Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905

[Annie]

3 hours ago, Ian Simpson said:

 

Although it was quaint, so thanks for posting. 

Anyway, hope Reg. will enjoy this more:

 

I like her clothes too.  Apparently she makes all her historic garments herself.

[Regularity]

I love the way people dressed back then. I know they were into covering up and being modest. But there is a sensuality about it that I find quite intriguing and alluring.

[rocor]

4 hours ago, Regularity said:

As with the other one, I can see what they are trying to do.

 

It is just that, they are not very adept at doing it.

 

They have come up with good ideas, that could have produced some really humorous content, if only it had been executed somewhat more creatively. 

[Nearholmer]

If you look at her other stuff, she’s an historical fashion/clothing specialist first and foremost, and a not too brilliant comedienne second. If she does indeed make all her own kit, she is one smart seamstress.

 

Ah, here is the griff https://thevintagewomanmagazine.com/an-interview-with-karolina/

 

 

Edited December 3, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Northroader]

I suppose Modelu ought to link up with her?

[Edwardian]

2 hours ago, Annie said:

I like her clothes too.  Apparently she makes all her historic garments herself.

 

Ah, La Zebrowska, I find myself utterly charmed by her. Not entirely sure that an Edwardian lady would express surprise at our contemporary world with phrases like "super mainstream", but YouTube demotic American-English is doubtless a second language for her!   

 

36 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

If you look at her other stuff, she’s an historical fashion/clothing specialist first and foremost, and a not too brilliant comedienne second. If she does indeed make all her own kit, she is one smart seamstress.

 

Ah, here is the griff https://thevintagewomanmagazine.com/an-interview-with-karolina/

 

 

 

Via which link I note that her book, sadly currently out of print, includes "Sto Lat" in the title.  Well, that got my attention.

 

According the the interweb: Sto lat is a traditional Polish song that is sung to express good wishes, good health and long life to a person. It is also a common way of wishing someone a happy birthday in Polish.

 

Fancy that!

 

Every day a school day.

[Compound2632]

54 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Via which link I note that her book, sadly currently out of print, includes "Sto Lat" in the title.  Well, that got my attention.

 

According the the interweb: Sto lat is a traditional Polish song that is sung to express good wishes, good health and long life to a person. It is also a common way of wishing someone a happy birthday in Polish.

 

Fancy that!

 

Every day a school day.

 

Simply "a hundred years". Nothing to do with cabbages, other than it being Polish. I've long been curious as to what Sir Terry's Polish connection can have been.

[Annie]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Ah, here is the griff https://thevintagewomanmagazine.com/an-interview-with-karolina/

Yes I remember reading that interview a while ago now and was impressed by it.  As someone who is very much interested in modest, but elegant fashion it definitely struck a chord. 

[monkeysarefun]

4 hours ago, Regularity said:

I love the way people dressed back then. I know they were into covering up and being modest. But there is a sensuality about it that I find quite intriguing and alluring.

 

I like this picture of Bondi Beach, everyone in  their beach wear which looks exactly the same as their promenading along the pier gear so how can they tell them apart in their wardrobe? 

 

I'm interested in the lady in white down towards the bottom - has the photographer cottoned on to the fact that she's wearing one of those Lady Di style see-through when the sun shines through it skirts, or has she accidently tucked her dress into her undies?

 

 

 

9 hours ago, Ian Simpson said:

Far enough. I feel the same way about Michael McIntyre.

Jeez I went to school with Michael McIntyre! He got kicked out in year 9 for stealing a girls gym bloomers and throwing them into a tree, a couple of years later someone hit him in the head with an axe.

 

Last I heard was about 15 years ago that he was in jail on drugs charges. So whats he been up to lately then?

[Nearholmer]

13 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

stealing a girls gym bloomers and throwing them into a tree, a couple of years later someone hit him in the head with an axe.

Revenge is best served cold?

[Andy Hayter]

On 02/12/2021 at 22:18, monkeysarefun said:

 

I had a 4 day powercut, with the added bonus that being on tank water the electric pump didn't work so I had no water either... Not being able to flush stuff adds yet  another dimension.

 

 

 

 

 

I have had no water (19 days without mains water when the main froze - house OK just no mains water.  The worst daytime high was minus 17C).

I have had no electricity (just 50 hours after heavy snowfall in November brought down trees in full leaf across the power and telephone lines*.)

Both together must be very challenging.

 

*Slight bit of irony here because being very high up we have been vulnerable to lightning strike, so the main feeds to the village had been buried.  The damages were lower down the mountain where there was "no risk".

 

The problem with protecting such infrastructure is - as always - the cost benefit.  It might be practical to bury cables to 100 buildings over a 5km section but is it then still beneficial to extend another 5km with three phase to an individual farm and associated buildings?

[alastairq]

TAlking to the engineers who were putting our [my?] cables underground this summer, it seems underground cables are also much cheaper to maintain, than overhead cables.

In 'normal' circumstances, using modern plant machinery, underground cables are also very quick & easy to lay.

The issues my village faced were geological one's, which confounded the normal contractor tendering process [the first bunch simply gave up when the contract money ran out...luckily, when they'd actually got the line across the main road...and not halfway across!]

 

This left the Powergen bunch to 'pick up the pieces'....

One issue I noted with the way these jobs were organised was the limitations placed upon the engineers themselves, as a whole.

Instead of being [allowed to be?] jacks-of-all-trades, so to speak..there were 'underground' engineers, 'overhead' engineers, and various others in the mix as well.

Thus, when one lot had completed their stage, they had to wait until another type of engineer could arrive to continue.....Often the various different 'engineers' would have been allocated more 'urgent' jobs 60 miles away, by an office that simply had a target of getting jobs 'done'..or to be seen to get jobs done', instead of liaising properly with folk on the ground as to who & what were needed.  The fella with the platform truck would be there one day...but diverted the next, just when they were needed. 

Thus the whole job proceeded in fits and starts...and took weeks overall, instead of the actual couple of days all-out work it could have taken.

I wasn't inconvenienced at all by the work....nobody was left without power, aside from the one occasion where we had plenty of 'warning'....and were compensated as the job took a lot longer than they'd planned for...the issue being the overhead supply to a farm a mile or so away, which created knock-on issues with half the village's supply.

 

I would suggest one of the problems engineers have had to face, when trying to access the more remote power lines, might be one of ''unsuitable tyres?''

Foisted upon the front line folk by managers who actually knew less about the issue than they wanted their superiors to believe?

[Nearholmer]

21 minutes ago, alastairq said:

it seems underground cables are also much cheaper to maintain,

True, as in no maintenance at all for decades, if they are installed well, and nobody accidentally digs them up. The joints are the only vulnerable part, and modern jointing techniques make even those incredibly reliable and long-lasting with no interventions.

 

Geology can catch cable installers out badly, even with good advance research: I was overseeing the installation of a duct route that had to cross a railway, and we had an eight hour possession to open up a trench, install ducts (tubes) and back-fill, then p.way guys re-set the sleepers and hand pack the ballast. A routine job, loads of time. Except that much to everyone’s surprise, including the local p.way crew, once we set to, it became apparent that the sleepers were laid direct on solid sandstone, and the ballast was pretty much “set dressing”. The job was done, but by golly did the lads have to go at it hard (hand digging with picks), and the trench was barely deeper than the diameter of the ducts. It must have been OK, because a particular railway route has been relying on that cable happily for the past thirty odd years!

 

 

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

nobody accidentally digs them up

Ah yes, how one of my previous employers found out that the “fail-safe” back up power generator was not actually working….

[teaky]

21 hours ago, Regularity said:

Ah yes, how one of my previous employers found out that the “fail-safe” back up power generator was not actually working….

Ah yes.  Happened to a previous employer of mine too.

 

Workmen digging a trench near to the data centre, spade through power cable, workman thrown onto his back but OK.  No problem, the emergency generator will kick in as soon as it starts using the battery always kept charged using a trickle charger.  If only someone had checked the 13A fuse! 

[Edwardian]

So, this is Northern Powergrid's live power cut map this morning. The power went off on the night of Friday, 26th November, so these folk are 10 days into their involuntary return to the Middle Ages.  Outside the NPG supply area, I assume there are also still people without power. 

 

 

It's enough to make a ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Regularity]

Northern Powergrid is owned ultimately by Warren Buffet.

 

There are probably worse owners, but since when was it a good idea to sell off national utilities to foreign countries?

Oh, since, the 1979 general election? 
 

“Vote Tory: get power cuts!” A much better slogan for the Labour Party than vicious infighting…

[Compound2632]

All part of the levelling up agenda, I suppose.

[alastairq]

On the plus side, exactly how many of Northern Powernongens' outages listed, are actually within the normal range of powernongens normal daily outages? [Due to works, repairs, new cables, etc etc?]

Or do they ''normally' publish an entirely blank map?

 

How many outages would we have if we had gone over to entirely renewable energy sources?

 

Could too many offshore wind farms actually contribute to greater continental drift?

 

Or do we already have too many frightening events to worry about that little snippet?

[Caley Jim]

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

It's enough to make a ....

 

The peasants will be revolting, again! 

Jim 

[Compound2632]

23 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

The peasants will be revolting, again! 

 

Be careful of your terminology there or you'll have the Armstrongs, Elliots, Nixons, et al. reiving over the border again.

[rocor]

1 hour ago, alastairq said:

 

 

 

 

Could too many offshore wind farms actually contribute to greater continental drift?

 

 

 

 

Having all the offshore wind farms to the east of the country, could have the effect of pushing us further away from the European mainland.

[Nearholmer]

Could careful use of wind farms, and perhaps large kites when the wind is favourable, allow us to move back down the Gulf Stream a bit, to somewhere where the winters are warmer and sunnier? 
 

If so, I’d be in favour.

[Compound2632]

9 minutes ago, rocor said:

Having all the offshore wind farms to the east of the country, could have the effect of pushing us further away from the European mainland.

 

The prevailing westerlies have been pushing the British Isles towards the European mainland ever since the end of the last ice age but not with any great effect. In fact, removing energy from those westerlies by means of wind farms will further reduce even that negligible effect. However, the sea level rises consequent upon global warming will increase the average separation of the British and mainland European shorelines.

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Could careful use of wind farms, and perhaps large kites when the wind is favourable, allow us to move back down the Gulf Stream a bit, to somewhere where the winters are warmer and sunnier? 
 

If so, I’d be in favour.

 

There was a children's book I read back in the 70s and dimly remember, in which an English costal village broke free and drifted off southwards over the equator and finally ended up in the Antarctic ice. The last inhabitant was a cat.