Early Risers.

[PupCam]

11 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2021/03/29/toward-the-unknown-region/

 

Irrespective of anyone's political views (let's not go there!) why oh why do the media persist in asking  unanswerable questions?  

 

e.g. "were asked by Sophia Sleigh of the Evening Standard asks the PM if he can categorically rule out a full lockdown?"

 

I would suggest you stupid <insert favourite type of cake spelt with 4 letters the first and last of which might be "t">  that no one can categorically rule anything out or in, in case you hadn't noticed we are still in the middle of global pandemic!!!  

 

The fact that politicians try to placate them and not just tell them TSTFU is just as indefensible.  

 

In my opinion, the media have an awful lot to answer for.

[Mike Bellamy]

7 minutes ago, PupCam said:

Sad to report that a post on the Jampot forum (AJS + Matchless Owners Club) last October that Pat has recently died.

 

I have to say when I acquired my bike ~ 4 years ago I was amazed at the availability of spares still available for bikes which ceased manufacture ~ 55 years ago from the very active Owners Club.  My wallet was even more amazed, no terrified, that not 6 miles from where I live there is another very knowledgable, friendly chap (indeed a marquee expert) who sells a vast array of useful bits and pieces to help keep the old girl chugging who is only too keen to pass on his knowledge to newbies like myself  

 

Thanks Pup - I had been searching for info myself and had just found the same obituary that you quoted. I left the Bank 25 years ago and now recall being told that Pat and Ron were moving from Derbyshire to Lincolnshire following retirement. I was pleased to hear that the work they started with the Spares Scheme has continued - I know Pat would tell me about various parts they were having remanufactured and at one time I passed on a chain guard to a friend who was a volunteer at the Festiniog Railway and he got one of their metal bashers to make a few exact copies. Although she had her own AJS at home (250cc Lightweight) her daily ride to work was a BMW and I think Ron had a BMW as well.

.

 

[tigerburnie]

G'night all

[Barry O]

An appointment with the Draclettes tomorrow so...

 

Goodnight all!

Baz

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. A bit late this evening been ploughing through my Farcebook groups. The tear and share cinnamon bun is no more and I didn't have to share it either . Now to catch up on the rest of Farcebook.

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

Why do those little splits in the end of your thumb (that usually start just underneath your thumb nail) hurt so bl00dy much??  Especially when you get one in each thumb at the same time

I've been dealing with that too, in the same spot on each thumb (top inside corner of the nail). At one point I bandaged them up so I would stop picking at them, which only makes it worse. They're almost, but not quite fully healed at this point.

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

Well I could have done some gardening today, despite the dark clouds developing, it stayed dry and the sun eventually shone this afternoon. Anyway, the day in the cellar wasn’t wasted, as both chairs have now been sanded down and are ready for the first undercoat. 

 

After tea I set up a fruit tea loaf, be setting off to complete the Sainsbury’s Grand Prix, most people were wearing their masks properly, but there’s always one who thinks the rules don’t apply to them isn’t there?

 

This I was giving the turntable drive mechanism some thought and I’ve been thinking about adopting a drive belt instead of gears. It will mean I’ll have to machine 2 pulleys, one for the motor shaft and one to go on the bridge shaft. However, when I cut the hole in the base board, I didn’t throw away the centre, I kept it as I thought “that might be useful one day”. The resulting ‘waste disc’ is just over 300mm diameter and if I make the pulley for the drive motor around 30mm diameter, this would give me a reduction ratio of roughly 10:1. The dc motor I’m using is rated at 12v, but I’m running it at about 2.5v. So I may be able to increase the supply voltage a bit, possibly to 6v which may give me smoother running. I’d need to source a drive belt, but I think this warrants further investigation. 

Edited March 29, 2021 by BSW01

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[BR60103]

13 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

The weight of water in ponds is sometimes under estimated at around 1kg per litre.

Our water supply is measured in cubic metres.  I did a little math and figured that a cubic meter of water weighs a metric ton (1000 kg). 

Our water softener measures in gallons.

 

[BR60103]

We had our jabs this morning. A very efficient operation.

We  should be able to have our follow-ups in four months.

 

[Ozexpatriate]

14 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

The weight of water in ponds is sometimes under estimated at around 1kg per litre.

 

1 hour ago, BR60103 said:

Our water supply is measured in cubic metres.  I did a little math and figured that a cubic meter of water weighs a metric ton (1000 kg). 

It's not an accident.

 

The relationship between measures (linear and volume) and mass was based on water, just like Celsius* for temperature.

 

1ml == 1g of water and occupies 1cm^3

1l == 1kg of water and occupies 1,000cm^3

1kl == 1t of water and occupies 1m^3

 

It takes 1 calorie (cal) to raise the temperature of 1ml of water by 1°C.

1 calorie = 4.184J

 

The calorie is Metric, but is not an SI unit. It is a remnant of the old 'cgs' (centimeter-gram-second) Metric system essentially replaced by 'mks' (metre-kilogram-second) SI units which are much more effective when electrical phenomena (with the base unit Ampere) are included.

 

It takes 4.184kJ to raise the temperature of 1kg of water by 1°C. This is a Calorie == 1kilocalorie or (kcal)

 

Food labels in the US use the "Calorie" (meaning kilocalorie or kcal) rather than the more proper SI unit of joule.

 

* In SI Units, the base unit is the kelvin (K). Celsius is considered a derived SI unit. Weirdly (as it is based on a name) it is capitalized when spelled in full, unlike kelvin (K), joule (J), pascal (Pa), volt (V), watt (W) etc.

 

Edited March 30, 2021 by Ozexpatriate

[polybear]

7 hours ago, pH said:

My theory is that the bedsheet, with nothing else to weigh it down, was randomly blocking the grille inside the drum, cutting off the airflow out through the hose, then falling off and restoring the flow. 

 

 

 

Not sure about Driers, but washing machines are happiest when there are several items inside so they can bounce 'em around a bit during the spin cycle until the drum is somewhere approaching balanced. Driers spin a lot slower so I imagine this is less crucial.  Beary guesses:

Are the drum bearings ok? (can you wiggle the front of the drum up and down and detect any movement - even a small "clunk"?)

Are the damper rods (and springs) supporting the drum ok?  This'll mean delving into the works to check - I'm guessing a bit here and basing the design being similar to a washing machine drum - I've never had cause to delve into a drier.

Has one of the feet under the drier come unscrewed?

 

7 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

Our first house when we moved in together was in Purston mid way between the Travellers rest and the White House pubs. The White house was a Sam Smith's pub it was more like going into some ones front room for.a.drink than going for a pint. Better than The Railway in Knottingley even the pool.ball stopped rolling when you walked in.

 

Bear recalls a pub in Yeovil called "The Royal Marine" (now closed IIRC) - we walked in there one lunchtime and the whole place stopped and looked at us like we were the Drug Squad...

 

7 hours ago, PupCam said:

......there is another very knowledgable, friendly chap (indeed a marquee expert) who sells a vast array of useful bits and pieces to help keep the old girl chugging who is only too keen to pass on his knowledge to newbies like myself  

 

A marquee:

 

 

A marque:

 

Hat, coat, gone....

 

6 hours ago, PupCam said:

 

Irrespective of anyone's political views (let's not go there!) why oh why do the media persist in asking  unanswerable questions?  

 

e.g. "were asked by Sophia Sleigh of the Evening Standard asks the PM if he can categorically rule out a full lockdown?"

 

I would suggest you stupid <insert favourite type of cake spelt with 4 letters the first and last of which might be "t">  that no one can categorically rule anything out or in, in case you hadn't noticed we are still in the middle of global pandemic!!!  

 

The fact that politicians try to placate them and not just tell them TSTFU is just as indefensible.  

 

In my opinion, the media have an awful lot to answer for.

 

Journalists are failed authors....

 

In other news:

Bear woke at 03:10am, and gave up trying to get back to sleep at 04:50 so decided to get up.  Will the neighbours be p1ssed if I start using the B&D Planer in the back garden to skim the bottom off the bathroom door at 6am I wonder?

 

Apart from the door I have a small area of kitchen wall to paint - the bit behind the washing machine.  I'll also ponder boxing in the pipework behind the washer too....

[chrisf]

Greetings one and all

 

The nice lady giving the weather forecast on the radio is trying to entice me into the garden.  How could she possibly know how much needs to be done there?  In terms of the weather, today would be much better than some.  It will be interesting, though possibly alarming, to discover just how poor my stamina is.  The amount that needs to be done by way of excess foliage removal looks frightening and probably is.  The first objective is to find out what if anything remains of my strawberry plants.  They have been surprisingly hardy in the past but last year was not their finest, with no more than eight titchy fruits being harvested in total and all at once.  My father would despair of me.  He enjoyed gardening and was good at it.  I remember my good intentions when I moved in here 40+  years ago.  I borrowed a sledgehammer and took it to the concrete.  My copy of the seductive Readers Digest tome "Food from your garden" was inspirational for a while until the garden fought back.  When you sow a whole row of carrots and only one comes up there is clearly a message - "don't mess with me, sunshine".   A hearty breakfast is required - porridge, garnished with wheat germ and runny honey and half a dozen prunes.  I know of no food that counteracts cowardice.

 

Best wishes to all

 

Chris

[TheQ]

13 hours ago, polybear said:

 

Bear's first ever Pizza:

 

December 1985, Ristorante Casa d'Italia - Lytham St. Annes.  Bin there... One of my favourites, First visit about 88 /89, I'll eat any pizza not containing Anchovies or olives..

 My first ever company jolly - and a first ever stay in a Hotel (the St.Ives - I got the room that had a bl00dy great 5" cast Iron pipe running thru' it from ceiling to floor - all I got was the sound of clinkers bouncin' thru' it every time a bog was flushed on the floor above.  Plus it was close to the indoor pool, so I got the smell of chlorine too.  F. delightful). Yep stayed there many times, Booked in by the company , I had no choice.. The hotel was a prime example of how not to convert an old Hotel pre having facilities in every room.. I think I may have had the same room on one occasion.. Certainly I was in one where they'd converted the next room for facilities.. Bog in one corner, Bath in another sink on an opposite wall.. You could have played football  in between.. Even had a flat to myself out the back once, I had to be up there during a party political or something like that and that's all that was available...

 

 

 

I do enjoy a pizza.. But sadly that carbo hydrate base is no good for me, I'm surprised the UK equivalent, a Trencher, hasn't become popular..

[STONECOLDSMILE1882]

ChrisF, it sounds like your hearty breakfast is a certain cure for constipation! Best of luck with the gardening, I’ve got that gardening ‘pleasure’ at the weekend, although hopefully mine will be helped along by a large cooked breakfast....fingers crossed. 

[Barry O]

Ey up!

I will check the on line appointments calendar before venturing forth to see the Draclettes in the Marie Cleste. Sadly the management side of our GPs Surgery is not of the best (although the surgery manager thinks it is brilliant).

 

I have a parcel to prepare and post then I will walk down to the surgery. 

 

It is supposed to get to 20°C here today...flipping eck! Should I wear flip flops and shorts to go out??

Have a good day! @chrisf.. no more provaricating JFDI... you will feel better for it.. honest!

Baz

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from, what promises, to be a rather warm Charente.  Yesterday got very warm, I was even so bold that I put a pair of shorts on when I headed off to work on Cluckingham Palace.  The horse in next doors garden didn't appear to be offended at the sight but Harry the pheasant has obviously taken fright.   The frame for the inner door was made and the first drop of wire installed.  Just a door to make and 5 more wire drops.  Beth cut the lawn (Weed patch) and I made a lamb curry with the remains of the roast lamb from Sunday.  That went down well and afterwards we enjoyed the evening sun and sat out on the bench.  It would have been rude not to have a second glass of red.

 

Gardening is not a pleasure for me though Beth has turned out to be very green fingered with many veg produced last year.  .

 

Anyway today is J or jab day.   We have to report to the surgery at 10.45 to be chipped.   Bill will be able to track us after that.  Paracetomol has been advised by the Doc.   Not a lot is planned over the next two days but we will have to see.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

 

 

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl, Inner Temple hare,

Took ages to get to sleep brain wouldn't shut up, then got about 4 hours + 1 ish.. not good.

Ben the Reluctant Collie was not happy at going out in the dark again... Just a splash and dash back in, after much encouragement to go out in the first place..

 

I say dark, it wasn't actually that bad, full moon to the west, and a bright red glow to the west.. Not a cloud in the sky, no wind for the first time in ages..

 

Travelling around it was most noticeable that the big hotels generally put company booked people in rooms out the back or buried in the interior of the hotels. The only time I got a sea view front of hotel room, which was much better quality, was in the depths of winter. I much preferred when we were booked into small family run hotels, which never happened at Lytham.

 

Traffic has been much busier this week especially at going home time, School avoiding routes have returned to the programme.

 

Yesterday the Boss and me cooked up some lies for the objectives, unfortunately two will actually require some work, funnily one is almost the same as one of his.. Prepare information for whoever takes over the job when we retire..

 

During the above this weeks major equipment was doing an automatic cal run, which it's just completing now.. Meanwhile one of those temperature meters has turned up,  So that's Thursdays work spoken for.

 

I've selected a planform for the rudder, simple, easy to construct, now just to select a foil shape. It's down to four , unless something else turns up while I do further research on the Four.

 

The Automatic run is almost complete

 

Time to pay attention to work..

 

 

 

 

[New Haven Neil]

Morning, and 10c on Fraggle Rock could be the sign of a decent day at last, as the wind (outside) has subsided.

 

No ferries today, the sea is empty apparently.  Tides and the silt levels in the Big City harbour have co-incided with departure times, and we don't want the Ben-my-Chree doing an Ever Grounded.

 

Tank is on his way to work on the garden hard bits, pointing/resetting slabs, so I had better get a wiggle on.

[iL Dottore]

Good Morning All,

Still not quite adjusted to having had the clocks moved forward, so I was up at my usual time - which is an ungodly hour now. But at least I get a chance to read the latest ER postings.

 

Regarding the various culinary “adventures” of various ER members. De gustibus non disputandum est it is true, but such tales do reinforce the notion - held by many Europeans (and probably by all of the French) - that outside of a few parts of London, Britain is a gastronomic wasteland. Certainly, a lot of the British popular press (and much on UK centric social media) give the impression that many Brits regard a passion for food, good quality ingredients and excellent cooking to be the preserve of the “posh” (something Jamie Oliver found out when he tried to improve school meals) or “funny foreigners”. This inverse snobbery is rather ironic, given that the best rated cuisines of the world (French, Italian, Indian, Chinese and Japanese) are largely based on peasant/poor people’s cooking. Opera and Classical Music also seem to suffer from the same inverse snobbery in the UK, yet there’s many a Milanese Taxi Driver who can wax eloquent on the the Divas that perform at La Scala. Opera not being the sole province of the wealthy in Europe.

 

Also, ironically, it is claimed that - physically at least - it is hard to tell the difference between a British Aristocrat and a British Commoner due the centuries old tradition of impoverished aristocracy marrying the daughters of the emerging (and rich) “middling classes”. Unlike on the Continent where even today it is claimed that there is a distinct “look” about European Aristocrats not shared with their commoner compatriots.

 

Having said all that, I wonder how much is down to the fact (puts on Captain Cynical spandex) that big manufacturers find it easier and more profitable to flog frozen fish fingers rather than fruits de mer; rap rather than Rachmaninov... The great American showman, P.T. Barnum, had a very apt opinion about this sort of thing....

[PupCam]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

A marquee:

 

 

Hat, coat, gone....

 

It's part of my plan for "All Weather" biking - Puppers hates getting cold and/or wet

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Up early this morning, nothing to do with Arthur Itis who is quiet at the moment. 

1 hour ago, chrisf said:

Greetings one and all

 

The nice lady giving the weather forecast on the radio is trying to entice me into the garden.  How could she possibly know how much needs to be done there?  In terms of the weather, today would be much better than some.  It will be interesting, though possibly alarming, to discover just how poor my stamina is. 

 

Chris

 I have found that my stamina levels seem to have dropped, whether it is just old age or the enforced home detention or something else. In my case it could be too many late nights, its unusual for me to be in bed before midnight.  

[Joseph_Pestell]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

Good moaning from, what promises, to be a rather warm Charente.  Yesterday got very warm, I was even so bold that I put a pair of shorts on when I headed off to work on Cluckingham Palace.  The horse in next doors garden didn't appear to be offended at the sight but Harry the pheasant has obviously taken fright.   The frame for the inner door was made and the first drop of wire installed.  Just a door to make and 5 more wire drops.  Beth cut the lawn (Weed patch) and I made a lamb curry with the remains of the roast lamb from Sunday.  That went down well and afterwards we enjoyed the evening sun and sat out on the bench.  It would have been rude not to have a second glass of red.

 

Gardening is not a pleasure for me though Beth has turned out to be very green fingered with many veg produced last year.  .

 

Anyway today is J or jab day.   We have to report to the surgery at 10.45 to be chipped.   Bill will be able to track us after that.  Paracetomol has been advised by the Doc.   Not a lot is planned over the next two days but we will have to see.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

 

 

 

One of the great joys of the Covid crisis is discovering that the experts know nothing. Your doctor is advising paracetamol. Only yesterday, a local doctor here (Perpignan) was advising against it unless the jab provoked symptoms. It's hardly surprising that with constantly conflicting advice and poor messaging, so many people are not following the "rules".