The Night Mail

[Northmoor]

34 minutes ago, Hroth said:

It reminded me of the sort of liveries Hornby inflict on their Railroad brand toys.

And it's completely prototypical!

[AndyID]

49 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Just received from RoS:  News about the latest batch of Dapol Panniers (I have enough panniers by the way)

 

 

I now need a very large, strong, drink followed by a lie down to recover from the pain.

 

I never knew The Caledonian had any panniers although I think there might have been one or two in former Highland territory.

 

(If they'd at least apply some lining it might not look so diabolical. 🤣)

[pH]

1 hour ago, AndyID said:

 

Possibly but a lady at the DMV told me once that the prisoners liked to shuffle them so that they were out of sequence to entertain the staff at the DMV offices 😄

You may remember from your youth in the West of Scotland the “carry-out” bags used by all off-licences. (For those from elsewhere, they were made of very stout brown paper with cardboard reinforcements at the top, through which heavy string ‘handles’ were threaded.) They were made in prison workshops. After several expensive mishaps, it was found that one batch had been made with slip knots in the handles.

[AndyID]

Another exciting day of welding railings for the deck.

 

 

That's the first six sticks welded to the bottom rail. The gizmo to the left holds six sticks secured by eccentrics against spacers. It has been moved along so that the right-hand end is now clamped to the last welded stick. I'll load it up with another five sticks and weld them. Rise and repeat then flip the whole thing over to weld them to the other rail.

 

The calibrated rod for the heat-shunt thingy is sticking out the end of the rail. My welding isn't going to win any prizes but it's getting better. It might even be quite good by the time I'm on the final panel.

 

 

 

Edited July 17, 2023 by AndyID

[figworthy]

3 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Just received from RoS:  News about the latest batch of Dapol Panniers (I have enough panniers by the way)

 

 

I'm struggling with that concept.  Could you explain it in more detail ?

 

Adrian

[jamie92208]

15 hours ago, figworthy said:

 

I'm struggling with that concept.  Could you explain it in more detail ?

 

Adrian

It's like when people say they are off their food to me.  I struggle to relate to that concept.  Unless of course he has seen the light and is heading towards a future that involves red 4-4-0's.

 

Jamie

Edited July 18, 2023 by jamie92208

[polybear]

7 hours ago, Tony_S said:

 My car doesn’t need headlight adjusters, all done by gps magic. 

 

Very Cynical Bear goes to Spares Counter at Dealership....

"I need a replacement headlight - mines been smashed by a stone"

"Ah yes, Mr Bear - The Bearmobile has those fancy GPS Headlights....you might want to sit down for this....."

"They cost £1186 each.  Oh yes, and once fitted they have to be calibrated with a clever Computer thingy that only we have - and that'll be an hour's labour at £152....."

"Oh yes, one last thing......to change a headlight you have to jack the front of the car up, then take the front bumper and grill off.  Takes about four hours if you're doing it yourself"

 

"Oh yes, and it's plus VAT"

 

6 hours ago, SM42 said:

Stuff like traffic law,, border control, taxation  and an awful lot of other stuff is a domestic matter.

 

 

Apart from when they go stickin' their oars in with the European Court of Human Rights - so beloved of Tvrds like Abu Hamza (remember him? - the guy with a hook for a hand) - took eight years to get rid of him and cost a bluddy fortune.  All cos' his cat had a right to family life or some such cr@p.

Yep, that's a Rant.

 

3 hours ago, AndyID said:

POLYBER is still available but HIPPO seems to have been taken already. You can try your own variants here 🙂

 

https://www.accessidaho.org/itd/driver/plates/select

 

@PupCam Puppers is also available.....

[Dave Hunt]

Had an MRI scan of my lumbar and sacral spine regions today to see what is wrong down there and whether anything can be done about it. I hope something can be done as the sciatica is getting bl**dy awful and worst of all it's starting to affect my modelling!! Doing work on the layout has to happen in bursts of no more than about half an hour before I have to sit down, which at least means that I can work on rolling stock or other small items, or in some instances to lie down, which scuppers things until it's back under control. To quote the Bear, turdycurses.

 

Anyway, Jill's eye seems to have recovered very well so at least one denizen of Hunt Towers is properly on the mend. She still has to use eye drops for another three weeks and avoid heavy lifting or otherwise straining, which this afternoon included putting salt in the dishwasher (???). I find it best not to ask.

 

Dave

[Tony_S]

23 minutes ago, polybear said:

Very Cynical Bear goes to Spares Counter at Dealership....

"I need a replacement headlight - mines been smashed by a stone"

"Ah yes, Mr Bear - The Bearmobile has those fancy GPS Headlights....you might want to sit down for this....."

"They cost £1186 each.  Oh yes, and once fitted they have to be calibrated with a clever Computer thingy that only we have - and that'll be an hour's labour at £152....."

"Oh yes, one last thing......to change a headlight you have to jack the front of the car up, then take the front bumper and grill off.  Takes about four hours if you're doing it yourself"

 

There are almost certainly parts like that but this is a built in Britain , British designed car! Actually if a stone hit the headlamp the glass (or whatever glass substitute is used) is replaceable. The motor bit that moves the bulb holder is a separate part too. 
Someone coming round a bend on a narrow lane hit my wing mirror (powerfold, heated, auto dimming mirror, puddle lights and indicator repeaters ) and I assumed it wouid be very expensive . However I was able to replace just the broken bits for about £40.

[Dave Hunt]

3 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

I never knew The Caledonian had any panniers although I think there might have been one or two in former Highland territory.

 

(If they'd at least apply some lining it might not look so diabolical. 🤣)

 

It's almost as bad as that preserved LMS 2-6-4T that was once turned out in Caledonian Perth blue.

 

Dave

[Tony_S]

51 minutes ago, polybear said:

Apart from when they go stickin' their oars in with the European Court of Human Rights -

That isn’t an EU institution. The EU court of justice deliberates on disputes between EU States.  The Human Rights court has been around since 1950 as part of the Council of. Europe (not the EU). British jurists were very influential in its creation. Trying hard not be political but certain people had an interest in muddying debate about the status of ECHR decisions as being something to do with the EU. If Britain removed itself from the EHCR treaties we could at least make friends with Belarus and since 2022, Russia. 

Edited July 17, 2023 by Tony_S

[Tony_S]

52 minutes ago, polybear said:

took eight years to get rid of him and cost a bluddy fortune.

Of that 8 years most of it was in the British legal system. The ECHR part was the last two years and of course set a precedent for any further deportations. The appeal to the Strasbourg court wasn’t over his cat it was whether or not the conditions in an American super max jail were an abuse of human rights. They decided they were not. 
That is where he now resides. 

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

Without quoting anyone in particular a few observations on prescription charges.

Just checked where I work, approximately  1.5% of prescription items are paid for, 98.5% we don’t take a charge for

This may help to explain why. 

https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/prescriptions-and-pharmacies/who-can-get-free-prescriptions/

 

Prepayments cards are great value for anyone on monthly repeat items that don’t qualify for free prescriptions. People on low incomes usually don’t need to buy prepayment card as they are covered by something on the link above.

I don’t want to get into an argument about definitions but just want to clarify a point.

 

I always recommend a GP to write  a prescription for all items and I would ‘sort things out at my end’.

Errors on their part in working out if something was cheaper ‘off prescription’ include:-

 

 working from trade/ out of date prices rather than retail prices. Prices can fluctuate quite violently and a book that they often use only gives an indication to price. 

 

not knowing what exactly the legal status of a drug was, ie was it available to buy over the counter.

 

some drugs can be bought over the counter for certain  ailments but not others and certain applications but not others. For example, hydrocortisone cream cannot be sold for application to the face so in this instance, even though it can be bought quite cheaply, it cannot be for the face so a prescription would be needed.

 

It used to be frustrating when a patient came in and said can I have a pack  X for condition y and I’d say either ‘no’ or ‘yes but it’s gonna cost you a lot more than a prescription charge’.

 

I have heard the argument that pharmacies should charge the full prescription charge as the payment is not just for the drug, but for the whole service.

 

At one time and I’m not sure if this is still true now  but the prescription charge is not a random figure, it’s half the cost of the  average drug item. I hope that’s clear, so if the prescription charge is 9.00, then the average cost to the NHS is £18.00.

 

And before anyone starts, the prescription charge is a levy, the pharmacy does get that money, their fees is nothing like a the cost of a prescription. 

Probably much more to add but it’s getting late

 

 

[J. S. Bach]

6 hours ago, AndyID said:

Number plates (licence plates in the US) are, as far as I know, only issued by the state guvmints. The plates in Idaho used to be rather nice with raised letters stamped into an aluminum plate and they were made by prison inmates.

The Federal Gov't has their own series by agency that are used nationwide and suffice at the state and local level the same as the plate(s) on your car. Note that some states use front and rear tags, some, like here in SC, only use a rear tag.

 

Also, collecting expired plates is a big hobby, especially since each state may have a hundred or more varieties. A complete collection of one of each current tag in service could very well approach several thousand; fifty-two states and several territories (Puerto Rico, for ex.).   I have a few tags myself, but mostly ones that were issued to me; I still have my first from CA:

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, figworthy said:

 

I'm struggling with that concept.  Could you explain it in more detail ?

 

Adrian

Do you have the rest of the month free?

 

I don' t require any more pannier tanks in 7 mm scale, at the moment. But, should they release a 16xx,  which would be used a bit to the east for FoD duties, or as an Abercynon based loco for working the Treforest Trading Estate traffic, then I would be forced to commit finance in that direction.  Likewise, a 34xx for the Creigau quarry turn.

 

Both Danemouth and br2975 would approve of such  additions to the stud.

 

 

[J. S. Bach]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

@PupCam Puppers is also available.....

So, move to Idaho!

[J. S. Bach]

7 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

I don' t require any more pannier tanks in 7 mm scale, at the moment.

Neither do I, I already have one; in GREEN!

[J. S. Bach]

18 minutes ago, Erichill16 said:

Evening All,

Without quoting anyone in particular a few observations on prescription charges.

Just checked where I work, approximately  1.5% of prescription items are paid for, 98.5% we don’t take a charge for

This may help to explain why. 

https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/prescriptions-and-pharmacies/who-can-get-free-prescriptions/

 ...snip...

My Medicare supplement insurance includes free (to me) mail-order 90-day supplies of tier 1 and tier 2 drugs.

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[BR60103]

Ontario Licence plates are exclusively government supplied. In the time I've had a car, they have been of the non-expiring type, getting a little sticker with the date each year.  The current government stopped that when, just before the last election, they removed the charge for renewing (and refunded the previous 2 years worth). But you still need to renew and print out a certificate. Recently introduced were police cameras that can look at a plate and check its status.

Some plates issued a while back started to lose the paint. This happened on our motorhome, but it was too old for a free replacement. It's illegal to repaint the plate yourself.

The same government changed the plates to what some thought were the party colours. This was nick-named the Q-Tip scheme.  This was abandoned when the police reported that the numbers were difficult/impossible to read at night.

 

(How many will read this before it's suppressed as political?)

 

[AndyID]

7 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

The Federal Gov't has their own series by agency that are used nationwide and suffice at the state and local level the same as the plate(s) on your car. Note that some states use front and rear tags, some, like here in SC, only use a rear tag.

 

Also, collecting expired plates is a big hobby, especially since each state may have a hundred or more varieties. A complete collection of one of each current tag in service could very well approach several thousand; fifty-two states and several territories (Puerto Rico, for ex.).   I have a few tags myself, but mostly ones that were issued to me; I still have my first from CA:

 

We used ours to decorate the deer fence around the veggie beds 😄

 

(That's not quite as daft as it might seem. The reflective paint on the plates acts as a warning to the wildlife and reduces the chance they will crash into the fence and injure themselves.)

[AndyID]

4 hours ago, BR60103 said:

(How many will read this before it's suppressed as political?)

 

 

I'm not sure pH will care that much 😄

[polybear]

8 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Of that 8 years most of it was in the British legal system. The ECHR part was the last two years and of course set a precedent for any further deportations. The appeal to the Strasbourg court wasn’t over his cat it was whether or not the conditions in an American super max jail were an abuse of human rights. They decided they were not. 
That is where he now resides. 

 

I was kiddin' about the cat (though I suspect you realised that) - though it seems he tried just about everything else known to man to avoid deportation.

As for a Super Max Jail being an abuse of human rights, I suspect 99.99999999999999999999999999999% of the British Population really couldn't give a sh1t when it came to him - we just wanted rid as he was a very, very nasty piece of work and costing us a fortune (£M's, literally).

It seems his seven sons are less that model citizens as well:

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10404417/Seven-sons-hook-handed-hate-preacher-Abu-Hamza-criminals-extremists.html

 

Does that achieve Rant status?

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

I was kiddin' about the cat (though I suspect you realised that) - though it seems he tried just about everything else known to man to avoid deportation.

As for a Super Max Jail being an abuse of human rights, I suspect 99.99999999999999999999999999999% of the British Population really couldn't give a sh1t when it came to him - we just wanted rid as he was a very, very nasty piece of work and costing us a fortune (£M's, literally).

It seems his seven sons are less that model citizens as well:

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10404417/Seven-sons-hook-handed-hate-preacher-Abu-Hamza-criminals-extremists.html

 

Does that achieve Rant status?

I think if I wanted somebody prosecuted for a heinous crime, I'd want them dealt with in the USA.

 

Were I to be prosecuted for a heinous crime, then my preference would to be dealt with in the UK.

[skipepsi]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

I was kiddin' about the cat (though I suspect you realised that) - though it seems he tried just about everything else known to man to avoid deportation.

As for a Super Max Jail being an abuse of human rights, I suspect 99.99999999999999999999999999999% of the British Population really couldn't give a sh1t when it came to him - we just wanted rid as he was a very, very nasty piece of work and costing us a fortune (£M's, literally).

It seems his seven sons are less that model citizens as well:

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10404417/Seven-sons-hook-handed-hate-preacher-Abu-Hamza-criminals-extremists.html

 

Does that achieve Rant status?

It is a quote from the Daily Fail of course it is a RANT.