Early Risers.

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Surely it’s all down to how effectively you apply the paint to the walls? Presumably, non-professional painters will use more of the stuff than the pros. The other thing is why not consider using a spray gun to paint the walls (an idea for @polybear perhaps?) with a bit of practice, you should be able to get a flawless finish using very little paint - just like with painting model locomotives and rolling stock with an airbrush.

Using a spray gun and with a little bit of skill, I’m sure you could paint the whole house with just 5 L of paint

Good plan, and there was me just going to use a smaller brush.

 

 

 

Edited April 27, 2022 by monkeysarefun

[Ozexpatriate]

4 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Anyway if I had become one one of my most important stories would have been to investigate the links between architects and house designers and "Big Paint", and the home decorating cartels.

 

There has to be one because I can think of no other reason why rooms are designed to need 5.2 litres of paint, or 10.1 litres so you can never get away with just the 5 litre can ...

 

Steve Martin as George Banks: "Father of the Bride"

Quote

And do you wanna know why. Because some big shot over at the wiener company got together with some big shot over at the bun company ...

 

Edited April 27, 2022 by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

and purchased a reasonable gun for doing the job ...

Don't forget the air compressor! (I believe fairly substantial ones are required for house painting.) A friend has one for some garage tools. Handy for inflating tyres too.

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, polybear said:

 

Cos' by the time you've masked everything up that needs masking up (that'll be pretty much everything you don't want paint on) - and purchased a reasonable gun for doing the job (the Humbrol Airbrush doesn't really cut it here) - then the cost of an extra tin of paint is starting to look like a bargain.  In addition, a couple of coats of paint applied by roller provides a much longer lasting finish that'll stand up to being scrubbed to remove any marks etc. in the future.

 

 

Anyway you'd obviously be on top of 3D house printing technology, comes ready coloured

 

although the world doesnt have enough magnolia filament to print UK housing requirements.

 

 

Edited April 28, 2022 by monkeysarefun

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[chrisf]

Last night: HMRS meeting at Bletchley with a talk on the Norfolk and Suffolk Joint and lots of audience participation.  Oh, and biscuits.  Since I more or less gave up bikkies after the diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes, that is the only place where I eat them regularly.

 

Tonight is Stevenage Locomotive Society but I'm still feeling a bit second-hand thanks to the continuing backache so may give it a miss.  I want to be on top form, or at least somewhere close to it, on Sunday morning.  It will be May Day [all together now: Good Morning Lords and Ladies, it is the First of May] and I like to watch the morris dancing at dawn in Ampthill, followed by solid and liquid breakfast in the pub with friends that I only meet once a year.

 

There was more sleep last night than the night before, with less brooding over the ruptured friendship.  Maybe I will try looking back on the good times.

 

Chris

Edited April 28, 2022 by chrisf

[jamie92208]

9 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

When I was little I wanted to be an investigative journalist and mum made me a little trench coat and a hat with a sign on it that said scoop and I would wander the house with a toy camera with a pretend giant flash bulb hoping to get the inside story  on my sister being cruel to the cats and so on.

 

Anyway if I had become one one of my most important stories would have been to investigate the links between architects and house designers and "Big Paint", and the home decorating cartels.

 

There has to be one because I can think of no other reason why rooms are designed to need 5.2 litres of paint, or 10.1 litres so you can never get away with just the 5 litre can, you need to go through the quandary of whether to buy another 5 litres and waste most of it or spend almost half as much to get an extra 1 litre, which still mightn't be enough in which case you'll need to get a second one in which case you may as well get the 5 litre and risk wasting the extra $30 or so.  Same goes for bigger rooms that need 10.1 litres. 

They must be in league with the Ordnance Survey who always conspire to put the town that you need in the corner of a sheet so you need 4 maps to show the surrounding area.

 

Jamie

Edited April 28, 2022 by jamie92208

[monkeysarefun]

10 minutes ago, chrisf said:

Last night: HMRS meeting at Bletchley with a talk on the Norfolk and Suffolk Joint and lots of audience participation.  Oh, and biscuits.  Since I more or less gave up bikkies after the diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes, that is the only place where I eat them regularly.

 

Tonight is Stevenage Locomotive Society but I'm still feeling a bit second-hand thanks to the continuing backache so may give it a miss.  I want to be on top form, or at least somewhere close to it, on Sunday morning.  It will be May Day [all together now: Good Morning Lords and Ladies, it is the First of May] and I like to watch the morris dancing at dawn in Ampthill, followed by solid and liquid breakfast in the pub with friends that I only meet once a year.

 

There was more sleep last night than the night before, with less brooding over the ruptured friendship.  Maybe I will try looking back on the good times.

 

Chris

Its Pixies first birthday if that helps!

 

 

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from the Charente.   Off early to Niort again today for another Physio session for Beth.  The sink saga has been resolved.   I have to install the one I bought.  No victory flags will be raised.   What was it that Churchill said,   In victory magnanimity.   However I am well aware that in marriage a husband may win the odd battle but never the war. I also had a good afternoon trainspotting yesterday.

 

I am hoping to spend an hour or so on the station whilst Beth is in the clinic.   

 

Regards to all

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

Van paperwork.. submitted and copy ready for van collection. Chances of van being ready to go on time?  Low

 

Then it's off to Bristol via Barnsley. @Erichill16if you want to help we should be doing van loading from about 11:15 ish.. just saying like.

 

In other news...well not a lot.. my Teams meeting was cancelled at the last minute, first zoom meeting went well, then we talked with Dr Eldest Herbert.

 

I need to finish my tea and get on with the day.

 

Stay safe!

 

Baz

Edited April 28, 2022 by Barry O

[TheQ]

7 hours ago, Adam88 said:

 

What colour are you going to paint Alexa?

 

[leopardml2341]

12 minutes ago, Barry O said:

 

Then it's off to Bristol via Barnsley.

 

Hmm, now for which of those places will you need most visas...... 🤣

 

Or indeed  inoculations. 

Edited April 28, 2022 by leopardml2341

[iL Dottore]

9 hours ago, polybear said:

 

Cos' by the time you've masked everything up that needs masking up (that'll be pretty much everything you don't want paint on)….

You mean you actually have to mask things in order to spray paint them?
 

Well I never, I would have never had guessed that going by some of the expensive  “exquisite hand-built kits” being flogged by some dealers at model railway shows.

 

Just goes to show, you live and learn….

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Sunny here but a cool 5°C which should rise to 14°C.  A mainly fine and dry day is forecast.

One bin lorry due and of course Sainsbury's at 8.00ish.   Only one substitution today,  a larger pack of sausages than that ordered but they will refund the difference in price with a voucher so that's a bonus. 

Heard some bad news yesterday that our favourite local butcher has closed down due to the lack of business.  We use them occasionally (obviously not used them enough) and their meat is great but they are very expensive.   (Including their sausages but The Boss doesn't like them because they're too big!)

We'll probably go for a walk after breakfast but that's about all the excitement we'll have today.

Have a good one,

Bob.

 

[polybear]

7 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Good plan, and there was me just going to use a smaller brush.

 

A pro painter friend asked Bear once how I managed to get such a straight line between houses on the front of my terraced pebble-dashed house; I told him I dropped a plumb bob from the soffit, marked the walls then stretched a string between two screws. Then I painted close to the string and finished using Humbrol Model-Makers Brush. He thought I was having him on at first, then he realised I wasn't.....
Does take a few hours though....

 

6 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Don't forget the air compressor! (I believe fairly substantial ones are required for house painting.) A friend has one for some garage tools. Handy for inflating tyres too.

 

Unless it's a leccy spray gun, of course.....

 

6 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Anyway you'd obviously be on top of 3D house printing technology, comes ready coloured

 

 

 

,......and twenty years later it's all gone brittle and cracked in the sun.....

Cynic?  Moi??

 

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

Its Pixies first birthday if that helps!

 

 

 

Helped this Bear.....

 

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

 

Bear's Alexa doesn't look anything like that one.  Sadly.

 

Bear here......

Today?  Well after slogging myself half to death washing the Bearmobile a week ago it's now covered in bird, sorry, make that EMU sh1te again 😡.  So this morning sees Bear trimming the bush to the left of the lounge window (it's long overdue) which will allow Bear to park the Bearmobile nearer the house and dodge the worst of the downloads.  Part 2 of the plan involves searching the 'bay for a crossbow.....after first washing off the sh1te.  Again.

[AndrewC]

Good moaning from the boring borough. 

When we had the whole house refurbished 4 years ago (bloody hell has time flown) we decided to do the painting ourselves. Mainly because the builder hated painting and would have hired another to do it at a hefty mark up. Anyway the whole house had fresh plaster so painting should have been easy. It wasn't. Even with a coat of pva followed by a plain under coat of white, the top coat of colour was bloody awful to put down. We used a few custom matched colours from the orange place. Valspar paint is crap. There, I've said it. Goes on poorly and wears poorly. The office, hallway, and stairway all need a refresh already. The slightest knock and the paint seems to rub off back to the white undercoat. Scheckels will be accumulated and used to hire a painter and decent quality paint in the coming months. There was discussion of doing a Mr Bean with some fireworks and large can of paint, but masking the cats would have been problematic to say the least. 

 

Little else to say. I've turned down a reasonable job offer which would in the medium term just be swapping one thing for an identical thing. I'm now concentrating on looking for something with either a compressed week or just fewer hours. The idea of permanent long weekends is becoming more and more attractive. 

 

1 liver but 2 events this weekend. Conundrum time as we've got invites to 2 beery things which conflict. A spring party with new beer launch at a brewery, or a Mexican day complete with mariachi band at a local(ish) micro pub. hmmmm. 

 

Time to pretend to work for the next 8 hours. Enjoy the day. 

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

Another dull start to the day here in England’s northwest, it’s cool as well, currently 6C at the moment. This morning, after I’ve dropped Sheila if at her Zumba class, I’ll post our postal votes then head back home to re-site the wood rack I installed yesterday, as it’s a little too close to the access doorway. It should only take a few minutes to move it, then I can start filling it up, thus clearing the main cellar room floor, which has been a temporary wood store for a few weeks now. I’m hoping this will be finished before dinner.

 

This after Charlie is due to come over to spend a few hours in the workshop with me, as we both work on our 2 very different modelling projects. He didn’t call last week, as he was out the evening before and over indulged a little bit too much. 

 

Back later. 

 

Brian

[Winslow Boy]

9 hours ago, Adam88 said:

 

What colour are you going to paint Alexa?

 

 

Magnolia so she blends in and Mr B will not be able to see her.

 

Hmmm on second thoughts he might overdose on LDC and go with cerise and yellow spots.

 

The possibilities are endless knowing what a creative type he is.

[Mike Bellamy]

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

They must be in league with the Ordnance Survey who always conspire to put the town that you need in the corner of a sheet so you need 4 maps to show the surrounding area.

 

You can now get custom made maps where you specify the central point (home town or holiday destination for example) and Ordnance Survey will then print at the scale requested.

 

https://shop.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/custom-made/

.

[Winslow Boy]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

You mean you actually have to mask things in order to spray paint them?
 

Well I never, I would have never had guessed that going by some of the expensive  “exquisite hand-built kits” being flogged by some dealers at model railway shows.

 

Just goes to show, you live and learn….

 

Sarcasm really iL Dottore from you of all people.

[simontaylor484]

Morning all 

We have had a terrible time in the past painting over fresh plaster albeit with a coat of magnolia on it the wall just sucks the paint In requiring 2 or 3 coats.

For the spare bedroom I used Everbuild filler coat as a base and the magnolia was covered in one coat only problem was that it did smell a bit you definatley have to have a window open 

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. A bad night last night, the eczema was on fire and I had to get up several times to have a pee. All my own fault, drinking tea after seven and eating spicy food. The first is a diuretic and the second almost always sets off the eczema. Now time to run a bath. 

[PupCam]

Morning All!

 

14 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

After Carly became CEO, and the acquisition of Compaq Computers, pretty much the only profitable part of what had become HP* was printers

 

So HP's "printer users" had to bail out the company for it's poor investment decisions when it snaffled up an ailing computer company that couldn't make the grade against its own competition and after that company had also snaffled up another ailing computer company!

 

14 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

and all of that profit was in selling ink cartridges (which do contain electronics).

 

Quite clearly!    That's how they can disable them without representatives of the company breaking and entering your property  (a bit like Smart meters but that's a whole new story).    Perhaps there is a philosophical discussion to be had on whether such methods are actually a form of virtual breaking and entering .....

 

When I finally installed a commercial, 3rd party continuous ink system that did at least give the heap of HP Sh-ite a new lease of life the "cartridges" that formed part of the system included the necessary electronics to convince the printer that everything in the garden was fine and dandy and that nice shiny, new (presumably HP) cartridges were installed.   The only drawback with such systems was that they are by their very nature a tad messy to set up and have the ever present potential for a mess of monumental magnitude.  Oh yes, that ink does not take prisoners!

 

Hmmm,  maybe there's another interesting investigation to be undertaken  to find out what information is exchanged between the printer, the cartridges & most likely the manufacturer and how.  Something to do on a rainy afternoon maybe? 🤔

 

Anyway, I note from a quick Google that the available range of CISS products  is considerably reduced compared with 8 or 9 years ago when I got mine.     A cynical person might think that "some big companies" have been nobbling the "small, after-market companies".   Not me though, of course!

 

Here's an example:

 

 

 

 

11 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

... you realise that you’re living in an area that has posh status when the local Facebook group has a post asking which Au Pair agency people recommend ...

 

So I'm wondering what that says about Puppershire?   

 

Today's Faceache discussion on the village group (in which I am but a passive bystander)  concerns the incessant barking of a number of nearby dogs.   Now, I appreciate that we have a fair smattering of dog lovers in ER but I have to admit to not being one of them.   The inconsiderate owners that live close by that seem to think it is socially acceptable AND acceptable for the well being of the animals concerned to have them barking sometimes for hours on end IMVHO need a serious "talking to" and removal of said animals (and not only for the welfare of said animals).

 

10 hours ago, Adam88 said:

What colour are you going to paint Alexa?

 

🤣

 

Personally, I think she should be drowned in a vat of Silk Magnolia

 

TTFNQ

 

Alan

 

[Pacific231G]

22 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

It has to be male human urine.  For some reason the chemical balance in female urine doesn't discourage them.  It works for us and is a trick I learned from my father who had in his turn inherited it from a previous generation.  

 

It's not a road which overlooks us but the flats above and opposite.  So it's careful use of the enamel jug kept only for gardening purposes when application is required here.  I have tried to get the male student population to assist after their nights out but after emptying various beer barrels they seem to have learning disabilities and directional issues ....... 

When urine was used in the manufacture of gunpowder it was believed that the best sort came from monks with the very best coming from bishops. This may have been more than religious supersitition as the clergy had a better diet than most of the population.  Just a thought. 

Apparently, a good source of salpetre (one of the three constituents of gunpowder (with sulphur and charcoal) was the floors of churches as the congregations were subject to very long sermons and women in particular with long skirts could urinate without it being obvious. I don;t think though there was any gender preference in the resulting quality. 

 

[simontaylor484]

Cynical mode on

 

Blatant profiteering seeing media reports of rising prices and banging prices up on shelves. Now I'm not against companies making a profit as that is the whole idea but doubling profits makes you wonder about what they been up to.

 

It will be the same with the energy firms 

 

At least Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask.

What will it be at the tills "Stand and deliver". Instead of do you want help packing 

Or are you paying by card or remortgage 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61254152