Early Risers.

[Horsetan]

Not if he buys one of his beloved Citroens .

There is also my collection of kits...

[NGT6 1315]

Gin and Tonics in the fridge for Sandy when she gets home. All I have to do is make sure the camera, tripods and so on are all together.

 

 

That could be misunderstood, just sayin' …

[Ozexpatriate]

I was amused and distracted (for a short while) this morning by a news story on the US Social Security Administration's announcement of the top 10 baby names for 2016. Their website is fun to tinker with. Of course this is for the United States. Tastes for names in the UK will be different.

 

My own popular (or should that be commonplace) name remains in the top 10. (Of course I wasn't born here, so I don't contribute to the data.) For many years it was a fixture in the top spot and was still in third place as recently as 2010. Since then it dropped a bit. Name popularity can be traced here. (EDIT: actually the name popularity menu on the main page has more options.)

 

The contemporary penchant for Old Testament names (Noah, Jacob, Elijah, Ethan, Benjamin) continues to intrigue me, particularly given the absence of New Testament names bestowed by people with at least an historically Christian background. It's an interesting window into American Protestantism. Girls' names are completely different. Girls' names are chosen to sound nice rather than traditional.

 

Of the New Testament apostolic names (Peter/Paul, James/John, and their lesser popular brethren like Andrew, Philip, Thomas, and Simon, and I'd include Stephen though not an apostle) and Evangelical names (Matthew, Mark, Luke) that were so very common in my cohort, only James retains a high degree of popularity in the US today.  It's something I find intriguing. Society is a fascinating construct.

Edited May 12, 2017 by Ozexpatriate

[AndyID]

B#gger, damn & blast!   Another call from the car surgeon to say that they've now spotted a broken spring. I'm surprised I hadn't noticed anything wrong but I'll take their word for it as I've been using them for 7 years and have always had great service and reasonable charges. 

That has now put a dent in the muddling budget.

Good that they found it. You wouldn't want it to eviscerate the tyre at 70 mph. Will they replace the spring on the other side too? Might be best if they do.

[RhBBob]

This mention of odd socks/shoes reminds me of the Christmas when I received two pairs of slippers, one from each side of the family albeit that SWMBO's lot gave me ones a size too small....

 

Not wishing to offend (ah, those were the days !) I descended the stairs very slowly wearing one of each...

 

 

At this point, the expression 'break a leg' springs to mind   thank goodness for the stout banister rail.

[lightengine]

Yesterday a big sign appeared beside the road in front of our house.. "Mobile Works" it said.. and guess what mine did. Apparently Pat and mick had there stop/go signs out while the cats eyes were removed from the middle of the road. They have also painted little signs outside the drive with the Keep Clear area marked.....mmh guess we are in for some serious road works...have we been informed by Leeds City Council of the  impending road works...no. Have our illustrious local Councillors said anything...no...brewery, pi$$ up therein, organise...no chance ...

 

Rant over

 

Bit grey here at the moment so off to the MRS to do a bit more track weathering

 

Baz

Mine worked for well over a mile.

[RhBBob]

Good that they found it. You wouldn't want it to eviscerate the tyre at 70 mph. Will they replace the spring on the other side too? Might be best if they do.

 

Good advice !  Long ago, to break a spring meant immediate disablement of the vehicle, wherever you are (two Pug 306s).  Obviously advances in vehicles mean that doesn't happen now (Pug 307).

 

Oh, we now have a Peugeot 308.

[Tony_S]

I got a letter this morning informing me I could apply online for my state pension now. It said to get various bits of information before starting so I did. As I have a Government Gateway ID and password I assumed that would be all but I have to wait a week for a specific Pensions access code to be posted before returning to the online system. This is to prevent anyone appropriating a pension allegedly.

I have just received an email reminding me to look for a letter.

Do they have similar hoops to jump through for those who apply by telephone or filling out a form?

[The Stationmaster]

Evening all,

 

An excellent conclave was duly held in the City (assuming the Princess is within the bounds and the omnibus on which I travelled from Paddington was destined for Bow Church although no bells were heard).  A goodly time was had by all although the mental arithmetic with the combined bill led to some serious thinking and study of beer prices in order to arrive at an appropriate division of the our subscriptions.  I do wonder what they think of us as this time we were shoved upstairs - better class of table it seemed. 

 

My trips on trains of the GWR variety all ran punctually and a nice cuppa was duly consumed inward bound while it was orange juice on the return from the metropolis.

 

Now I see Ashers has hatched a very complicated plot plan with her holimoon plans for herself and Ian as she has no doubt sussed that 'Great Rail Journeys' (once known, long ago, as Mac's Tours) recruits its couriers from the ranks of retired railway staff, often of the more senior variety.  Thus Ian will find that he probably knows, or at least knew someone who knows, their courier/'group leader' and the recruitment process will be set in chain thus ensuring reduced price holidays for years to come; truly clever stuff there Ashers.  And an excellent itinerary too although I've not done the Selketal Bahn but have been to most of the other places on the list.  Wernigerode is a smashing little town and the ride up to the Brocken is most enjoyable and I can thoroughly recommend the chair lift ride up from Boppard that is mentioned in the link.

 

Here then is the rathaus (town hall) in Wernigerode to give you an idea should you get a chance to venture further into the town.

 

Enjoy the evening everybody.

 

 

 

 

 

[grandadbob]

Car collected earlier and new brake pads and 1 spring fitted. GDB is now rather poorer than earlier. There seems to be two schools of thought about replacing one or both springs. I'm quite happy to trust the garage on this. I do a very low mileage and rarely get onto motorways these days. They thought the most likely explanation was speed humps and that makes sense as we are plagued with them around here. I do treat them with care but have been taken by surprise a couple of times with bigger than usual humps.

 

I'm not sure if my knee is titanium or not but it sets off the scanners on boarding cruise ships. In March when I embarked at Southampton I ended up going through the thing three times and having to take off my belt and shoes as well before they let me on.

 

Time for another beer. 

[Rugd1022]

Lovely picture Mike, one word springs immediately to mind.... Fleichman...!

[Judge Dread]

Why do you have your wife's two hip joints.

I wish to make a "No comment" reply to that question. A down side of having a metal heart valve fitted is that I have to take Warfarin to thin my blood and that means I bruise very easily.  

[AndyID]

There seems to be two schools of thought about replacing one or both springs. I'm quite happy to trust the garage on this. I do a very low mileage and rarely get onto motorways these days. They thought the most likely explanation was speed humps and that makes sense as we are plagued with them around here.

 

A speed hump was probably the straw that broke the camel's back (here we go again) but I would guess corrosion was the real culprit. Once you get a bit of pitting on a spring the stress tends to concentrate at that point and Bob's your uncle, or more likely your Grandad.

 

If they gave the other spring a thorough inspection you should be OK.

 

EDIT: Incidentally, I never heard of a spring failing on a VW beetle. Anyone? The torsion springs were very well protected in tubes.

Edited May 12, 2017 by AndyID

[laurenceb]

This mention of odd socks/shoes reminds me of the Christmas when I received two pairs of slippers, one from each side of the family albeit that SWMBO's lot gave me ones a size too small....

 

Not wishing to offend (ah, those were the days !) I descended the stairs very slowly wearing one of each...

 

 

At this point, the expression 'break a leg' springs to mind   thank goodness for the stout banister rail.

Reminds me of the bloke whose wife gave him a blue tie and a red tie for christmas. he put on the blue tie whereupon his wife snarled at him "whats wrong with the red one"

Evening all

[pH]

Footballers have taken to wearing different coloured boots, of course. I always wondered if it helped them to differentiate right from left

 

Mal

I have a pair of soccer socks marked "L" and "R". Despite close inspection, I can't see any difference between them.

[emt_911]

Today was one of those good news, bad news ones.

 

Good News - All the jobs went to plan
Bad News - There were a lot of them

 

Good News - I managed POETS 14:00
Bad News - It took me three hours to get back from Reading

 

A relaxing evening being an ER again in the morning for out of hours work.

 

Back later

[Ozexpatriate]

I have a pair of soccer socks marked "L" and "R". Despite close inspection, I can't see any difference between them.

Other than the "L" and "R" markings presumably.

 

Have you tried wearing them the 'wrong' way?  I have some compression socks so marked. There are appreciable differences in fit, but they are not too obvious looking at them.

Edited May 12, 2017 by Ozexpatriate

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone

 

I managed to escape just after I'd finished my cup of tea. Next stop was the model shop in Preston, where upon I found that they had a sale on, 25% of all Hornby and Bachmann trucks and coaches. So I purchased 3 trucks for myself, I don't need anymore coaches just yet, I'm waiting for the Bachmann SECR coaches to come out. Once I'd made my purchases, I thought it best to go and do a bit of work, so I did, but only a BIT of work.

 

As is the norm for a Friday night, we had 4 of the grandkids round for tea, as well as No 2 son. Later on our daughter and SiL came round to pick their kids up and stopped for a while, which was nice.

 

We have Eve stopping over tonight, she has just been bathed and is now tucked up in bed.

 

Oooh goody, it's now wine o'clock.

Edited May 12, 2017 by BSW01

[Coombe Barton]

News from the panic front.

 

Panic subsided. Not sure how. They're setting up the reception.

 

It's been pi55ing down here , so the final vaccing of the car will be a tomorrow job.

 

Now nicely outside a pasta, mushroom sauce and pan fried cod mix (i.e. whatever was left in the fridge) and quite mellow.

 

Dogs fed and relishing having the sofa to themselves to spread out on.

 

Gin and Tonics (cans) in the fridge to mellow SWMBO's return. Fortunately the ceremony is not until 2pm, so time to recover and do things. Cameras checked, new feature found on tripod so all set.But I've mislaid the remote for the cams - so care will be needed.

[New Haven Neil]

Our Swizzerland trip was with Great Rail Journeys, and as Mike says, was led by a retired scots railwayman called.....Ian!  Nice feller, involved in preservation too.  Highly recommended firm, we had a great time, but the age demographic was.....rather older than us ( I was 50 at the time - hell, 8 years ago!) - a lot!  Despite the information clearly saying you were responsible for porting your own luggage, several on the tour were standing about waiting for help - and looking at us.  Toughers, we had our own to carry.  This arose from time to time, a few gentle words were had by Ian with a few of them, he was very discrete.  We were less so - on a 'free' day we realised several were following us as 'we knew what we were doing' so we did a couple of very quick platform changes!  One couple followed us to Dumpo Domodossola in Italy, then asked us 'why we were there -what's on?'......Trainspotting.....nearly died laughing at their faces.

[roundhouse]

A good 1 hour stop in the Princess Louise for a chat with those who were there. Shame that I couldnt stay longer but would have been missed at work. Then it was a quick trip to take photos of the completed project then back to the office.

Also managed POETS as my boss had gone by 3.30 and the other director wanted to go to the pub at 4pm.

 

Haircut in Bognor tomorrow.

 

I wonder whether my CT scan on Monday will get postponed with whats happened with the NHS computers being hacked today

Edited May 12, 2017 by roundhouse

[laurenceb]

As I "see" left and right backwards different coloured socks seem like a good idea, just have to remember to put them on the right feet!

[roundhouse]

Our Swizzerland trip was with Great Rail Journeys, and as Mike says, was led by a retired scots railwayman called.....Ian!  Nice feller, involved in preservation too.  Highly recommended firm, we had a great time, but the age demographic was.....rather older than us ( I was 50 at the time - hell, 8 years ago!) - a lot!  Despite the information clearly saying you were responsible for porting your own luggage, several on the tour were standing about waiting for help - and looking at us.  Toughers, we had our own to carry.  This arose from time to time, a few gentle words were had by Ian with a few of them, he was very discrete.  We were less so - on a 'free' day we realised several were following us as 'we knew what we were doing' so we did a couple of very quick platform changes!  One couple followed us to Dumpo Domodossola in Italy, then asked us 'why we were there -what's on?'......Trainspotting.....nearly died laughing at their faces.

I remember my first trip to Domodossola to catch a FART to Re and back.

 

Re in 1986

Edited May 12, 2017 by roundhouse

[Ozexpatriate]

As I "see" left and right backwards different coloured socks seem like a good idea, just have to remember to put them on the right feet!

Some socks are woven with a contrasting toe panel. For socks that are asymmetrical and fitted to a foot, you'd think they might do different coloured toe panels to make them easier to identify.

[New Haven Neil]

I remember my first trip to Domodossola to catch a FART to Re and back.

 

That was what we ended up doing - FART-ing.  Dumpodossola was....a dump.  We had thought of spending the day in the town, went to Locarno on the FART instead.