Early Risers.

[Ozexpatriate]

After the white truck episode, I was anxious about driving my rear-wheeled drive vehicle to the pharmacy. I was confident the main roads would be clear. Certainly the ice in front of my house, which was starting to turn to slush, was slippery but once I was out of sight of the house my neighbourhood street was 'good enough' and the little hill was clear. Grit had been spread on the hill.

 

The pharmacy had shelved one of my scripts (I would have picked it up on Monday but was ice-bound) and I had to wait for it to be refilled.

 

Rain continues. According to my telephone temperatures are freezing (though my patio thermometer insists it is still around 1°C). The icy mess by the front door feels like it is refreezing. I may be not be able to drive out tomorrow morning.

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Internal combustion engine-powered vehicles had all the same problems (refueling access, safe handling of fuels etc), gradually resolved over 158 years.

 

 

The charging infrastructure is the big issue at the moment. I just checked and around here there are 2 chargers  in the nearest town and 2 more in the next town 15 km away. All are 21KW chargers with an estimated charge time of 4 to 6 hours. Imaging needing a charge, pulling into one and finding 3 cars in the queue ahead of you.

 

Tesla have a 12 bay "Supercharger" in the NEXT town on - 25km away, but I assume  they only work with Teslas, the "Apple" of the motoring industry.

 

5 hours ago, Erichill16 said:

My friends business has managed to get two of my pet hates into its business name.

 

‘i Bathroom Solutions’ 

 

His name is Kev and he fits bathrooms so why not

 

‘ Kev the bathroom fitter’

 

simples oh no I’m starting with it now!

 

 

For some reason locksmiths always vied with each other to get their business listed first in the phone book so there were heaps of  names like  "AAAArdvark Locksmiths"    "AAAAA_ardvark Locksmiths", "AAAAAAA_Aardvark locksmiths" etc.

I imagine that was ripe for Monty Python style silliness:  "Hello, AAAAA_Aardvak Locksmiths",        "Oh, I'm sorry  I was after AAAAAAA_Aardvark locksmiths".

Edited January 19 by monkeysarefun

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Probably 90% of journeys for a very large number of people. Bet it's closer to 99% for many.

 

And they are the people who will find electric cars practical and a good solution. Its the rest of us who do  20,000km or more a year that dont' want to get shoe-horned into one until the issues are sorted.

Edited January 19 by monkeysarefun

[Barry O]

Ey up!

Her indo9rs is looking to swap her 11 year-old petrol jazz for an EV. Why? Very seldom does she go any big distances and has got used to driving our PHEV aka the Beast in electric only mode. More charge points are appearing around Britain.. why, even Bangalore Telecomare getting into it (converting old green switch notes no linger needed due to changes to fibre systems.).

 

Speed wise I was very impressed with the Tesla.. of course it doesn't  have smoking tyres.. isn't that the problem in Oz.. not macho enough?

 

Today has some bits and bats tocomplete and I need tocheck a few emails..but otherwise..not a lot. I intend to go for a walk.. and try to ring my consultant who hasn't responded regarding my ECG pre Christmas.  Pah!!

 

Time to.. finish my tea and geronwithit!

 

Stay safe! Positive thoughts to all but especially to the missing and ailing ERs.

 

Baz

 

PS did anyone spot that @Natalie was in 2hotos inthe Railway Toddler this month???

[monkeysarefun]

2 hours ago, Barry O said:

Speed wise I was very impressed with the Tesla.. of course it doesn't  have smoking tyres.. isn't that the problem in Oz.. not macho enough?

 

 

 

I think Tesla Model 3's have both a "burnout" mode and a "Drift" mode , the issue is actually  this:

 

 

 

 

The rest of the country relies on slow chargers and 32amp wall sockets  and on campsites, station owners and businesses allowing  you to  plug into their 3-phase circuit out of the goodness of their hearts.

Edited January 19 by monkeysarefun

[Winslow Boy]

21 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

I think Tesla Model 3's have both a "burnout" mode and a "Drift" mode , the issue is actually  this:

 

 

 

 

The rest of the country relies on slow chargers, and on campsites, station owners and businesses allowing  you to  plug into their 3-phase circuit out of the goodness of their hearts.

Well it's not my fault you can't work from home is it.

Tell you what Chimps we'll all work from home whilst you sort out the lack of charging points, them bursting into flames without even a by your leave and the fact that there unaffordable to the average working man. Let us know when we can come out again won't you.

[monkeysarefun]

38 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

Well it's not my fault you can't work from home is it.

Tell you what Chimps we'll all work from home whilst you sort out the lack of charging points, them bursting into flames without even a by your leave and the fact that there unaffordable to the average working man. Let us know when we can come out again won't you.

 

 

I think you may be confusing me with Elon Musk.

 

Get him onto it rather than let him pass  all the problems on to society to sort out.

Edited January 19 by monkeysarefun

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Cold and frosty today but the sky is blue and the shine is sunning.  It should stay dry with prolonged spells of sunshine.

-3°C, might reach 5°C.

A walk is planned after breakfast as The Boss wants to get a couple of magazines.  Nothing else on the agenda apart from some domestic tasks which apparently I'm not allowed to do.  I have volunteered to drive The Shark but "She" has exercised her veto claiming it's too soon after my op.  Personally I don't count "Sharking" as heavy lifting or violent exercise but I suppose it is driving and I'm not allowed to do that until tomorrow!  I have not objected.  😂

Glad to report that she's feeling better and it'stimetogettamoveon.

Have a good one,

Bob.

 

[New Haven Neil]

Morning, just trying to steal a few interwebs while Mrs NHN wurks from home using them all up.  Still can't afford an EV on my pension though.  Mrs NHN is the PA to the Head of Fleet Services and therefore has access to all the EV charging point data here, interestingly they hardly get used. 

 

Why?  Too expensive apparently.  They all screamed for them to be fitted in carparks, and when they were fitted and initially free to use (!!!!) were indeed used - Sherlock time -  but now are all bar one (airport) hardly in use.  Cost a fortune too.  My pal has an early Nissan Leaf, charges from his solar which is great, gets him to Douglas (the Big City) and back from Peel (the little city) OK, but if he comes up here (down north) he uses his Lexus, as the range of the Leaf is a bit suspect. JC it's only 50 miles or so. If he needs lights and the heater on it's getting doubtful he'd get home. Useless. Never mind the price of EV's, way out of our league. /rant.

 

OK, It's Old Farts morning, we're trying a new venue so it may go all a little base over apex, it's not a place I would use myself, but I got over-ruled.

[Winslow Boy]

48 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

I think you may be confusing me with Elon Musk.

 

Get him onto it rather than let him pass  all the problems on to society to sort out.

Argh but that's not how free enterprise works me old monkey.

Come to think of it who said creating a monopoly by legislating that we should drive EVs.

[Winslow Boy]

29 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

Morning, just trying to steal a few interwebs while Mrs NHN wurks from home using them all up.  Still can't afford an EV on my pension though.  Mrs NHN is the PA to the Head of Fleet Services and therefore has access to all the EV charging point data here, interestingly they hardly get used. 

 

Why?  Too expensive apparently.  They all screamed for them to be fitted in carparks, and when they were fitted and initially free to use (!!!!) were indeed used - Sherlock time -  but now are all bar one (airport) hardly in use.  Cost a fortune too.  My pal has an early Nissan Leaf, charges from his solar which is great, gets him to Douglas (the Big City) and back from Peel (the little city) OK, but if he comes up here (down north) he uses his Lexus, as the range of the Leaf is a bit suspect. JC it's only 50 miles or so. If he needs lights and the heater on it's getting doubtful he'd get home. Useless. Never mind the price of EV's, way out of our league. /rant.

 

OK, It's Old Farts morning, we're trying a new venue so it may go all a little base over apex, it's not a place I would use myself, but I got over-ruled.

Will there be photos Neil? Nothing quite like a photo of bikers having a scrap for the front page.

[Talltim]

2 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

I think Tesla Model 3's have both a "burnout" mode and a "Drift" mode , the issue is actually  this:

 

 

 

 

The rest of the country relies on slow chargers and 32amp wall sockets  and on campsites, station owners and businesses allowing  you to  plug into their 3-phase circuit out of the goodness of their hearts.

That map implies that Aus has about 30 roads and no railways

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Still trying to get in touch with the car dealer but the phone is never answered. I've left three messages to call back, the last this morning. I have been told that the dealer sells only trade ins, cars that have been traded in to other dealers. Now to call the insurers to find out what they want me to do with the spare key and documents for the car.

[DaveF]

I thought about an electric car when I bought my Yaris hybrid last autumn.  There are charging points in town but when you go into the more remote bits of Northumberland there are no charging points, in fact in some places there is no mains electricity and not even any houses at the ends of some roads.  So if you run out of charge you are stuck - and there is no mobile reception either so you can't even ring for help.  I have known people who have run out of petrol in such areas - now that really is a daft thing to do, though you can drive a long way without seing a filling station.  I rarely let my tank get much below half full.

 

This morning started bright with a red sunrise but it is now mainly cloudy and about 2°C.  I might drive down to look at the Quayside later on but I don't think I'll have a long walk. I've just noticed there is now both a yellow and an amber warning for wind here over the weekend, so again I won't go far on Saturday and Sunday.

 

The care peole were supposed to e mail me yesterday, as I expected they haven't so later today I will ring them again.  I also need to ring the dentist as having moved an appointment I have to change it again becasue of the change in surgery date.

 

Apart from that today should be pleasant and quiet, I think just about all the jobs are done so I can please myself what I do next.  It will probably be photographs and model making.

 

David

[Gwiwer]

20 minutes ago, DaveF said:

I thought about an electric car when I bought my Yaris hybrid last autumn.  There are charging points in town but when you go into the more remote bits of Northumberland there are no charging points

I thought about that for the time when the Little Red Driving Box has to be replaced.  It's a machine - it won't last forever and might be totalled by some lunatic doing something they shouldn't at any time.  

 

But there are no charging points anywhere within miles of here.  I can think of two single ones in Penzance 8 miles away but both are just a single point and in unlit corners of less-than-ideal "council" estates.  I wouldn't choose to leave my car there unattended for any length of time never mind for a full charge plus I might need to get home by other means.  The supermarkets do not (yet) have any "charge-while-you-shop" bays as can be found in some towns.  

 

This is of course recent technology so far as the masses are concerned.  It takes time to roll out and it takes not insignificant investment in the hardware to support public or private charging.  As we are unable to park outside a private home charging facility won't work for us.  

 

So were we to require a new means of transport the only realistic option right now would be a self-charging hybrid or to continue with petrol-only.  There are some quite good second-hand cars around at fairly sensible prices.  Traditionally this has been a stronghold of the diesel-powered car but the price differential no longer makes them attractive and there are definitely fewer about than there were.  

[Rugd1022]

12 hours ago, Smiffy2 said:

This is what I am doing at the moment - making or modding guitars. This one (it's actually a Canadian Stratocaster copy with an alder body) was £40 from the St Raphael Hospice shop. I've replaced the neck, electrics and pickups/pickguard and put new locking tuners on it, so about another £50. You thought Mdl Rlws were expensive fun...
Trouble is I seem to have wired the output jack the wrong way round - pure chimp - and I'll have to redo that tomorrow. But it looks nice...

 

 

Lovely that.

 

I've been eyeing some up of the old Vox Teardrops and Phantoms on Reverb recently, I still bitterly regret selling my 1967 Teardrop Starstream MkXII with the built in effects a few years ago. Need to get back on the horse and start playing again. Strangely, despite having stump fingers I find 12 strings easier to play than six strings. My first guitar was a black Epiphone 330 with ivory binding etc which looked and sounded pretty good, then I chopped it in for a cheap Squire Tele copy which was ok until I found the Vox Starstream.

Edited January 19 by Rugd1022

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, Talltim said:

That map implies that Aus has about 30 roads and no railways

Not that far from the truth.  Highway 1 runs more or less around the perimeter.  The rest are the key inter-state links and a handful of (mostly East Coast) routes which are both popular and necessary.  

 

It would be the equivalent of a map of UK motorways and trunk roads.  You know - those that have blue or green signs but do not comprise the entire major road network.  

 

I note the omission of such delights as the Gunbarrel Highway, Canning Stock Route, Great Central Road and other "roads" through the uncertain sands and scrub of the various deserts and Indigenous Lands.  Through which you are also required to have a permit from the local Land Council to drive.  Officially.  

 

Even the apparently important "Highway 4" a/k/a/ the Tjukaruru Road (if one infers from its low number that it is an important and busy route) is a sandy track through hundreds of kilometres of nowhere.  

Those "place names" you see are tiny Indigenous settlements of a few dozens of people at best and might be found uninhabited at certain times.  

 

As many of us will know Australia has a very sparse rail system.  I won't call it a network.  A single line, which requires use of at least two gauges, can be traced from Perth across to Adelaide, Melbourne and up the east coast by way of Sydney and Brisbane to Cairns.  And not much more.  An inland route from Sydney to Adelaide.  The recently-built line to Darwin and the regional lines radiating from Melbourne.  The major cities have suburban networks.  There are freight lines (some of which are of considerable length) often to remote grain loading facilities which might see a few trains in the loading season then nothing for 11 months.  There are rails to the NSW and QLD coalfields to facilitate export through (mostly) Newcastle, Mackay and Gladstone.

 

And the iron-ore lines in the remote north-west around Dampier and Port Hedland.  

 

You could live your whole life in many parts of Australia and never see a railway never mind a train.  

Edited January 19 by Gwiwer

[BSW01]

Good morning afternoon everyone 

 

Another day when I had lots to do and not enough time. Anyway, Sheila’s eyes have been bathed and medicated, the butchers has been visited and a pork pie procured for my dinner and a certain model railway shop in Widnes has been visited and I’ve returned with 2 bags of goodies, all pre-purchased and just needed picking up. There wasn’t much to look at in the shop, all the display cases were empty, but it has given the car a good run, something it doesn’t get very often. 
 

Back later. 
 

Brian

[New Haven Neil]

4 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

Will there be photos Neil? Nothing quite like a photo of bikers having a scrap for the front page.

 

I'd gone out before I saw your message, but here's the C*&^%$£s bunfight.

 

 

...and some of the guilty on a pootle out.

 

 

[TheQ]

1/3 of a pork pie has been had for lunch, or nearly 1/3 because a certain brown eyed Collie said he likes pork pies..

 

Assembled part of three laser cut mdf buildings, I think I prefer that much more than laser cut ply for stuff I need to cut... No grain to split. So much so I've ordered a pack of A4 MDF 3mm sheets.

Because....

 

 

Me being me having bought three models, I promptly butchered them, one because it's going to hide something unmentionable inside / behind, the other from two joined kits but not in the direction the maker designed them for. Having found that I like them a lot, two more are going to be bought to extend the terrace, one of which will be butchered of course.

 

These building were low relief, however I'm butchering it into a loose representation of a real hotel, which SWMBO said was "all fur coat and no knickers". The real hotel in question is built like a low relief model, the rear half isn't there, from the peak of the roof line it's just a vertical wall to the ground.

 

Gone as far as I can go with the Bedford QL till the paint arrives, which it did on return from Ben's Walk.

Ben cut his walk short, I suspect because he's limping from his arthritic fron left, I think the cold makes it worse.

 

Time to go spend more money.

 

[jamie92208]

Good afternoon from a bright and sunny Charente.  Late on parade but much has been done.  Two phone calls were made and the missing parts for the sofa are on their way with a 5 week delivery time.  It's taken

 6 days to sort.  All  because there was no phone number or email address on the delivery note or bill.  Could have sorted it with one email on Saturday. 

 

Anyway whilst waiting in vain for Conforama to ring me I got the repainting done in the lounge. Then this afternoon Beth found some wooden boxes in the shed, along with two dessicated mice. The boxes were examined with the aid of a hammer and screwdriver and turned out to contain my late father's coin collection. Is there any value in UK pre decimal coins. 

 

Ttfn

 

Jamir

Edited January 19 by jamie92208

[Hroth]

29 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

The boxes were examined with the aid of a hammer and screwdriver and turned out to contain my late father's coin collection. Is there any value in UK pre decimal coins. 

Here's some of my untutored thoughts about coins, and their value to collectors.  It all depends...

 

Its like property, but instead of "location" its Condition, Condition, Condition.

 

Coins with precious metal content have a certain residual value.

 

Gold coins of whatever age are worth at least their weight in 22ct gold because thats what they are.

Equally

Silver coins 1920 to pre-1947 are worth approximately half their weight in sterling silver, because the silver content was reduced to 50%

Silver coins pre 1920 are worth approximately their weight in sterling silver because they're more or less pure silver.

 

Then it becomes a balancing act of condition and rarity.

In general, coppers are worth as much as collectors will pay for them.

 

But, if for example, you have an Edward VIII coin of any face value, they're worth much more due to their incredible rarity.

 

Anything older then late 19th Century, or unusualness, like Maundy Money, might be worth asking a specialist about, especially if in good condition.

 

 

Edited January 19 by Hroth
qualification...

[Tony_S]

5 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

Will there be photos Neil? Nothing quite like a photo of bikers having a scrap for the front page.

That was often the front page when I first moved here but later the boot boys without bikes were the main headlines. 

[Smiffy2]

4 hours ago, Rugd1022 said:

 

Lovely that.

 

I've been eyeing some up of the old Vox Teardrops and Phantoms on Reverb recently, I still bitterly regret selling my 1967 Teardrop Starstream MkXII with the built in effects a few years ago. Need to get back on the horse and start playing again. Strangely, despite having stump fingers I find 12 strings easier to play than six strings. My first guitar was a black Epiphone 330 with ivory binding etc which looked and sounded pretty good, then I chopped it in for a cheap Squire Tele copy which was ok until I found the Vox Starstream.

If you fancy making your own teardrop, Thomann/Harley Benton make a 'blank' guitar shape, routed for pickups and neck. You might be able to fudge it. I've got a 'commission' to make one into an Abba 'Waterloo' guitar for grand-daughter's boyfriend's birthday...
 

[TheQ]

Did I mention it was cold this morning?

South Walsham broad.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 19 by TheQ