Early Risers.

[monkeysarefun]

13 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Not the fifth - that's all jurisprudence - grand jury, double jeopardy, self incrimination*, due process, etc

 

* "Taking the Fifth".

 

 

"The Mob takes the Fifth.... If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”*

 

*Orange clown who later went on to take the fifth 440 times during  a deposition before lawyers from New York Attorney General Letitia James' office in its probe into the Trump Organization's business practices.

 

 

[grandadbob]

We got a postal delivery today and as I'm still waiting for my new Sim card I got quite excited.  Should've known better, still no Sim however I was very lucky 🤪because what I did get from the cheeky barstewards was my "first bill" for the new mobile phone service starting from 24th April!  Needless to say a phone call was made and they were politely told in a very firm manner what they could do with their bill and I wasn't paying for anything until I got the goods and was able to use them.  Also said I was very close to cancelling the whole thing unless they sorted it PDQ.  A very apologetic person has  said that an enhanced  credit would be issued forthwith.  I've now told them that I won't be using the new Sims until the broadband service is also sorted and that won't be until 15th May.

Some domestic tasks have been dealt with but I managed to sidestep the gardening so no plants have been harmed today.

Also been trying to transfer a lot of photos from my camera to my laptop but it wouldn't work.  Looks like the problem is with the lead or the camera socket however I managed to do it eventually with an old card reader.

 

Edited April 29 by grandadbob

[monkeysarefun]

5 minutes ago, grandadbob said:

  Looks like the problem is with the lead

 

 

Never overlook the lead as a potential problem. Its amazing how many times a dodgy USB lead has let me down, whether charging my phone, transferring files to a 3D printer or laser cutter etc , thats  now  always the first thingl I check out.

[Tony_S]

I was quite pleased that something that hadn’t  worked for me before worked perfectly today. We sell our surplus electricity to our energy supplier. They contact us and ask for,an export meter reading from the smart meter and to upload a photo of the meter and the reading. It used to crash at that stage and I had to email the photo. The company can read our export values, as a nice lady read them back to me once when I was asking about another meter matter. So I wonder if the people who actually handle the export payments can’t access the smart meter data. Wouldn’t surprise me, as they only seem able to pay me with a cheque!

Tony

[Tony_S]

6 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

Never overlook the lead as a potential problem. Its amazing how many times a dodgy USB lead has let me down, whether charging my phone, transferring files to a 3D printer or laser cutter etc , thats  now  always the first thingl I check out.

Where the cable enters the plug is a common fail point. Cables with extra support just fail slightly further down.

[Sidecar Racer]

3 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Has anyone asked your police what they'd rather be armed with?

 

 This from a Wiki article ,

 

 Surveys by the Police Federation of England and Wales have continued to show police officers' considerable resistance to routine arming. Although in the Federation's most recent (2017) Officer/Arming survey, 66% of respondents were against the routine arming of police compared to 82% in 2006.

 

A full history of police and arms here .

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_use_of_firearms_in_the_United_Kingdom

[DaveF]

In over 40 years in Northumberland I think I've only seen armed police once and that was when they were hunting Raoul Moat in 2010.

 

On to more pleasant matters, the curtain man arrived at 12.45, by 1.20 he had measured up, I had chosen the material and paid a deposit.  It was all very easy as I have traditional curtain rails and knew exactly what I wanted.

 

Then I went to the Masonic Hall, as usual I was able to park about 6 car lengths away from the door at the roadside and had a very enjoyable afternoon tea, organised by the Ladies fellowship at church.  There was ample food - quiche, meat pies, assorted sandwiches, cheese and fruit scones (the latter with lots of cream) and very rich chocolate cake together with unlimited tea and coffee.  I managed to find a table with a mix of people I did and didn't know which I always prefer to sitting with a just group of friends I can talk to anytime.

 

I won a plant in the raffle and had several enjoyable games of playing card Bingo where instead of marking numbers off on a card you have a random 13 cards and the caller calls out the suit and number.  It made a nice change.

 

I won't need a big tea, I'll just have a slice of ham and some salad as I am a bit full.  

 

During the morning I found another two large albums of photos taken by Mum and Dad around 1948 to 1953 so will have to scan the prints in due course.  I know have scans of a few of them but it will be quicker to do them all rather than searching for the original scans to check which I already have.

 

When I amended my grocery order for tomorrow with Morrisons I found that the section headed "Fruit and Vegetables" on their website only offered flowers, new potatoes and nuts.  As the site was also very slow I rang them, the person I sopke to checked and found the same problem so it has been passed on to their IT people.  Apparently they have been upgrading their website recently.  Oddly individual fruit and vegetable items did come up if you searched the site.

 

David

[DaveF]

59 minutes ago, grandadbob said:

 

Also been trying to transfer a lot of photos from my camera to my laptop but it wouldn't work.  Looks like the problem is with the lead or the camera socket however I managed to do it eventually with an old card reader.

 

 

For cameras I've gone back to a card reader as a result of similar issues.  For some reasons I don't seem to have problems when I connect my phone with a cable to download images.

[Tony_S]

I mentioned earlier that Aditi had found a nice raincoat but it wasn’t stocked in her size. Never fear, she won’t get wet in Iceland as she went online and ordered it. Got 15% discount with a code from a National Trust magazine too. I have just re-proofed my coat and it is outside dripping dry now.  

[Gwiwer]

2 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

 I'd lump the  1980's-vintage NSW Transit cops in that category! 

 

Insufficiently adequate   to get into the actual cops, they patrolled the trains and stations of the NSW rail network, armed and ready to prove it at any justification. My experience of them was when 3 mates and I were going into the city one Friday night to see a band - one of my mates showed his University of Wollongong*  travel card but it was denied by the ticket selling guy.

 

. My mate said something or other under his breath and we boarded the train but unbeknown to us, the ticket guy must have had a secret button or something because 5 minutes into our trip, 2 of the NSW transit police forces  finest came into the carriage  and confronted us.

 

The older one told my mate to leave the train as we pulled into Warwick Farm station and reached for his gun to make the point more obvious. The rest of us weren't sure if we were meant to follow or stay aboard, until the younger pretend cop  said "Yous can go too if yous want" so we did.

 

Warwick Farm station is a minor stop where only one in 10 trains pull into so we had quite a wait, but we still got to the venue well before the band bothered to show up.

 

If it had come to a shoot out I reckon my mate sitting behind the two cops could have taken at least one of them out via a  kidney punch or a whack behind the knees and I could have gone for the younger ones gun and held him hostage until they honoured the Wollongong travel concession card and refunded my other mate the cash discount he'd been denied.

  

 

* no, not Woolloomooloo, just to fend off any M. Python fans...

 

That sounds incredibly familiar.  

 

It was 2002 not the 1980s but I was travelling on the Hunter Valley train from Newcastle to Maitland when exactly that happened - two Transits boarded and found every fault they could with ticketing.  Including ordering two children of about 12 years of age off the train at fairly remote Sandgate station (where not all trains stop) at gun-point.  

 

What sort of impression does that give?  And what sort of adults will kids subjected to that treatment become?  The poor mites had tickets but for some technicality they were not valid on that train on that day at that moment in time.  Or perhaps their faces just didn't fit.  Or some other spurious and lacking in duty-of-care reason.  

 

I was not impressed.  Luckily I was carrying my staff ID and all-states travel authority which they decided was all in order despite them being Victorian not New South Welsh.  

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 I'd lump the  1980's-vintage NSW Transit cops in that category! 

Insufficiently adequate   to get into the actual cops, they patrolled the trains and stations of the NSW rail network, armed and ready to prove it at any justification. My experience of them was when 3 mates and I were going into the city one Friday night to see a band - one of my mates showed his University of Wollongong*  travel card but it was denied by the ticket selling guy.

. My mate said something or other under his breath and we boarded the train but unbeknown to us, the ticket guy must have had a secret button or something because 5 minutes into our trip, 2 of the NSW transit police forces  finest came into the carriage  and confronted us.

The older one told my mate to leave the train as we pulled into Warwick Farm station and reached for his gun to make the point more obvious. The rest of us weren't sure if we were meant to follow or stay aboard, until the younger pretend cop  said "Yous can go too if yous want" so we did.

Warwick Farm station is a minor stop where only one in 10 trains pull into so we had quite a wait, but we still got to the venue well before the band bothered to show up.

If it had come to a shoot out I reckon my mate sitting behind the two cops could have taken at least one of them out via a  kidney punch or a whack behind the knees and I could have gone for the younger ones gun and held him hostage until they honoured the Wollongong travel concession card and refunded my other mate the cash discount he'd been denied.

* no, not Woolloomooloo, just to fend off any M. Python fans...

It all comes down to the selection process for police officers. No police force is immune from employing a 'wrong un' but to employ rejects from another police force is just asking for trouble.

[polybear]

4 hours ago, woodenhead said:

I'm out of this insane argument - meant to be Early Risers, somewhere to chat not argue over guns.

 

I've not seen any arguing whatsoever, only sensible discussion; sure, there are different opinions but isn't that what makes it interesting?

 

3 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

I do respect the sentiments around the recent events at Bondi Junction mall which is most regrettable and extremely uncommon in Australia.  However whilst the officer who discharged her weapon did so in direct response to events and the ongoing threat it may well have been that a taser (had one been available) might also have brought the shooter down.  

 

I suspect a Taser would've increased the risk to the Officer considerably - as well as to the general public if she'd been shot in the process.

I suspect fellow ER'ers won't be surprised that Bear is quite happy that, giving what the shooter did (killed six people - with another two in ITU) I'm quite happy that he was stopped in such a way.

 

2 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Aditi was of course drawn to the most expensive range they had (without even seeing a price tag). They didn’t have her size in stock though. 

 

That was lucky.

edit:  Oh, hang on.....maybe not.....

 

2 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Israel.. everyone is armed.

 

Got on a train, this little old granny sat down, put her bags to the floor and leaned her rifle against the side of the carriage!, no one even noticed but me… younger ones, t-shirt, jeans, backpack and assault rifle..sure.

 

 

 

When Bear was in Kuwait the local Police came into the Hotel Restaurant as they'd heard some big noise Footie Team were staying there and they were hoping to get their Autographs and some selfies.  However, the member of Hotel Staff at the entrance desk to the Restaurant said no, you can't come in carrying those guns.  So what did they do?  Yep, left the Guns on the desk and went selfie hunting......

 

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

Where the cable enters the plug is a common fail point. Cables with extra support just fail slightly further down.

 

That's a common one on vacuum cleaners as well.

[TheQ]

This also says a lot.

Police average training.

USA: 652 hours 

🇨🇦 Canada: 1,040 hrs

🇬🇧 UK: 2,250 hrs

🇦🇺 Australia: 3,500 hrs

🇩🇪 Germany: 4,050 hrs

 

🪦 Killings by law enforcement in 2020:

 

🇺🇸 USA: 1,021

🇨🇦 Canada: 52

🇦🇺 Australia: 16

🇩🇪 Germany: 9

🇬🇧 UK: 5

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. I decided to take an eyelid inspection this afternoon instead of shopping. I'm not short of  bread, milk and eggs and there's three dinners in the fridge so no need to shop today.

[iL Dottore]

15 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

It all comes down to the selection process for police officers. No police force is immune from employing a 'wrong un' but to employ rejects from another police force is just asking for trouble.

Not only that, it's the type and amount of training they. I read that the average amount of time a US cop spends in training is 833 hours, a hair-stylist in Austin Tx requires a minimum of 1000 hrs training and cosmetologist training varies between 4 and 5 years!

 

At least you can be reassured that in Austin Tx your hair is safe!

[DaveF]

My house and contents insurance renewal details came today.  It has gone up from £244 to £293 which I suppose remains reasonable this year.

 

David

[Ohmisterporter]

5 minutes ago, DaveF said:

My house and contents insurance renewal details came today.  It has gone up from £244 to £293 which I suppose remains reasonable this year.

 

David

 

I think that is very reasonable David, I wish mine was as low.

[iL Dottore]

ION

 

Sad news on the move to the new apartment, I have just been informed by Mrs iD that the move will require "half-sizing" (like "downsizing" but more radical: at least 50% of our "stuff" Must Go!).

 

This means that ALL my 4mm rolling stock, kits, accessories, etc., Will Have To Go, as will the majority of my Railway Books (prototype and modelling). Plus I will need to find new homes for The Brunel Pub, The Georgian Terrace Houses and other buildings.

 

This weekend I'll be cataloging what I actually have (PM me if you're interested in getting some "good sh*t" 😁). I think I can sell most of the 4mm stuff in one batch .

 

It's mostly GWR stuff, so if you're looking for something specifically GWR PM me and I may be able to help!

 

On the upside Mrs iD has to "half-size" her shoe and bric-a-brac collections.

 

So, not ALL gloom and doom!

 

Edited April 29 by iL Dottore
Typo

[polybear]

Bear here.....

 

Got some more Beary Will stuff done - it looks like three of the five documents I've been preparing are complete, so that's a Tick.  It's one of those jobs where you could keep "fine tuning" until Doomsday - at some point you just have to say "right, that'll do".

 

Post din dins meant Harry the Honda time; the zorsts are now refitted along with the shiny new silencers - and without the use of any naughty words either, so that's a Big Tick.  I'm sure that just running it with open downpipes and no silencers would be more fun though.

 

BG

[polybear]

4 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

ION

Sad news on the move to the new apartment, I have just been informed by Mrs iD that the move will require "half-sizing" (like "downsizing" but more radical: at least 50% of our "stuff" Must Go!).

 

This means that ALL my 4mm rolling stock, kits, accessories, etc., Will Have To Go, as will the majority of my Railway Books (prototype and modelling). Plus I will need to find new homes for The Brunel Pub, The Georgian Terrace Houses and other buildings.

 

This weekend I'll be cataloging what I actually have (PM me if you're interested in getting some "good sh*t" 😁). I think I can sell most of the 4mm stuff in one batch .

 

It's mostly GWR stuff, so if you're looking for something specifically GWR PM me and I may be able to help!

 

On the upside Mrs iD has to "half-size" her shoe and bric-a-brac collections.

 

So, not ALL gloom and doom!

 

Sounds to this Bear that a different Apartment is required.

[PupCam]

Evening!

 

12 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Not only that, it's the type and amount of training they. I read that the average amount of time a US cop spends in training is 833 hours, a hair-stylist in Austin Tx requires a minimum of 1000 hrs training and cosmetologist training varies between 4 and 5 years!

 

At least you can be reassured that in Austin Tx your hair is safe!

 

Mine wouldn't be any safer ..... 🤪

 

ION

 

Notalot ....

 

A quiet day yesterday doing notalot apart from a most enjoyable visit by Junior Puppers and Junior Junior Puppers after Saturday's post-Covid jab "feeling very strange day".      

A trip for lunch with friends to the outskirts of the place they call Milton Keynes was enjoyed earlier.

 

Whilst stumbling around some of  the Faceache groups that appeal yesterday I spotted these two rather splendid photos of an aeroplane guaranteed to quicken Puppers' pulse and, I suspect, that of a certain @Dave Hunt.

Shared  on here with permission of the photographer (Adrian Almond) it was very kind of him to thank me for asking!   Well, it would have been extremely rude (and wrong) not to.     

For anyone who is interested they were posted on the Mach Loop, Lake District & Low Level Photography Group.

 

Anyway, cracking aeroplane and it's a shame and a tragedy that true civil operation of the type is now suspended since somebody tried doing a Jet Provest sized loop in one from low level (if I understood the basic gist of the pilot's defence correctly).   Hindsight would suggest that was never going to work.       Anyway, two great and rather unusual images of one of the HHA Hunters doing what they do best.

 

 

 

TTFN

 

 

[Sidecar Racer]

25 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

Sounds to this Bear that separate Apartments are required.

 

FIFY .    😎

[Andy Hayter]

7 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

Having lived in nations where policing is by consent and where policing is by big stick (in reality if not in the letter of law) I prefer the British Way.  

 

Most police are not armed with offensive weapons in the UK; those who carry firearms do so only in response to specific and credible threats against person(s) or in very high security situations such as the close personal protection teams or international security at ports of entry / exit.  I suspect most police members (if that is how they currently prefer to be known) would not wish that to change.  The average PC does not seek to carry lethal force neither is it needed 99% of the time.  For the 1% they can call up the ARV who will tool up as the situation demands but otherwise might be on routine - unarmed - patrol.  ARVs carry gun safes; the officers are not themselves armed until they receive the authority from above.

 

 

 

 

I think you might be shocked by the number of police that have immediate access to firearms.  All they need is authorisation to retrieve them from their police car.   In some cases that authorisation is automatic in that a set of circumstances authorises them to access weapons without the say-so from above.  

[Dave Hunt]

44 minutes ago, PupCam said:

 Anyway, two great and rather unusual images of one of the HHA Hunters doing what they do best.

 

 

 

TTFN

 

 

 

Ah, FGA9s (230 gallon inboard drop tanks and brake 'chute housings). Lovely bit of kit to fly but the cockpit layout was designed by a kitchen fitter.

 

Dave

Edited April 29 by Dave Hunt

[Ian Abel]

Afternoon (here at least!)

 

Weekend busy and enjoyable, dinner with friends Friday, tried a new to us Indian/Tibetan place, take-away order and general consensus was "unimpressed", for those styles we'll be back to our preferred/favorite in future.

Sunday quiet morning/early afternoon, then off to the last of the 2023/204 season concert series I volunteer at. Amazing Eagles performance from a local tribute band. Closing your eyes you'd not tell the difference between them and the performance of the group we attended in the autumn here.

 

All weekend was wet/raining on and off, more on than off...

6c and rain first thing, stopped now and the high of 9c reached. Down to 4c overnight before we see acouple of days of 20c with some rain thrown in.

 

Carry on.