Early Risers.

[PhilJ W]

The Viirtual model railway exhibition has re-appeared as a Facebook group.

[pH]

1 hour ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

And apparently, there is nothing else happening in the world.

 

It would be a good time to slip something controversial through, wouldn't it?

[tigerburnie]

G'night all

[The Lurker]

3 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

So.  Boris has decreed the last bastion of fun and social life is to be closed.  And in shutting the pubs he has brought about the exact situation he didn't want.  It's not even 8pm and they're packed here.  Nice work, Mr. Mophead.

 

Au contraire the packed pubs have proved that ordering closure is more likely the right thing to do because people aren’t voluntarily doing it; witness what is happening in Italy where the lockdown of the North of the country was taken with a huge pinch of salt.

 

if we can’t as a society miss a bit of fun for a few weeks or months then the lives of key workers are at greater risk than ever. 

[newbryford]

I reckon the pubs will be busier tonight than the past few Fridays - because they are closing.

 

[The Lurker]

54 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

Agency staff.  The position remains unclear as she is neither employed by the school nor self-employed but contracted as required.  Until today she was covering full days in the classroom plus out-of-hours tutoring such was the demand with permanent teaching staff absent.  She might yet be recalled depending on the need as there might be more than the 10% of children the government expected who are actually entitled to remain in school.  And the number of permanent teachers may reduce further.  

 

We have had another long (electronic) conversation tonight.  She is desperately worried about having no money and no home. It is unclear what protection she has with a commercial landlord - that offered so far is for tenants of private landlords - and has funds for the next month only.  I know she would be very reluctant to take it but I have offered her a significant amount of financial support if it makes the difference.  Leaving her shared flat is equally an untenable option; no-one is likely to want a flat-share with a stranger in current circumstances which means she would (in law) remain liable for her portion of the rent to the end of the tenancy and it leaves her flatmate just as exposed.  In addition to which it might be hard to secure the services of a person-plus-van to effect a 200-mile removal.  And that is if her mother could even find space for her.  That isn't certain either.

 

 

The phrase “a friend indeed” does not come close.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

This morning’s Trafford Centre Grand Prix was uneventful, I managed to get all that was required, Sheila said not to bother with Asda, as we could manage until next week, I didn’t need telling twice. But after that it all went downhill, I got to the butchers about 11 o’clock and the queue was already out of the door, lots of faces I didn’t recognise! By the time it was my turn to be served they’d practically sold out of meat, there was no pork, no chicken, no beef, very little mince beef or stewing steak and no cooked meat, thankfully I got one of the last pasties though. The best of it is, they’d only had a delivery of chicken this morning and it had gone, the F**K YOU, I’M ALRIGHT JACK vultures had struck again. Luckily we have some cheese in the fridge and some tins of fish in the cupboard so we won’t starve, but the greed, stupidity and inconsideration of some is really p!ssing me off!

 

 Goodnight all 

[newbryford]

One for GDB.

 

[Coombe Barton]

The Lonely Trout

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2020/03/20/the-lonely-trout/

[laurenceb]

Happy anniversary to Mr & Mrs NB

Fingers & thumbs crossed for Mrs Rick

Night awl

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[Happy Hippo]

4 hours ago, newbryford said:

 

Where's the disinfectant?

Aren't you gargling with it?

[newbryford]

7 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Aren't you gargling with it?

 

TCP

Totally cr@p pannier?

 

(Runs and hides)

[The Stationmaster]

Seems the Oxford hospitals have go themselves sorted and are not asking staff to work extra hours.  The JR has in barely a week, increased its number of high dependency beds from 46 to 146 by dint of moving some work to the Nuffield (which is part of the same trust) and getting on with the managerial task.  NHS rumourtrol has it that the same cannot be said of London where things in terms of hospital care for victims of the virus are now being compared to what is taking place in northern Italy.  Hence the clamp down today on pubs and restaurants etc because people have been behaving stupidly and not observing the 'social distancing' procedures.  People and their inability to behave sensibly strikes yet again and, as ever, no doubt many others will suffer as a consequence of the stupidity of a minority.

 

More sensibly the nearest pub to us is following a practical approach for its immediate future and from tomorrow will be offering takeaway service of both meals and drinks and at least one local restaurant is doing the same.  Although in the case of the latter I'm not sure quite how they will serve a steak for you to cook at your table le on a hot stone - bring your own stone?  And all is continuing on existing storylines in Ambridge although a murky background now appears to be emerging in respect of the cause of the fire at Grey Gables.  Looks like Covid-19 is not going to hit events on Borsetshire for a while yet.

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all.

[roundhouse]

Our local brewey is now doing drive thru growler refills as from yesterday. I believe that they want you to stay in your car whilst htey take your growlwer / container into the brewery, fill it and retuen it to you and you pay contactless. As we have some of the USA style glass growlers we will be heading theri today although it looks like the more interesting alse wont be available but their premium ale isnt bad. I hope more small breweries will be able to do this to keep cask ale available otherwise I fear it will disappear (along with many pubs) for good if we are in this state for 12 months.

 

Brother has been messaging me re his two kids who are now self isolating at Mums for 14 days. He said that infections in HK have soared to 60 in recent days, all after getting off flights so flights are likely to be suspended in and out of HK very soon.

 

For me, I will keep busy as still need to start the patio extension very soon. I did some alterations to the shed patio yesterday afternoon. All helps me keep fit.

Edited March 21, 2020 by roundhouse

[J. S. Bach]

Good night owl from a decidedly warm (88° F) Piedmont.

 

Last night I accidentally posted my GN in the Forum Jokes section, this should have been posted here:

If it were my creation, the thunder box would be situated right in the middle of the "vortex"!

Edited March 21, 2020 by J. S. Bach

[Ozexpatriate]

4 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

SWMBO has submitted her PhD thesis tonight.  Eight years in the writing and not without a good many dramas along the way.  Now we await the assessment which can take around six months to be finalised.  

Rick, congratulations to your good lady. This is a significant accomplishment and milestone in life.

 

4 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

Kew Gardens has been left open (though with all buildings closed; only the gardens are open) in respect of the advice to get out and stay healthy whilst observing personal space.  Mother's Day is one of their busiest in the year and is forecast to be sunny though cool.  They are concerned that a larger than ideal number of people might visit and not observe guidelines on distancing. 

Presumably they could offer 'first come, first served' timed access passes to limit the number of attendees  during the day. (I say this knowing that you are not in a position to effect policy at Kew Gardens, but I can see alternatives between the binary open or closed choice.)

[Ozexpatriate]

Weather was lovely today. I ran out to the post office, pharmacy, supermarket and cleaners.

 

The supermarket was well stocked, except for the bare shelves where the paper towels, toilet paper and bleach-based cleaners are normally located, though the sugar, flour, rice and boxed breakfast batters (pancakes, waffles, etc) were heavily depleted along with ground (minced) beef.

 

There's no way one would starve with everything else that was available.

 

It is spring and lovely. (This was in the supermarket car park.)

 

[BR60103]

Our coffee shops had stopped filling customer owned mugs and were not providing ceramic mugs -- back to cardboard. And they wouldn't refill those.  They're now down to doing take out or drive through only, along with the restaurants. We haven't been to any for about 2 weeks.

Weather was up to 16 degrees today, but when we went for a walk a neighbour advised us that a thunderstorm was likely to move in in 10 minutes. It hit just after we reached home. Much water ran through the garden and down the street.

I dug out an LP and played the dedication service for Evening Star.

[TheQ]

Mooring awl, 

After 4 hours solid sleep,  now unable to sleep, back painful for no apparent reason. 

 

I've decided to try to finish one section of the layout next,  that will then go home,  so I can reorganise the rest and build the final board at the MRC without getting in anyone's way due to their enforced absence . 

 

This will leave one section without support, so now brain trying to work out a support structure for part of the layout. It needs to be both independent yet capeable of tieing two of the layout carriages together at 90degrees,  light weight  and foldable. 

 

I think some pink pills I've taken are taking effect,  so for now

Time to say goodnight part 2..

[chrisf]

Greetings one and all

 

On Desert Island Discs yesterday Daniel Radcliffe chose Tom Lehrer's "We Will All Go Together When We Go".  This prompts me to share a tale from my murky past, half a lifetime ago.  One Saturday night way back when, Paul Veysey was on Hereward Radio and asked if anyone "out there" had any Tom Lehrer records.  As I did, and still do, I got straight on the phone.  The upshot of that was that two weeks later I headed up the A1 with the records and guested on the programme.  It was an enjoyable couple of hours and I made the obvious and corny choice for the final track.  As we parted company Paul expressed the hope that we would work together again.

 

My hopes of a career in commercial radio soon evaporated.  The following Saturday Paul introduced what he said was the final Paul Veysey programme!  I wondered what either of us had done wrong.  On the Monday morning I got on the phone again, to be told that he had gone on holiday.  This could have meant anything!  He vanished from the radar completely.  A few years ago I googled his name and found it linked with a used car dealership.  I did not follow it up and somehow doubt that he would have remembered me after all that time, if indeed it was the same Paul Veysey.  For the record, I have not bought a used car since 1976.  The moral of this tale may be that I would rather live in the past than the present.

 

Back in the real world, I spent a few hours yesterday going through a run of magazines, detaching a few pages and binning the rest.  When that work is done I will have freed up a whole shelf in a bookcase.  Perhaps I will fill it with books.

 

Best wishes to all.  We need them.

 

Chris 

[Ozexpatriate]

57 minutes ago, chrisf said:

On Desert Island Discs yesterday Daniel Radcliffe chose Tom Lehrer's "We Will All Go Together When We Go".

He's a big Tom Lehrer fan. I saw him sing "The Elements" from memory on a talk show, which I thought was a US late night talk show but Google links all point to the Graham Norton show (which might have been where I saw it).

 

The Tom Lehrer song of the moment (also mentioned on an RMweb somewhere) must surely be "I got it from Agnes".

 

Edited March 21, 2020 by Ozexpatriate

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

Seems like we should all try and post on here every day just to make sure we know people are OK? What do the ERs think?

 

Congratulations to Sharron. PhD Thesis writing is hard work..from our experience with Doctor Eldest Herbert we saw what he went through. Fingwrs crossed it all goes well.

 

I have been instructed to try and cut the front patch of grass.. it may turn into Leeds version of a World War 1 battlefield though as it is still very wet.

 

Youngest Herbert reported that not many of his pubs had had beer deliveries recently. Two have already said they are closing for good. I threw my beer jugs out so herself can't even go and pick some up for me. Pah!

 

Look after yourselves!

Positive thoughts to all who ail!

 

Baz

[jamie92208]

5 hours ago, roundhouse said:

Our local brewey is now doing drive thru growler refills as from yesterday. 

And there was little old me (well one of those is accurate) from't north thinking that a growler was a pork pie.  Till I read on I had visions of southerners carefully taking the tops off, eating the contents and taking the pie case back for a refill.   By the time I read on I'd already hit the multiquote button. Ah well.

 

Anyway good moaning all from day 5 of lockdown.  It appears that here, the definition of is felexible to some people.  One of our expat friends posted on farcebook about having friends round for an isolation meal. Another, who's a neighbour says thatvdespite isolation he's still going to go for coffee at his friends every day despite them having just arrived from Paris.  Words fail me. Beth is in the vulnerable category for two reasons and we are just not going to risk it.

 

Anyway, spring has definitely sprung and there is blossom on the fruit trees.  The main task this morning is to sort out the third small raised bed. This will have courgettes apparently.  I will be digging and barrowing.  Monday is going to be hedge cutting day.  Tuesday probably more general tidying and Wednesday will be rubbish burning. Hopefully by the end of usolation the garden will look good.  As we went away in April last year thisvis the first spring that we will have spent here.

 

Congratulations to Sharon, whatvan achievment.  Best wishes to all and of course sundry.  

 

By the way grwat to hear Tom Lehrer being mentioned. I have two live LP's and am a great fan.

 

Jamie