The Night Mail

[Dave Hunt]

I have taken a somewhat middle ground approach and replied stating that I do not have the time to reply fully to his queries, nor do I have the wherewithal to copy the drawings for him. I have reiterated my advice to buy the book. 
 

Dave

[Oldddudders]

Some of us come here - RMweb - to learn and perhaps share. Others come to rob and pillage. Ideas, facts, skills. May his socks rot. 

[Dave Hunt]

The roofers have now finished roofing but the surrounds and garden resemble the Somme in 1916 and the loft has the look of an indoor version so they are returning tomorrow to clean up. Jill has made amends to Horace with some gourmet catfood and is currently involved with shampoo, powder and paint in readiness for our meal out this evening so all is bliss on the domestic front and by this time tomorrow we should have habitable property once more complete with a waterproof top. Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

 

Dave 

Edited February 21 by Dave Hunt

[GMKAT7]

Good afternoon Sqdn Ldr,

 

You could fall back on a saying we have in Coventry - you could ask him if he likes sex and travel 😅 

To which the reply is Yes, good then f%&k off!

 

Cheers, Nigel.

 

[J. S. Bach]

1 minute ago, Dave Hunt said:

The roofers have now finished roofing but the surrounds and garden resemble the Somme in 1916 and the loft has the look of an indoor version so they are returning tomorrow to clean up. Jill has made amends to Horace with some gourmet catfood and is currently involved with shampoo, powder and paint for our meal out this evening so all is bliss on the domestic front and by this time tomorrow we should have habitable property once more complete with a waterproof top. Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

 

Dave 

That does not sound too appetizing there, sir!

[Northmoor]

3 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

I have taken a somewhat middle ground approach and replied stating that I do not have the time to reply fully to his queries, nor do I have the wherewithal to copy the drawings for him. I have reiterated my advice to buy the book. 
 

Dave

I'd also have given him some advice concerning sex and travel.  Which may explain the rate of promotion during my career.

 

Mr Wright on the other thread has often referred to people who bring along locos for him to repair at shows.  The people who give him five to bring to life - which takes him about two hours - then give him two quid for CRUK, are usually the ones selling those locos on a stand elsewhere at the show.  Rissoles.

Edited February 21 by Northmoor

[Dave Hunt]

2 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

That does not sound too appetizing there, sir!

 

Indeed! I should have known that some of you lot would read it that way. I have now amended the post to avoid such ambiguity.

 

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

7 minutes ago, GMKAT7 said:

Good afternoon Sqdn Ldr,

 

You could fall back on a saying we have in Coventry - you could ask him if he likes sex and travel 😅 

To which the reply is Yes, good then f%&k off!

 

Cheers, Nigel.

 

 

2 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

I'd have given him some advice concerning sex and travel.  Which may explain the rate of promotion during my career.

 

Mr Wright on the other thread has often referred to people who bring along for locos to him to repair at shows.  The people who give him five to bring to life - which takes him about two hours - then give him two quid for CRUK, are usually the ones selling those locos on a stand elsewhere at the show.  Rissoles.

 

The more polite response I have heard of is to ask him if he would kindly visit a taxidermist.

 

The sex and travel version is somehow more appealing though.

 

Dave

[Tony_S]

1 minute ago, J. S. Bach said:

That does not sound too appetizing there, sir!

I did for a moment, just a moment, assume that the carpets were being shampooed,  and some redecorating carried out before going out for the meal, which I thought was very impressive. 
We are going out for lunch tomorrow with friends in a village called Stock. It is halfway between our house and where our friends live. We normally meet more often but our friends have been taking it in turn to be incapacitated by illness and injury this winter.

We used to vary our place eat but have been to the same place probably since Covid restrictions stopped. I know we are supposed to choose food places by the menu but the place we go to has a big carpark. As a bonus the food and drink selection is fine.  
Tony

[Happy Hippo]

Dave must not forget that copying the relevant pages, and then sending them to someone else, is a breach of copyright.

[DaveF]

This post wasn't really going to be written but for some reason the system decided I wanted to quote something and it won't let me go away.

 

So just to say I agree with Dave Hunt, it's like the requests I get for photos from time to time, especially when I know that the person asking is trying to get a freebie which he then publishes elsewhere.  I now usually ignore requests of that nature but still respond to people who are prepared ask for permission and tell me exactly they would like to use the image for and who give me links to things they have previously done.  A recent example is someone who was making a YouTube video with movie and stills about one of the loco classes of the Rhätische Bahn in Switzerland who gave me links to his earlier work and has since sent me a link so I can see exactly how my images have been used - and it is an interesting programme and I am delighted he could use my photos.

 

David

Edited February 21 by DaveF

[New Haven Neil]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

Dave must not forget that copying the relevant pages, and then sending them to someone else, is a breach of copyright.

 

But when he's the author???

[Happy Hippo]

28 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

But when he's the author???

I have been doing some research into a small part of the Barry Railway.  It is a long drawn out affair, and I've received lots of assistance, including from the late Chris Foren, and our very own br2975. I was also in communication with Brian P Mills over this, and he was quite happy for me to use his photos, especially as it was for a potential article for the WRRC, and not going to be 'for profit.'

 

Sadly Brian Mills died before I'd clarified which pictures I required, so although I have them in my possession and tacit 'permission to use', I still need to gain proper permission to use the pictures from the person who now owns the copyright, and the publisher* where the pictures have appeared in a book.

 

(*Brian had said to contact his publisher and mention he'd given permission; they would check back with him, and then I'd get the official ok.  This saves potential grief and aggravation.)

Edited February 21 by Happy Hippo

[Dave Hunt]

The biggest copyright sharks used to be a well-known publisher of railway books who would claim copyright simply on the basis that they had a copy of a particular photograph in their collection, even though it may actually be a railway company official. I and most other authors just ignored them.

 

Dave

[Northmoor]

Many years ago in the earlier years of a certain loco preservation group, we had a particular young (still maybe 19*) member who would copy large blocks of text from the group website and reproduce them on his own "Why I love trains" website (it wasn't called that but might as well have been), uncredited and without permission.  As these selected quotes taken out of context implied the group might do things we wouldn't and vice versa.  Our Secretary and webmaster asked him politely to, if he was going to lift text from the group website, at least put that text in quotes and name the source.

 

After several reminders, he eventually complied but then added some rather sarky comments about the text he was quoting, so the Sec asked for him to remove all text.  Again, he was reluctant and pleaded that "Hardly anyone reads my site so what are you worrying about", and got quite irritated when he was reminded how copyright law worked, insisting that it was all public domain and therefore copyright law didn't apply.  Eventually the Secretary lost all patience, sending him some links explaining copyright law and the internet, with notice that unless he removed the material requested, future communication would be via a solicitor.

 

At this point "Hardly anyone reads my site so what are you worrying about", became "Your and the group's reputation will be at risk when I write about how I've been treated, on these very powerful URLs of mine".  Of course like most threats from keyboard warriors; after cancelling his membership we never heard from him again.  I think he's in the USA these days, bothering people in the rail industry.

 

*You shouldn't judge people by first impressions, but when a 19 year old visits a heritage railway gala weekend in a (grubby) suit, tie and trainers, it certainly creates a first impression.....

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[iL Dottore]

18 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

I have taken a somewhat middle ground approach and replied stating that I do not have the time to reply fully to his queries, nor do I have the wherewithal to copy the drawings for him. I have reiterated my advice to buy the book. 
 

Dave

You’re too nice. There were a number of options you could have taken:

1. Send him a password protected zip or RAR file containing material (any old stuff if you wish) and then “forget” to send the password.
2. Copy and paste some suitable text into DeepL, convert into Japanese (so Midland Railway Locomotives becomes ミッドランド鉄道機関車) and then send him the Japanese text in a read-only locked pdf file (so he can’t copy the Japanese text from the pdf file into a translator)
3. Make a jpg scan of a suitable drawing and in a photo editor remove all dimensions from the drawings and send it on

Agreed, all more effort than a polite reply, but a polite reply doesn’t have an (ahem) “instructional” value, does it?

Edited February 22 by iL Dottore

[iL Dottore]

15 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Some of us come here - RMweb - to learn and perhaps share. Others come to rob and pillage. Ideas, facts, skills. May his socks rot. 

Ian…. Ian…. Ian….

Such a noble, altruistic and idealistic perspective and yet so… unworldly.

 

Don’t you know that some of the finest families in the land originally made their fortunes through robbery and pillaging….

 

No robbery and no pillaging? Whatever next? Votes for Women? Universal Suffrage?

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

• Copy and paste some suitable text into DeepL, convert into Japanese (so Midland Railway Locomotives becomes ミッドランド鉄道機関車) and then send him the Japanese text in a read-only locked pdf file (so he can’t cooy the Japanese text from the pdf file into a translator.
•  

Thanks to the lovely people at Google, text in an image can be translated.  I tried it on an image of Whitechapel station showing Bengali script over one of the entrances . It translated to “Whitechapel Station”. 

[newbryford]

17 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

I have taken a somewhat middle ground approach and replied stating that I do not have the time to reply fully to his queries, nor do I have the wherewithal to copy the drawings for him. I have reiterated my advice to buy the book. 
 

Dave

 

I may have found you a new calling.

 

Do you want a customer service job?

 

[Oldddudders]

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Ian…. Ian…. Ian….

Such a noble, altruistic and idealistic perspective and yet so… unworldly.

 

Don’t you know that some of the finest families in the land originally made their fortunes through robbery and pillaging….

 

No robbery and no pillaging? Whatever next? Votes for Women? Universal Suffrage?

Indeed those families did exactly that. Invading foreign parts, beating skittles of wotnot out of the local 'savages' and shoving the bible up their back-passages. It's what made Britain great. So much to be proud of. 

[Compound2632]

19 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Indeed those families did exactly that. Invading foreign parts, beating skittles of wotnot out of the local 'savages' and shoving the bible up their back-passages. It's what made Britain great. So much to be proud of. 

 

Yes, that describes the Norman conquest moderately accurately.

 

In contrast, in India, the East India Company's army, supplemented at times by regiments of the British Army, was generally up against well-equipped professional armies with French advisers and senior officers.

[Happy Hippo]

Gordon popped around this morning with some Shortbread biscuits. These were consumed with tea.

 

We also finally started on the 009 layout baseboard build.

[TheQ]

Gordon of Khartoum?

[Tony_S]

49 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

We also finally started on the 009 layout baseboard build.

It isa good time to be modelling 009, there are some rather nice loco models and quite a few kits (including 3D printed) for rolling stock available. 

Edited February 22 by Tony_S