The Night Mail

[Winslow Boy]

36 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

Some years ago in the Gents loos in UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology for the underprivileged) there were printed labels stuck to the walls in the sit-downs above the loo roll holders that said, "Sociology degrees - please take one."

 

Dave

Personal experience or you know someone whose second cousin was on talking terms with the janitorial staff at the said establishment?

[Dave Hunt]

54 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

Personal experience or you know someone whose second cousin was on talking terms with the janitorial staff at the said establishment?

 

Personal experience; they were gold Abel Labels with black lettering. 

 

Dave

[Winslow Boy]

55 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

Personal experience; they were gold Abel Labels with black lettering. 

 

Dave

Clearly before my time as when I attended they were green with purple lettering, but I suppose each generation likes to discover 'old things' either that or there was an offer on for green labels.

[Tony_S]

46 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

when I attended they were green with purple lettering,

Were those not the Suffragette colours?

[J. S. Bach]

The above reminded me of a sign on the bulkhead (at eye level) in one of the heads onboard the USS KITTY HAWK CVA-63 that stated:

"if you can p!$$ above this line, the special fire-fighting team needs you."

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[rockershovel]

My good wife was never an enthusiastic traveller, but happy to travel as long as she didn't have to organise anything, navigate or drive (outside UK, at any rate); no camping and no sleeper trains. Her various tribulations of recent years have quite extinguished whatever flame there was and I no longer bother to suggest it. 

 

I travelled widely for work and (mostly) enjoyed it, but there were quite a few places I was happy not to return to. 

 

Top of the list, Sub Saharan Africa. I had a few enjoyable stop-overs but on the whole, nope.

 

The North African littoral, particularly Tunisia could be good fun, but that has changed greatly in recent years. I missed out on a contract with BP in Algeria in 2010 which ended in guns and helicopters, not sorry to have missed that. 

 

I dont care for the Far East. Don't like the heat and humidity. 

 

I've heard very various things about South America. I did have a highly enjoyable stop-over in Argentina, when i was involved with Rock Hopper. My cousin did two deployments to Belize and loathed it. I did have one trip to Venezuela and it wasnt much fun. On the whole I tend to feel that I've missed that bus. 

 

I'd like to see more of the US and Canada.

 

Japan was fascinating. 

 

I had a good time in the Caspian region. Especially Azerbaijan. 

[polybear]

8 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

And on the warning cones in the Gents at Lime Street station that had the legend WET FLOOR on them, someone had added, "Please note this is not an order."

 

Dave

 

At the Great Empire there was a spate of bog wall poetry in one of the cubicles, starting with:

 

"Here I sit, broken hearted....about to download when Taccy Bell started"

 

Soon afterwards the HoD put a sign up, stating that he was most dismayed that seemingly intelligent people could be defacing the wall in such a manner...."and would those individuals please desist (that means stop it)"

 

- To which someone wrote underneath:

 

"B*llocks"

[jamie92208]

On 23/04/2024 at 06:53, pH said:

Five cars carrying scrap ties on fire in CPKC train passing through London, Ontario:

 

https://x.com/jmccall54/status/1782261594501554619

 

That is amazing.  I presume that they had brought the train to somewhere that thr fire brigade could access it. 

 

Apart from a lot of black Locos with big furnaces in them that I saw in my youth the nearest I ever got to seeing something like that was seeing a Class 47 heading north from Settle with dragging brakes on the loco. The tyres were glowing red. 

 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

The gents in the Union at Nottingham Uni had some good scribblings. 

 

To be or not to be.  William Shakespeare, 

To do or to be. John Paul Sartre

Do be do be do.  Frank Sinatra. 

 

Was one. 

 

Jamie

[rockershovel]

My good wife is off at my daughters for  a few days, so I get the TV remote. 

 

Flipping round the video channels I saw "Oh What a Lovely War" ... wasn't Angela Thorne a delicate English rose in those days? 

[Winslow Boy]

8 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Were those not the Suffragette colours?

Oh we're not that behind the times here in Manutopea. We have that new fangled invention eletrickery now and now that they've miniaturised the valves for the radiogram we'll going to have one in every room.

[SM42]

I sit here waiting patiently for the plumber to arrive to change a leaking radiator valve.

 

He's my regular man, but sometimes his diary arrangements can be hit and miss, so I'm hoping today is not one of those miss days. 

 

Still, I've nowhere to go and have jobs about the house to do. 

 

Andy

[Happy Hippo]

Some kind farmer spread quite a large amount of slurry around his fields yesterday.

 

One of the pleasures of living in the countryside are the delightful smells that occasionally waft through the atmosphere.

 

Although my sinuses have new been well and truly cleared out, it is advisable to keep the windows and doors shut for a few days whilst the atmosphere stabilises once more.

 

However, like road repairs, I do wish the local farmers would coordinate their efforts, because I can guarantee that life will just settle back to normal, then the chicken farm will decide to do their annual guano clearout.

[Oldddudders]

3 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

To be or not to be.  William Shakespeare, 

To do or to be. John Paul Sartre

Do be do be do.  Frank Sinatra. 

I recall reading that on a 4-SUB compartment wall. Underneath a dismissive reader had added "Pseudo-intellectual crap"

[jamie92208]

2 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

I recall reading that on a 4-SUB compartment wall. Underneath a dismissive reader had added "Pseudo-intellectual crap"

I Bought a T shirt  in Athens  with it on then got my pocket picked on the metro. 

 

Jamie

[Winslow Boy]

18 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Some kind farmer spread quite a large amount of slurry around his fields yesterday.

 

One of the pleasures of living in the countryside are the delightful smells that occasionally waft through the atmosphere.

 

Although my sinuses have new been well and truly cleared out, it is advisable to keep the windows and doors shut for a few days whilst the atmosphere stabilises once more.

 

However, like road repairs, I do wish the local farmers would coordinate their efforts, because I can guarantee that life will just settle back to normal, then the chicken farm will decide to do their annual guano clearout.

Being a Hippo isn't complaining about 'fresh country air' a bit like calling a kettle black.

[SM42]

Houston. 

 

We have a plumber. 

 

What we don't have is a valve of the right size.  It turns out he needs one for a larger diameter pipe than he thought from memory

 

Still it's only a half a mile to the shop. 

 

Andy

[BSW01]

I suspect getting the plumber was the hard part. 

[PhilJ W]

This popped up on Twatter now called X this morning.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/algae-evolution-agriculture-plant-history-b2533698.html

Interesting stuff watching evolution in action.

[SM42]

And we're all done

 

40 minutes ago, BSW01 said:

I suspect getting the plumber was the hard part. 

 

It can be a bit hit and miss getting hold of him, but he always calls back. 

 

Used him for years. 

 

Andy

[Dave Hunt]

We have the same situation, The plumber we use responds very quickly should we have an emergency and is reliable for annual servicing as well as being reasonable with his charges. The only snag is that getting him to attend for non-urgent jobs is sometimes a pretty drawn-out process; for instance, we have a partially blocked radiator that needs attention but so far it has taken four months for him not to attend.

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

Off to the pharmacist shortly to have an earwax removal job, which will be only the second time I’ve ever needed it. Old age I guess (tomorrow will be my Sunset Strip birthday).

 

TTFN

 

Dave

[Tony_S]

2 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

for instance, we have a partially blocked radiator that needs attention but so far it has taken four months for him not to attend.

Years ago before we had the new boiler our old system was a bit prone to clogging. So,I thought I would take the big radiator from the lounge and flush it in the garden. It was only as it was coming away from the wall that I realised just how heavy a large double radiator was. Also no matter how well I thought I had drained it there was still some sludgy drips escaping. It isn’t a problem now but I am not doing that radiator again. Perhaps a smaller one, but the cleaning and sludge management routine seems to make anything more involved unnecessary. 

[Tony_S]

9 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Off to the pharmacist shortly to have an earwax removal job, which will be only the second time I’ve ever needed it. Old age I guess (tomorrow will be my Sunset Strip birthday).

 

TTFN

 

Dave

It is all high tech now, no syringes.