might be the best tenners worth you ever had.

[Regularity]

Did you tin the bit on first use?

Did you clean it prior to that?

 

Every time I get a new bit, I wash it and gently scrub it with some kitchen cleaner (the creamy type) and very thoroughly rinse it with hot water, drying it with a lint-free cloth (aka “tea towel” when SWMBO isn’t looking).

Then I fit it to the iron, plug the iron in, and hold a string of solder so that the end of the solder is resting on the tip whilst the iron warms up. As soon as the solder melts, remove it and wipe the tip with a soldering sponge, to put a very thin coating of solder over the tip.

 

The iron is now ready for use.

 

You can do this again and again, if you have problems with heat transfer.

[Compound2632]

To return you to bucolic Norfolk can I suggest for a halt " Aching Parva" .  This suggests the terminus might be "Aching Magna" or if the council is packed with non-conformists and the local landowner keen on land reform it could also be "Aching Town".

 

That sounds more like Leicestershire / Northamptonshire to me. Sheepy Magna (SK326015) always raised a smile on the way to the Battlefield Line. Barton-in-the-Beans (SK394065), on the other hand, go an outright laugh.

 

James, what are the symptoms of your lack of success with this iron? No heat? Blobbing? Will it singe a piece of wood? The iron I use for 100 deg C solder for whitemetal doesn't singe my soldering block; it's set to something around 190 deg C, wheras the unregulated iron I use for 145 deg C solder for brass does.

Edited February 24, 2018 by Compound2632

[Marly51]

I cannot get on with this new iron at all.  Result, apparently I no longer know how to solder.

 

Big step backwards.

 

Honestly, chaps, this is bloody hopeless.

 

I just don't have the skill or experience to do this.

 

This has been a stalled project for too many weeks.  It's not helping my somewhat frail mental state. In fact, it's getting me down.

 

I don't want to model another aspect of the project, because I can have no enthusiasm where I cannot see the way forward with even the fundamentals.

 

Trouble is, if I leave it, I know now that it will stay left.

I bought a new soldering iron and struggled despite having read a good book on the subject and watched a couple of YouTube videos. Gave up then borrowed a small Antek from my husband, no problems since! Having said that, I am just soldering wiring for track droppers and wire connections, no finescale intricate working with scratchbuilt kits.

[runs as required]

Can I (weather and access to your dining room permitting) call in next week with my solderiing and lekky stuff  and we have a collective effort at a bit of CA electrification?

I thought about your layout a bit on the way back to sanity and civilisation up north and reckon this diagram below to be the least to get a loco running (plus added connexions if current is not getting to places).

I have tried to depict it as an overlay of your trackwork above

 

- with this pic of minimal wiring fixed below the baseboard and connected to your Duette.

(Don't worry if it doesn't make sense, we can proceed a step at a time.)

dh

 

Ed

poles reversed to comply with Donw's diagram

Edited February 24, 2018 by runs as required

[Edwardian]

To return you to bucolic Norfolk can I suggest for a halt " Aching Parva" .  This suggests the terminus might be "Aching Magna" or if the council is packed with non-conformists and the local landowner keen on land reform it could also be "Aching Town".

 

We could.  You'll note, however, that where the real or 'Primary' World has a Great Massingham, which the Midland & Great Northern Joint called "Massingham" (where they pee softly, apparently), the Secondary World adds "Massingham Magna", where the West Norfolk has a station.  So, there must be a "Massingham Parva" somewhere nearby.  

 

That is not to say we cannot have big and little Achings also. I rather like the Trollopian "... Episcopi" too!

 

 

What wattage is the offending tool? Too low can be a frequent source of frustration.

 

If it proves to be a seriously bad buy, I suggest taking it outside and stamping it to a million tiny pieces. The venting of frustration might be the best tenners worth you ever had.

 

Actually it is a 40W.  There was David's lovely 30W, which had a huge spade of a tip, yet it loved his flux and solder and I was able to do fairly close work easily and it worked every time. 

 

This new one wants me to have 3 or 4 goes at each joint. Despite a narrower screw-driver tip, it is not so handy and I can achieve no precision with it at all. It doesn't like the solder, turns it into balls and spreads it around the layout.  It creates dirt and dross and won't behave at all. 

 

Note, I am sure it is all my fault!  David's iron simply did not take any getting used to.  This beggar is fighting me.

 

I am persevering, mind you.  Through gritted teeth, but persevering.

[runs as required]

Sorry about this - apparently a repeat post of  #8214

Edited February 24, 2018 by runs as required