Early Risers.

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

Who broke RMWeb then?? Could have been @jamie92208 as his post was the last before the same page appeared again.

 

Never mind.. herself has decreed she will do the shopping (no moreasons breakfast for me then!...PAH!). I have some non cricket paperwork to fo (it's MRS AGM time..)

 

Wallet is still in pain but Beast is happy!

 

I need to plan my trip to robbing Hoods Bay and a muddling show in York..sounds easy but I need a plan!

 

Time to drink my tea and see what Thursday will bring.. a 2 hour cricket refresher session tonight for example..frabjoy!

 

Baz

 

 

[jamie92208]

46 minutes ago, Barry O said:

Ey up!

 

Who broke RMWeb then?? Could have been @jamie92208 as his post was the last before the same page appeared again.

 

Never mind.. herself has decreed she will do the shopping (no moreasons breakfast for me then!...PAH!). I have some non cricket paperwork to fo (it's MRS AGM time..)

 

Wallet is still in pain but Beast is happy!

 

I need to plan my trip to robbing Hoods Bay and a muddling show in York..sounds easy but I need a plan!

 

Time to drink my tea and see what Thursday will bring.. a 2 hour cricket refresher session tonight for example..frabjoy!

 

Baz

 

 

Must be the French electrickerry. Strangely enough I don't get the duplicated pages over here but it was very slow to load.

 

Morning orders have now been posted. It now appears that I will be going to buy the strimmer on my own. 

 

Jamie

 

 

[TheQ]

Mooring Awl,

4 hours + 2 hours + 2 hours a good total.

 

Needed air again, surprised Ben the sleeping Collie by going out ten minutes early. He had an extended patrol, exploring all over the place.

 

He's up on the sofa, fast asleep next to me, having had a piece of my bacon.

More pear trees are in flower, as are some sloe bushes,, other trees are begining to open leaves.

 

On a sailing equivalent of ER, someone said no "2 stroke engine" had a decent engine sound, and they all sounded "tinny and revy" so I contributed a YouTube of  Napier Deltic🙂 plus a link to the wiki on Deltic engines.

 

I'm off to BM shortly.. sand fill paint, while the paint sets I'll visit a orange shed.

 

Time to finish this muggacoffee.

 

[Gwiwer]

13 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

... On travel, it’s the season for end of budgets, which manifests itself in roadworks with temporary traffic lights. ...
 

 

Oh yes. The Cornish National Hole-digging Championships are in full swing. 
 

Likely winners are those who can dig the smallest hole, close the longest length of road, erect four-way traffic lights and then b****r off for ten days over Easter. Leaving no work in progress, no kit on site and miles of stationary traffic fuming about pointless closures.
 

Highly Commended goes to the recent set of lights just outside town which caused chaos through our narrow main street. Vehicles cannot pass so the inbound traffic met the outbound queue and couldn’t move thereby blocking the single lane through the lights. Those lights, incidentally, were for works off on a side road and had no business ever being on the main road. 
 

A potential winner goes to the ten-week duration of four-way lights at a minor crossroads on the main road. This was to allow the installation of a bus stop. It took that long for them to install five metres of kerb and erect a pole. Not only that but the bus stop has been sited right on the junction (where the Highway Code tells us we must not stop) meaning that if ever a bus stopped there it would block the entire junction. 
 

Why fit a bus stop now?  Thus is a rural location with just one house nearby. The next is over a mile away. And for good measure the bus route being withdrawn next week …..

 

 

[iL Dottore]

21 hours ago, polybear said:

 

 

Laugh all you want. But CC knows how to make it hurt...

 

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

Who broke RMWeb then??

It’s been very slow and uncertain for a while now. 
 

I suspect our esteemed Mr York is on overtime again trying to sort things out. 
 

It’s been so slow that many attempts at posting or reading have timed out, it has also produced strange effects such as random duplication and “condensed” type where several lines of text appear to be overtyped across others. And there’s the banner about the classifieds being out of order. 
 

How long until the next Great Outage, I wonder?  Hopefully without loss of content this time. 

[New Haven Neil]

Morning, from a sleepy-head Fraggle.  Thought I'd have another half hour after Mrs NHN went out to work at 0630, and thought I had slept about that, to find it was 0830!  

 

Not missed anything as it is wet, windy and 8c out, so a walk has been postponed. 

 

There are bus stops in our village, but no proper busses.....stupid hopper thing you have to book a day in advance with no timings even vaguely promised, the driver has to follow a sort of sat-nav kind of thing that tells him where to go for the next pick-up (not drop-offs already on the bus), which prioritises certain places, so the bus often back-tracks when closer to your destination.  Then we tell the driver where to go....sort of.....#sigh#  One driver who used initiative to drop someone off close by got disciplined for doing so, there's no common sense in the system at all.  What a load of ballcocks.

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

On a sailing equivalent of ER, someone said no "2 stroke engine" had a decent engine sound, and they all sounded "tinny and revy" so I contributed a YouTube of  Napier Deltic🙂 plus a link to the wiki on Deltic engines.

Add the Commer TS3 truck engine to that.

[Andy Hayter]

8 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

It is indeed woeful mismanagement by the funeral directors. Much depends on one's perspective regarding cremains.

 

 

 

From the local news reports it looks as if this may prove to be a lot more serious than mismanagement.  

[PhilJ W]

8 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

  Quote

[Titanium] Implants may be returned to the family, but are more commonly sold as ferrous/non-ferrous scrap metal. After the remains are processed, smaller bits of metal such as tooth fillings, and rings (commonly known as gleanings) are sieved out and may be later interred in common, consecrated ground in a remote area of the cemetery. They may also be sold as precious metal scrap.

IIRC here in the UK precious metals recovered from cremated remains should be returned to the family and it is usual practice to remove items such as rings beforehand. Implants and artificial joints do go for scrap, usually to make more artificial joints.

[New Haven Neil]

I had to go to the Big City yesterday morning to deal with some HSBC business - as they have closed the Bright Lights of Ramsey branch for our convenience and to provide a better service - now a 44 mile round trip, pah. 🤬 Anyway, the road I wanted to go down was closed with a huge police presence, with UK registered police vans....hmm. 

 

Turns out the British Queen (to me marrying the King does not make her a Queen, but that's for elsewhere) was visiting to officially bestow city status onto the Big City. Oh while I'm on, she's not the Queen of the Isle of Man BTW, neither is the King, the King - the Lord of Man yes, but not the King. Its complicated. Anyway, huge crowds of at least err some schoolkids were there to greet her and make access to town difficult. Didn't even make national BBC news although it was on regional.  I bet that's the police overtime bill shredded for the month.

 

So we now officially have two cities, Peel that has a Cathedral, and Douglas which doesn't, but is the capital.  All for 85,000 people! 🤔 I wonder what advantage that will bestow upon Douglas.....#waiting#......🤣

[Winslow Boy]

7 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

I had to go to the Big City yesterday morning to deal with some HSBC business - as they have closed the Bright Lights of Ramsey branch for our convenience and to provide a better service - now a 44 mile round trip, pah. 🤬 Anyway, the road I wanted to go down was closed with a huge police presence, with UK registered police vans....hmm. 

 

Turns out the British Queen (to me marrying the King does not make her a Queen, but that's for elsewhere) was visiting to officially bestow city status onto the Big City. Oh while I'm on, she's not the Queen of the Isle of Man BTW, neither is the King, the King - the Lord of Man yes, but not the King. Its complicated. Anyway, huge crowds of at least err some schoolkids were there to greet her and make access to town difficult. Didn't even make national BBC news although it was on regional.  I bet that's the police overtime bill shredded for the month.

 

So we now officially have two cities, Peel that has a Cathedral, and Douglas which doesn't, but is the capital.  All for 85,000 people! 🤔 I wonder what advantage that will bestow upon Douglas.....#waiting#......🤣

Not much I'm afraid we have two cathedrals in Manutopea. One in the city where I live, Salford and another in our upstart of a neighbour, Manchester. It doesn't stop them referring to Salford though as a borough of Manchester or if it's a really bad day town. .......

#exasperated#.....

[DaveF]

I went to bed early last night and was asleep before11.  I think I heard my heating come on at 7.30 this morning but didn't properly wake until 9.  That makes around 10 hours sleep, I must have been tired.  I'm not going to do much today, I feel very lethargic.

 

It was raining when I finally woke, it has now stopped but is dull and cool, another reason for not doing much.  I may have a short walk sometime if it fines up a bit more.

 

Apart from that that I will continue reading, watching vidoes on DVD and You Tube and making something just as I seem to have been doing for ages.  

 

I too have noticed how slow RMWeb can be at times, in particular Early Risers.  It seems not to load within a few minutes of someone posting or when I am in a hurry.

 

As for Gwiwer's temporary lights.  As I've mentioned before my town has a population of around 40,000 and has three roads in and out.  The road due south along the coast is OK, but when you head inland from the next place south there are various speed limits and sometimes lights at a building site.

 

The road heading inland from the north side of town has had lights on and off for months, this week they have gone away.  It is a busy road so there are often traffic queues.

 

The final road inland from the south side of town has problems.  There are two roads leading to it, both have temporary traffic lights.  One has 2 sets, the other has one long set where they are building the new station and roundabout.  Where the two roads merge to make the one road actually leaving town they are building another roundabout for the station, on Tuesday there were no lights, just a narrow bit of road and a temporary 30 limit.  The limit changes frequently, it can be 30, 40 or 50 so no one really knows what they should be doing.

 

Then there are the roadworks which have closed the main route for 50% of the buses leaving the bus station.  It closed in October to all traffic, some buses can use it now, cars will be able to use it one day sometime in  the distant future.  This is to make the road narrower, have less parking, move a taxi rank and put in a cycle path and "amenity areas".  It seems to have escaped the council's notice that there will soon be no one visiting the place as shops keep closing.  Meanwhile the market place is fenced off so a new "culture hub" can be built.  The shopping centre which closed last month is to be demolished and a new "innovtaion, education and Energy Central Institute" built.  There are problems with this as it has been found that some of the older buildings next to it which were to come down are listed, apparently "no one knew".

 

David

Edited March 21 by DaveF

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Several interruptions last night from Arthur Itis but none from bladder control, probably because I took the opportunity to visit the bathroom when A.I. woke me up. The call from the doctor is due in ten minutes so now waiting by the phone.

Edited March 21 by PhilJ W

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone

 

I did get up early this morning (honest), but small tasks, refilling soap bottles emptying the recycling bags etc, just seem to have got in the way of getting on here. So I've finally made it downstairs and onto the computer. There isn't much planned for today, well this morning to be honest, as Sheila has a 4 o'clock appointment at the eye hospital, so we'll need to leave home aboutb2:30 to give us plenty of time to find a parking space and walk to the clinic. So this morning is just a case of some unspecified pottering in the cellar railway room. I've thought of a suitable place to store the excess flooring, it can go where I am currently storing all my boxes of track, as I'll be using that in the not too distant future! I just need to move a couple of boxes first.

 

Back later.

 

Brian

[woodenhead]

Hotel review

 

Room too warm, couldn’t open windows and the Dyson cooling fan too noisy.

 

Bed too firm, duvet too thick.

 

Shower was a trickle and just about warm (after running an age).  Soap didn’t soap cos I am in the South.

 

Breakfast was good though and the place was clean.

 

I think I just don’t like hotels anymore.

 

@BSW01 don’t forget sunglasses for Sheila if they are going to dilate her pupils.  Mrs W made that painful mistake once.

[Gwiwer]

34 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Several interruptions last night from Arthur Itis but none from bladder control

Hopeful signs.  

 

Captain Slackbladder has been absent of late since the last lot of antibiotics dealt with a short-term problem.  I can sometimes manage the night uninterrupted though have for most of my life made one nocturnal visit - that's always been my normal.  I did seek medical support when once became four times and I was lucky to get an hour's kip in between.  

 

My own version of Arthur Itis - the dreaded gout - must be a bout due to pay a return visit as he too has been absent for over two months now.  Cherry juice and privately-purchased medication* (correctly dispensed, I might add, with reference to my GP, but not available on the NHS) are ready and waiting.  

 

* Indometacin 50mg.  NHS will only prescribe 25mg which isn't strong enough and, frankly, Iboprofen does a better job.  I had the 50mg in Australia where they are available through Medicare and can get them here via an online pharmacy at a small cost.  50mg means sit tight for 3 hours or so until the "fuzzies" wear off but they deal with the pain quite nicely.  

[Winslow Boy]

37 minutes ago, DaveF said:

I went to bed early last night and was asleep before11.  I think I heard my heating come on at 7.30 this morning but didn't properly wake until 9.  That makes around 10 hours sleep, I must have been tired.  I'm not going to do much today, I feel very lethargic.

 

It was raining when I finally woke, it has now stopped but is dull and cool, another reason for not doing much.  I may have a short walk sometime if it fines up a bit more.

 

Apart from that that I will continue reading, watching vidoes on DVD and You Tube and making something just as I seem to have been doing for ages.  

 

I too have noticed how slow RMWeb can be at times, in particular Early Risers.  It seems not to load within a few minutes of someone posting or when I am in a hurry.

 

As for Gwiwer's temporary lights.  As I've mentioned before my town has a population of around 40,000 and has three roads in and out.  The road due south along the coast is OK, but when you head inland from the next place south there are various speed limits and sometimes lights at a building site.

 

The road heading inland from the north side of town has had lights on and off for months, this week they have gone away.  It is a busy road so there are often traffic queues.

 

The final road inland from the south side of town has problems.  There are two roads leading to it, both have temporary traffic lights.  One has 2 sets, the other has one long set where they are building the new station and roundabout.  Where the two roads merge to make the one road actually leaving town they are building another roundabout for the station, on Tuesday there were no lights, just a narrow bit of road and a temporary 30 limit.  The limit changes frequently, it can be 30, 40 or 50 so no one really knows what they should be doing.

 

Then there are the roadworks which have closed the main route for 50% of the buses leaving the bus station.  It closed in October to all traffic, some buses can use it now, cars will be able to use it one day sometime in  the distant future.  This is to make the road narrower, have less parking, move a taxi rank and put in a cycle path and "amenity areas".  It seems to have escaped the council's notice that there will soon be no one visiting the place as shops keep closing.  Meanwhile the market place is fenced off so a new "culture hub" can be built.  The shopping centre which closed last month is to be demolished and a new "innovtaion, education and Energy Central Institute" built.  There are problems with this as it has been found that some of the older buildings next to it which were to come down are listed, apparently "no one knew".

 

David

I do wonder some times just how much research is done by the various organisations wishing to do things. I appreciate that buildings need to be built and roads improved, but there are times when I think that the inconvenience that this causes is sometimes overlooked or even not considered.

 

There is a road near to where I live that has been dug up three times in the last six months. Firstly for telecoms, then gas and now by a water company. Each time they do it they have to install temporary traffic lights. These are not matched to the other two sets of lights just further along. So as you can image it is absolutely chaos come rush hour. The other day there must have been a three quarter of a mile queue to get through this set of lights and of course when you get there either no one is working or just standing by watching the traffic.

 

Oh and the reason for the flurry of works is because it's the end of the financial year at the end of this month. So if a project can be started ie. ground broken then it can be 'booked' to the following quarterly period. 

[iL Dottore]

THE POLY BEAR CHRONICLES

 

Ah yes, Poly Bear (or as he was once known as: Ernst Alfred Hermann Fürst Freiherr von und zu Brummbär-Guttenberg)

 

We on ER know about @polybear's estrangement from his fiancée Alexandra Sophie Cecilie Anna Maria Friederike Benigna Dorothea Prinzessin und Freifräulein von Rügen and from his father, Karl Ludwig Graf von und zu Brummbär-Guttenberg. We know about his wild years in Hamburg and about how he found redemption and a new purpose in life during The Lost Japanese Years (where he made some handy cash - not all of it completely Kosher).

 

Now, thanks to Captain Cynical's CCI GmbH DeepWeb-Investigations, we have learnt a lot more about the young PB.

 

He was a much awaited cub, after four sisters the Graf was finally had a heir with the late arrival of his only son Ernst Alfred (aka PB). This little cub was doted on and indulged in:

After a happy childhood, he was packed off to Boarding School in the UK - to the very exclusive St Cuthberts - aka St Cake's (fees currently start at £150,000 per term). As bright as he was, he was NOT a studious or good pupil...

Far preferring to "play with trains" than learn Latin.

 

However, of note during this period was his creation of the influential St Cake's Chip Club...

Whose members have gone on to become powerful and influential figures in the worlds of politics, finance, industry and diplomacy (but not PB - as we will soon see why).

 

Despite doing poorly at school, he continued to be indulged in by his father, who would take time from his busy work schedule to fly PB to various Model Railway Shows around the world.

Then Puberty hit and it hit hard. At first PB tried to be a good, dutiful, son and attended a number of his father's exclusive society soirées....

But his hooligan side (inherited from the "black bear" of the family: Albert Macklethwaite, dissolute third son of the Earl of Bear) could not be tamed, controlled or restrained and PB started to hang out with other - like minded - hooligans at expensive AND disreputable places like The @PupCamDive and Speakeasy, The Bent Copper Club (supposedly belonging to a certain senior policeman - rumoured to be  @jamie92208 ) - or the most infamous one of all @iL Dottore's Palace of Medicinal Pleasures.

 

From there - as we know - things just went downhill: the Hamburg Years, the all-night baked-bean and curly fries benders and the eventual erasure of his existence from the von und zu Brummbär-Guttenberg family.

 

And then, Japan, Captain Cynical, ERs and redemption.

 

He may no longer be the incredibly wealthy heir to the huge Graf von und zu Brummbär-Guttenberg financial, industrial and property empire; he is - perhaps - something better: a true Early Risers eccentric.

 

Edited March 21 by iL Dottore
Removed duplicate image

[Compound2632]

I knew a "von und zu" once - it was generally supposed that such people were born clutching a first class return ticket...

Edited March 21 by Compound2632

[jamie92208]

41 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

I do wonder some times just how much research is done by the various organisations wishing to do things. I appreciate that buildings need to be built and roads improved, but there are times when I think that the inconvenience that this causes is sometimes overlooked or even not considered.

 

There is a road near to where I live that has been dug up three times in the last six months. Firstly for telecoms, then gas and now by a water company. Each time they do it they have to install temporary traffic lights. These are not matched to the other two sets of lights just further along. So as you can image it is absolutely chaos come rush hour. The other day there must have been a three quarter of a mile queue to get through this set of lights and of course when you get there either no one is working or just standing by watching the traffic.

 

Oh and the reason for the flurry of works is because it's the end of the financial year at the end of this month. So if a project can be started ie. ground broken then it can be 'booked' to the following quarterly period. 

There appears to be very little coordination.  One spring 3 of the four main roads in and out of Pontefract had long term temporary traffic lights on them.  I pulled rank and made a very strong complaint to the Highways department due to the effect this was having on Emergency Service response times.  For some strange reason at least one set was removed sharpish. 

 

Jamie

[DaveF]

A short time ago I recevied an email from a company saying they were going to charge me for a subscription to Nero which I have on my PC and use from time to time.  I didn't recognise the company name so had a good think.  In the end I logged into my copy of Nero and found that the subscription is due and that the charge is being made by the correct company, I had managed to forget that Nero sales are though another company if you are in the UK.

 

I am quite glad I checked and didn't just assume it was spam..

 

David

[BSW01]

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

 

@BSW01 don’t forget sunglasses for Sheila if they are going to dilate her pupils.  Mrs W made that painful mistake once.

Thanks, but Sheila ALWAYS carries her sunglasses with her, regardless of the weather conditions!

[BSW01]

All the excess flooring is now safely stored in the underfloor storage area. This is accessed by the small hatch in the cellar. Once done, I rearranged the order of the boxes, so that the 2 boxes, 1 containing all the track and the other points are near the front, so I don't have go back into the storage area to get them! They are literally just behind the door! Next week I'll do another tip run, as there are now a couple of items that are surplus to requirements.

Edited March 21 by BSW01

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

Turns out the British Queen (to me marrying the King does not make her a Queen, but that's for elsewhere) was visiting to officially bestow city status onto the Big City. Oh while I'm on, she's not the Queen of the Isle of Man BTW, neither is the King, the King - the Lord of Man yes, but not the King. Its complicated.

 

That would make her the Lady of Man, surely?

 

When Queen Mary I of England, France, and Ireland married King Philip II of Spain, not only did he adopt the style King of England, France, Spain, and Ireland but she adopted all his titles and hence was such things as Duchess of Milan and Queen of Jerusalem. 

 

But anyway, isn't it high time the island was renamed to something less offensively gender-specific? The Isle of Person? Then we could have a bit more variety in those legs... 

Edited March 21 by Compound2632