Early Risers.

[Hroth]

12 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

Last week I secretly ordered a $2800 hardtop for the ute, so it'll look like this: 

 

 

 

 

It'll replace the current black tonneau soft-top which currently looks like this

 

 

 

I'm still working out how to convincingly say "No, it has always looked like that".

 

 

The alternative option "Well, YOU just had a $3300 eye operation and you dont hear me complaining about that!" probably won't cut it.

 

Or you could paint the hard lid black.

 

"But it was always like that!!!"

 

(Screen went grey and there was a minutes pause while ER digested this post...)

 

Edited April 2 by Hroth
Posting speed update

[monkeysarefun]

4 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

How about “ it will make it so much safer when I bring you home if you have the other eye done”

 

I'm hoping the lockable aspect will  be a winner. Currently we cant take the ute anywhere because the 2 cubic metres of lady stuff that they all need can't be left unsecured in the back of the ute under the cover, apparently we'll pull into some outback town and hordes of  ferals will tear down and steal all the lip gloss or whatever its called.

[polybear]

1 minute ago, Hroth said:

 

Or you could paint the hard lid black.

 

"But it was always like that!!!"

 

 

Bvgger - beaten to it 😒

If Chimpy uses water based poster paint, then after a few days announce that it'll be painted to match the Ute then all he'll need to do is wash the black paint off......

[Winslow Boy]

1 minute ago, polybear said:

 

Bvgger - beaten to it 😒

If Chimpy uses water based poster paint, then after a few days announce that it'll be painted to match the Ute then all he'll need to do is wash the black paint off......

I have a query. What's a Ute?

 

Signed blissfully ignorant.

[Hroth]

1 minute ago, Winslow Boy said:

I have a query. What's a Ute?

 

Signed blissfully ignorant.

 

Didn't George Formby play one?

 

[Erichill16]

Well i dont know how its happened but I’m at Barnsley DG Hospital with the wounded soldier. A bit of physio is in progress.

swbo waiting outside with the hounds. 

[monkeysarefun]

23 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

Bvgger - beaten to it 😒

If Chimpy uses water based poster paint, then after a few days announce that it'll be painted to match the Ute then all he'll need to do is wash the black paint off......

 

 

The other option I'm toying with for the "last of the V8's" around Australia retirement trip is to get the panel van pack:

 

 

 

 

It is a homage to the 1970's Sandman van scene that was huge here back then

 

 

 

 

Every teen girls parents nightmare was to see one of these roll up in the driveway on a Friday night and to hear "Trevs  here - we're just going to the drive in, bye dad, bye mum!" 

 

Anyway, it opens up camping options and memories of many mental surf trips up the north coast and beyond - happy days!

Edited April 2 by monkeysarefun

[Erichill16]

17 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

I have a query. What's a Ute?

 

Signed blissfully ignorant.

@monkeysarefun does this class as an ute? Seen at the footie match  last week .

[TheQ]

Brownie points lost..

 

Swmbo looked at a clock that is radio controlled but decided to not to listen.. she's left an hour late for her weaving...

 

Reset clock wave button, it's now sitting outside where it might get a signal.

 

Not felt too bright today, returned some tools from the landrover to the workshop, sanded 4 bits of future loom. Cut 5 bits ( spacers ) of future loom.

Took Ben for his walk.

And that's it..

Oh when returning tools to their proper places, found a jar of needles, thread and sailmakers palm. This has been placed with other sail making materials including sufficient sailmakers double sided tape.

 

Eye lid inspection required.

[Erichill16]

39 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

The other option I'm toying with for the "last of the V8's" around Australia retirement trip is to get the panel van pack:

 

 

Those wheels are somewhat ridiculous but the rest of it is a homage to the 1970's Sandman van scene that was huge here back then

 

 

 

 

Every teen girls parents nightmare was to see one of these roll up in the driveway on a Friday night and to hear "Duanes here - we're just going to the drive in, bye dad, bye mum!" 

 

Anyway, it opens up camping options and memories of surf trips up the north coast and beyond - happy days!

The green one, which i do like, reminds me of a hearse and the fact David Vanian, lead singer with The Damned, used to drive round in a hearse.

 
Looks like the kind of a guy that would do his weekly shopping in a hearse.

Edited April 2 by Erichill16
Change wording add pic

[Gwiwer]

4 hours ago, RobAllen said:

solved a rattling noise that had been annoying him!

Removing those stones from the tyre treads will cure that! 

 

I do get irritated at times by the occasional click-click-click-click-click of a stone which has lodged itself in the tread and has yet to be removed.  An occasional embuggerance of living in a rural area; either one of necessity has to pull into the soft stuff to allow someone else past on a narrow road or enough topsoil has washed off onto any road complete with stones which then lodge into the tread.  Unofficially that's a (non-reliable, unscientific) means by which one knows that there is a legal amount of tread on the tyre!  

 

G'daftarnoon all.  It is persisterating down yet again.  Tradition required that to happen during yesterday's Ban-Collar Day but tradition on this occasion failed to materialise.  Just two hefty but brief downpours occurred.  

 

It being Dr. SWMBO's birthday yesterday she had asked to be taken somewhere nice for a picnic - even if that meant an "in-car" picnic in dubious weather.  First we had to visit Boots in PZ as she required some prescription medication.  "Sorry - no can do - we don't have stock of it" was the response after she had waited half an hour in a long slow-moving queue.  As we were passing anyway we then tried the Hayle branch where she arrived to see the duty pharmacist leaving the counter for lunch.  I suggested we picnic first and return later but she was determined to wait having been told they only had very limited stock of the required.  So 45 minutes later the pharmacist returned, attended to her needs and presented her with two days-worth of "emergency dispense" medication.  For which she still had to pay the full dispensing fee.  

 

So after a total of 75 minutes waiting time she had enough for two days and had to go to the pharmacy in town again this morning for the full prescription.  They ALSO only had two days-worth in stock but asked her to come back tomorrow (again!) when they have had their delivery.  She came away with what they could offer but on this occasion no fee was charged because they have yet to complete her full prescription.  

 

A bit so-so from various NHS services there, then.  I do wonder whether the problem is supply or demand (possibly both) when standard blood-pressure medication is in such short supply over a wider area.

 

There seemed to be no such shortage of the "morning-after" pill though; she mentioned that several in the queue ahead of her were after one of those.  It seems to have been a busy Easter on the casual encounter scene!  

 

We did manage the picnic.  In the car due to the cool wind blowing.  Up on the North Cliffs near Hell's Mouth in stunning light and with dramatic cloud formations.  

 

 

 

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

21 minutes ago, Erichill16 said:

@monkeysarefun does this class as an ute? Seen at the footie match  last week .

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Makes that sucking-air-through-teeth-when-undecided noise).... 

 

 

According to the legends, the ute started life in the 20's or 30's when a farmer's wife wrote a letter to Ford Australia asking if they could make a car that they could take the pigs to market in  on a Monday and go to church in on the Sunday. So someone or other  at Ford got tasked to design such a vehicle and the ute was born.

 

So strictly speaking, the ute here has always been a passenger car based vehicle,  for instance the HQ Holden Kingswood came in sedan, station wagon (shooting brake?), panel van and ute options. 

 

Even when British Leyland tried to get us to buy their cars,  we managed to adapt them to local conditions, for instance the Austin 1800 ute:

 

 

The true ute died when Holden and Ford gave up local production here, the Japanese provide dual cab utes like the Hilux but although they are utes, they aren't Utes - if you know what I mean. For instance you cant do this to your diesel Mitsubishi Triton etc. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 2 by monkeysarefun

[Gwiwer]

11 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

(Makes that sucking-air-through-teeth-when-undecided noise).... 

It's a pick-up.  

 

A ute should have a purely utilitarian tray on the back.  This may or may not be integral with the cab unit but to my mind it should not be stylised in the same manner.  Other opinions are available.  Especially from those who frequent ute-musters.  

[The Lurker]

this looks a good idea.

 

https://www.urban-transport-magazine.com/en/south-africa-the-franschhoek-wine-tram/

 

 

When global warming has taken hold, will we have winetram lines through the wine country of the Kentish weald (miraculously re-utilising the track bed of the Hawkhurst branch)? OK so the latter part of that is very unlikely....

[Gwiwer]

14 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

the ute started life in the 20's or 30's when a farmer's wife wrote a letter to Ford Australia asking if they could make a car that they could take the pigs to market in  on a Monday and go to church in on the Sunday. So someone or other  at Ford got tasked to design such a vehicle and the ute was born.

In the UK some public omnibuses began in much the same way.  A vehicle which could take livestock to and from market one day and shoppers to town the next.  In some cases they were swap-body chassis but others were genuine all-purpose, or utility, vehicles.  

 

As late as 1984 I was aboard the local bus from Port Isaac into Wadebridge - run by Prout's for those with local interest although it was a pensioned-off former Western National coach - when a local farmer and goat sought to board.  Never mind the less-than-able claiming difficulty getting themselves and their shopping trolleys up and down four or five steps at the door; this unlikely pair were admitted and the goat was eventually persuaded to sit in the aisle.  As I was near the front I was also able to confirm that the farmer paid his own fare but the goat was charged as for a dog.  Presumably there was no separate "goat" fare available.  They were off to market; farmer was expecting to return sans-goat "if 'ee were lucky" 

 

Fast-forward around 15 years and I was driving for Western National around St. Ives.  We had three standard pre-set fare levels with dogs charged at a standard 50p for any one-way trip.  Some adult fares were only 20p and many were less than 50p meaning a dog fare could be more than that for its owner!  We sometimes got asked what the big bold letters printed on our tickets stood for.  Easy ..... 

AS - Adult Single

AR - Adult Return

CS - Child Single 

CS - Child Return

SS - Seagull Single

SR - Seagull Return

..... which caused a few smiles at times.  The S-prefix of course meant Senior in the days before there was widespread free travel.  We also had a lot more combinations which could appear but in some cases seldom did so.  Some of those were AW - Adult Weekly, CD - Child Day, DG - Dog (or goat?), PA - Penwith Adult (a promotional open-jaw ticket supported by Penwith District Council which allowed outward travel from A to B and return from C to A), MW - Midweek Maximum (a company promotion which offered a maximum return fare of £2 on Wednesdays in winter), KW ("Key West" - a multi-operator weekly ticket valid on most buses across the south-west) and quite a few others.  

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

28 minutes ago, Erichill16 said:

The green one, which i do like, reminds me of a hearse and the fact Rat Scabies, drummer with The Damned, used to drive round in a hearse. 

 

 

 

 

Mate, you should have been a punk down here instead of being all miserable  and anarchic in the cold up there!  Punk here was influenced by the UK but in truth we had little to whinge about, the mid 70's were awesome here, sun, surf and cars.  The Saints and Radio Birdman probably defined our punk movement- and Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen definitely gave the Queensland  youth something to complain about if you lived there but the rest of the country was pretty spoilt for everything that you could want when you are 17 - jobs aplenty, sun, parties  - basically a fun filled place. 

 

Music happened in the surf clubs and gigs were  made memorable for me by the heat and sweat and noise. Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil I recall seeing in a surf club in North Sydney collapsed and on oxygen between sets. It was mental.

 

The later 70's and early 80's it was Midnight Oil, The Angels and Cold Chisel that defined our local sound. Like our cars, we kept it to ourselves in our happy place down here, unique like our wildlife. 

 

What a great place it was  to grow up in - unless you were gay,  or aboriginal etc of course!

 

But anyway, Radio Birdman!

 

 

 

 

 

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. I was hoping I wouldn't have to go out today but more milk is required and the doctor has asked me for a urine sample (just to check that the problem I had last month has cleared up). The hay fever has started to ramp up as well so I'd better get going before it gets too bad.

[polybear]

1 hour ago, Winslow Boy said:

I have a query. What's a Ute?

 

Signed blissfully ignorant.

It’s a bit like a shed but with wheels on

Edited April 2 by polybear

[monkeysarefun]

4 minutes ago, polybear said:

It’s a bit like a shed but with wheels on

 

 

Its not a shed without a ute in it.

 

[Coombe Barton]

... assorted piles are becoming more organised so that I may be able to find things more easily. It’s taken quite a long time to get to this stage, but there is method and, albeit rather slow, progress ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2024/04/02/no-new-covid-stats-still-domestically-micro-sorting-native-trees/

[Tony_S]

51 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

... assorted piles are becoming more organised so that I may be able to find things more easily. It’s taken quite a long time to get to this stage, but there is method and, albeit rather slow, progress ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2024/04/02/no-new-covid-stats-still-domestically-micro-sorting-native-trees/

I only plant native trees and plants in our garden. Native to this planet 

[iL Dottore]

3 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

When I was out in the car earlier I caught a few minutes of a Radio 4 programme, and they were talking about Wagner's Ring Cycle, with excerpts - now that was the kind of opera I really do not like!  The howling cat stuff indeed.

Oh I don't know.

 

Some of Wagner, definitely. But then he also came up with this:

 

When Wagner is good he is VERY good, but at times he can be very tedious (as many of his contemporary composers observed). But his "good bits " have earned him a lot of forgiveness!

[The White Rabbit]

3 hours ago, DaveF said:

A short time ago I had a very unpleasant experience while returning home from town.  I came to a road junction where the side street I was on meets the main road, less than a car's length along the main road is a light controlled crossing.  Coming up to the junction you can't see the lights, you have to be just starting to move forwards to really see the light.  The light changed to red just as I pulled out, fortunately I was able to stop just on the line.

 

The couple who had just started crossing the road were understandably not amused.

 

When I've been on the main road I've often noticed people pulling out having to stop very sharply, now I know why.  I'll go a different way in future.

 

I have checked my dashcam footage, you really cannot see the light until you start to pull out.

 

David

 

My two-pennorth - is it a Stop or a Give Way junction? From how you've described it, if it's not the former then it ought to be. Not that I'm any sort of expert but it sounds like a junction where very slow speed and caution on emerging are called for.

 

Can you save your footage as evidence? 

 

As well as a letter to the local authority or Highways Agency, it may be worth contacting the local media, if only to highlight to the relevant authority it's a dangerous situation. And if you can get an article or letter published online, then - should anything bad happen and the family/solicitors start searching for any indication the junction is 'dodgy', they can wave that as evidence it was a known bad junction and nothing was done. That is something the council or HA will know and you may find it easier to get something done before someone gets hurt. Being sneaky, should you be able to get two or three of your friends to write letters to the local paper or interest the local reporter to do an article, you could then write to officialdom and say several of us have spotted this/had near misses and it's been in the press, if someone gets hurt, you're going to get hammered... 

[Ozexpatriate]

5 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Read the report. I am all for healthy eating but suspicious of crappy use of statistics.

Yes. As we know correlation and causality are different things. Do people eat more sugar when depressed?

[polybear]

4 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Do people eat more sugar when depressed?

 

Oh yes - hence that famous term "Comfort Food"