The Night Mail

[rockershovel]

6 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

I must admit I am not a fan of the turkey 'bacon' found in some Muslim countries. I find chicken frankfurters OK but efforts to make substitute bacon all seem awful. 

It was common in Azerbaijan, revolting stuff. Referred to as "pyjama bacon" because it came in strips with evenly distributed pink and white stripes. 

 

One of the hotels I stayed in, I think the Kempinski had a "British breakfast" consisting of boiled or poached eggs, smoked salmon, toast with butter and marmalade, cereal or porridge and orange juice. They also did "Finnan haddock", or kedgeree which was all rather good. Breakfast or Earl Grey tea on request. 

 

If you wanted a REAL treat they offered beef sausages with mashed potato and onion gravy for dinner, or beef steak and mushroom pie...

 

 

I do recall a quite pathetic attempt at breakfast on BA from Tehran to LHR in 2005 or so. There's nothing so simple that BA can't pinch the pennies and spoil it, and that extends to Business Class. They have a general practice of loading planes once for the return flight, which can mean short Commons all round on the homeward leg. 

[jjb1970]

If there's one thing I like about China (and there are many) it's the obsession with pork. I remember reading an article by a green NGO person about their plans to stop the Chinese eating pork, to which my reaction was good luck with that.

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

When my late father in law was serving in the RA(TA)  during WWII, one of his fellow gunners named Sid, was Jewish. Sid was quite aggrieved that he couldn't indulge in the tinned bacon/pork that was a staple of combat rations.

 

He saw the Rabbi, and explained he was being short changed in the rationing department, so the Rabbi, quite sensibly, gave Sid an immediate, written dispensation, which permitted him to eat all pork products.

 

When he was demobilized at the end of the war, Sid conveniently held onto his written dispensation!

There was a bit of a fuss in Tel Aviv a few years ago when several top end restaurants started serving what was called 'white beef'. It was in fact pork and the (mostly Jewish) patrons were fully aware of the fact.

[jamie92208]

5 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

Just won £150 on Premium Bonds. Now, what can I spend that on?

 

Dave

If you do have trouble it would buy me an inside valve gear kit for my unbuilt compound, just a suggestion. 

 

Jamie

[Dave Hunt]

4 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

The line on which it would be based actually ran between the house I was born in and the gasworks mentioned by Brian earlier.)

 

I assume that a line between your house and a gasworks was to take away the pachyderm effluvium to be used in methane extraction?

 

Dave

[jamie92208]

14 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

There was a bit of a fuss in Tel Aviv a few years ago when several top end restaurants started serving what was called 'white beef'. It was in fact pork and the (mostly Jewish) patrons were fully aware of the fact.

Some years ago I was the liaison officer for a group of senior Indian Police officers, two of whom were high cast Brahmins, most were Hindu plus a couple of Sikhs. One cold October lu chime the canteen served up stew and dumplings. I was asked what it was and told them. I also told them that it was one of my favourite winter dishes. Every one of them tucked in heartily. 

 

Jamie

Edited May 4 by jamie92208

[J. S. Bach]

5 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

Just won £150 on Premium Bonds. Now, what can I spend that on?

 

Dave

I think that one of these would be just fine:

[Dave Hunt]

When I was involved with training Saudi Tornado F3 crews at Coningsby, instead of living in the Officers' Mess they were allocated quarters housing, four to a house. They were also allocated cleaners for the houses (well, the Saudis were paying) and one of the cleaners told me that there were more whisky bottles and empty bacon packets left lying around than she had ever seen before.

 

Dave 

[Dave Hunt]

1 minute ago, J. S. Bach said:

I think that one of these would be just fine:

 

 

Aaarghhh, now I'll have to spend it getting my eyesight restored!

 

Dave

[Happy Hippo]

15 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

I assume that a line between your house and a gasworks was to take away the pachyderm effluvium to be used in methane extraction?

 

Dave

What do you think we used the murky canal feeder for?

[polybear]

2 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

The Muslim majority either avoids it or indulges themselves (as with the western world and religion many people are nominally Muslim but basically non-observing).

 

When Bear was staying in the same UK Hotel as a fairly large group of Kuwaiti Military I was amazed at just how many of them were neckin' the Beer.

 

26 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

When I was involved with training Saudi Tornado F3 crews at Coningsby, instead of living in the Officers' Mess they were allocated quarters housing, four to a house. They were also allocated cleaners for the houses (well, the Saudis were paying) and one of the cleaners told me that there were more whisky bottles and empty bacon packets left lying around than she had ever seen before.

 

Dave 

 

Drunk in charge of a Tornado......

[Winslow Boy]

7 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Our Grandfathers may well have known each other, as my Grandfather, who during the day was driving fuel tankers around,  was a 'firewatcher' and was often over at the gasworks.

 

Fortunately, for the rest of the family, one night when he was not on duty, as he had been on a late shift, a raid started and an incendiary bomb came through the roof of the house and started a fire on the half landing.  The family were all hiding 'under the stairs' directly below the fire.  My grandfather picked up the incendiary bomb with his bare hands and dropped it into a bucket of sand.  Despite being burned, he then ensured the small blaze that had started was extinguished.

 

If he had not heard the incendiary come through the roof and hitting the floor of the landing, then the house, and possibly most of the terrace, would have gone up in flames.

 

When the house was being refurbished in the early 70's, the builders exposed the place the incendiary had ignited and asked about how all the charring of the timbers in the staircase has occured. 

And just think there wouldn't have been a Hippo either.

[Happy Hippo]

27 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

And just think there wouldn't have been a Hippo either.

That,  is wishful thinking.

[New Haven Neil]

Late to things today, sorry.

 

just one addition to the comments about sinking ships yesterday - JJB summed it up nicely - but every single person lost on the Derbyshire was British.  All officers and crew.  And almost me, but that's another story I have mentioned before.  But the apathy of the British public was just the same.

 

My next door neighbour at the time also worked for LR, and spent a lot of time flying about the world looking at damaged ships - mostly bulk carriers.  There was one in ..... Tubareo, JJB? ..... that split in half at the berth while being loaded. 'nuff said.

 

 

 

[PhilJ W]

56 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

My next door neighbour at the time also worked for LR, and spent a lot of time flying about the world looking at damaged ships - mostly bulk carriers.  There was one in ..... Tubareo, JJB? ..... that split in half at the berth while being loaded. 'nuff said.

I couldn't find anything on the Tubarao on Google but I came across this from a few years back.

https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2021/02/02/cargo-ship-breaks-in-half-off-turkey/

[zarniwhoop]

Well, this has been an interesting day - started sunny, but fortunately it clouded over for a while around 8 a.m. (that meant I could read the monitor for my main PCs without the sun reflecting on it).

 

More interestingly, when I eventually got out to the local Weight Rose (a small branch, nothing custardy to tempt @Grizz ) they were out of almost everything I was looking for except some Italian wines - il Giro (cycling) started today so I'll be mostly eating and drinking in the Italian style for the next 3 weeks, although probably not in a way that @iL Dottore would recognize or approve of (so, no cigars 😄). Yes, sourdough Pizza and some more Nebbiolo tonight!

 

Then I went to the local Saint's buries - got most of what I wanted - at last they've got some English asparagus (Tess' had it more than a week ago). And to my immense surprise they had some more Sanguinelli (Spanish blood oranges) - I looked in on Wednesday, neither Tess', who've generally had some, nor Saint's whose supplies have been iffy, had any so I thought that was it. Fortunately I already had a small stockpile. If they were cake I'd have to put them under lock and key, but I guess they're not sweet enough for @polybear or @Happy Hippo so I'm probably OK.

 

Last week there was mention that JS claimed most people were now shopping in person - apart from their issues with their computer systems for deliveries, I suspect the reason is that you never know what they will actually have available on any day.

 

In other things, probably boring to most of you, I'm finally getting back to look at computer fonts - starting by trying to assemble some Greek 'greek text' (aka dummy text - our old friend lorem ipsum). Starting with a transliteration of the debased latin lorem ipsum, but the source I found had some latin letters such as Q,q,C,c,J,V,v in it. Very odd. But I needed to edit it anyway (I want to review how a variety of fonts look when used for modern (monotonic) Greek, so I'm adding accents and Greek semi-colon · and Greek question mark ; - like a middle-dot and our semi-colon if those don't show up).

 

It's been months since I looked at that, but it is now gradually coming back to me when I'm trying to sleep / when I'm half asleep, and even when I'm dreaming.

 

Happy Days!

[SM42]

9 hours ago, Tony_S said:

My car had a bit of a present yesterday. It got topped up with the E5 super duper Shell instead of the normal E10. Qualified for £5 off so not too bad a mistake. At least the pump nozzles don’t  allow diesel to be put in! 
It was really quiet out today. Huge car park outside M&S Food was quite empty. Screwfix car park was too, and it only took a minute to collect my DiY bits and pieces that I had ordered online.  No queue in the pharmacy either. 
Perhaps everyone had gone away for the weekend. 
Tony

 

Mrs SM42's ride is always filled with super. 

It's about 5% dearer but hje car goes 10% further per litre so my man maths says that's a good deal.

 

It's also a lot nippier. 

 

Quote from Mrs SM42 when I first put some in," What have you done to Henry? ( for that is his name.)  He's gone silly."

 

We are currently  part of the weekend away set.

 

I am currently  looking out over Manchester as I type, just back from the pub down the road where proper beer is available and it doesn't cost the earth.

 

We've been on a coach trip to the lakes which we had bought us for Christmas and it started from Manchester, so we've made a weekend of it. 

 

Just hoping there are some trains home tomorrow. It is a Sunday so might be a bit hit and miss

 

Andy

[Tony_S]

15 minutes ago, SM42 said:

Mrs SM42's ride is always filled with super.

Aditi had a Renault Clio that only ran nicely on  super unleaded. Her  Ford Fiesta isn’t at all fussy. Both our cars normally get fuelled with Shell E10 from our nearest garage. 
Aditi refers to the S setting on my cars auto gearbox selector as S for Silly. 

[Dave Hunt]

It can now be revealed that this evening I made two lemon drizzle cakes for a church social tomorrow. For security reasons this could not be revealed until the cakes had been transported under cover of nightfall to a secret location where they will remain until official consumption time. The storage premises are guarded by personnel from CC Industrie’s special security force trained in anti-ursine and pachyderm measures.

 

Good night All.

 

Dave

[SM42]

19 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Aditi had a Renault Clio that only ran nicely on  super unleaded. Her  Ford Fiesta isn’t at all fussy. Both our cars normally get fuelled with Shell E10 from our nearest garage. 
Aditi refers to the S setting on my cars auto gearbox selector as S for Silly. 

 

I find Mrs SM42's ride works well in Day mode,   wont move in the dark in Night mode and when you put it in Race mode it goes backwards. 

 

Andy

[Tony_S]

15 minutes ago, SM42 said:

 

I find Mrs SM42's ride works well in Day mode,   wont move in the dark in Night mode and when you put it in Race mode it goes backwards. 

 

Andy

Does it have a P mode as well?

[SM42]

6 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Does it have a P mode as well?

 

Yes but we aren't sure what that's for.

 

It might be a variation on S

 

Andy

 

 

[AndyID]

A slightly odd request:

 

Would anyone happen to have a sketch of the dimensions of 7mm scale Bullhead rail available in the UK, possibly Peco? It's a wee bit unobtainable over here. I think I can 3-D print some rather convincing turnouts and I'm happy to share the models with anyone who wants to give it a shot.

 

I can make it work reasonably well down to 4mm/foot but I think at 7mm it would not be easy to tell the difference from injection molded parts.

[iL Dottore]

10 hours ago, zarniwhoop said:

Well, this has been an interesting day - started sunny, but fortunately it clouded over for a while around 8 a.m. (that meant I could read the monitor for my main PCs without the sun reflecting on it).

 

More interestingly, when I eventually got out to the local Weight Rose (a small branch, nothing custardy to tempt @Grizz ) they were out of almost everything I was looking for except some Italian wines - il Giro (cycling) started today so I'll be mostly eating and drinking in the Italian style for the next 3 weeks, although probably not in a way that @iL Dottore would recognize or approve of (so, no cigars 😄). Yes, sourdough Pizza and some more Nebbiolo tonight!

Bravo Signore! The effort is appreciated by your fellow Gastronaut. For a tasty, quick-to-prepare but filling snack/nibble/light meal, may I recommend piadina (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piadina_romagnola) filled with salumeria from Emilia Romagna - such as mortadella or salame felino, or from Tuscany (such as finocchiona). The best piadina are cooked in front of you and served warm. You can get fairly decent factory produced piadina (some are better than others) but the important bit is they need to be served warm (due to the lard in the piadina dough). They can also be filled with Nutella or marmellata for a sweet fix.

 

ION

After 3 sleepless nights in a row - thanks to a number of middle-of-the-night-emergency-poo runs with Lucy (once I had to take her out twice in one night!) - I finally got some decent sleep - albeit plagued by some seriously weird dreams.

 

I don’t recall much, except for two fleeting images: one was finding the first class lounge at London City Airport closed because of a “terror threat” at Migros (a Swiss supermarket chain), the other was a dalliance that took place in a café with a “baby wall”: young mums would put their sprogs into sturdy romper suits made of strong velcro and fix the sprog onto the “baby wall” (also made of strong velcro) allowing the young mums to do… well whatever young mums do when freed of sprog maintenance for a while.

 

As I said, weird.

 

Finally, through my verein I know both a Sunni and a Shia muslim (who, surprisingly given the traditional antagonism and animosity between those branches of Islam, get on very well with each other) and both will not touch pork, but both can (and do) drink the bar dry.

 

Originally, I had concluded that the prohibition against pork (and alcohol) came about for health reasons (e.g. pork can cause trichinosis), but more recently I read a more convinced ng argument that posits such prohibitions are all about creating in-groups (us: the good guys) and out-groups (them: the bad guys).

 

So it goes!

[iL Dottore]

7 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

It can now be revealed that this evening I made two lemon drizzle cakes for a church social tomorrow. For security reasons this could not be revealed until the cakes had been transported under cover of nightfall to a secret location where they will remain until official consumption time. The storage premises are guarded by personnel from CC Industrie’s special security force trained in anti-ursine and pachyderm measures.

 

Good night All.

 

Dave

Currently, in an undisclosed secure underground location somewhere in the Swiss Alps, preparations are underway for the production of one of iD’s chocolate chip cakes. Upon completion, the cake will be taken by Mrs iD, accompanied by Schotty and Lucy, to the deserving recipient.

 

A Word Of Warning: Lucy and Schotty take their guard dog duties seriously, anyone unauthorised trying to get cake will end up in a world of hurt!