Gwiwer

Isn't is just? You know it's going to be a busy watch when you drive down the road and can see shipping almost nose-to-tail (all right, bow-to-stern) in both lanes. And you know it's going to be busy when you switch on the kit and find most of the local yachtspersons and local fishing / pleasure boats are out or making ready to go. Yes, that was a busy, BUSY, morning on watch. I hardly had time to make a brew. The moment I did so a hiker came past to report a distressed seal pup on the cove slipway. Not really what we are there for but she did also mention she had already reported it to wildlife welfare so other than noting the report in the log no further action was required. Dr. SWMBO will be home later therefore the Distant (Signal) West must be cleaned and everything put back in its official place. As opposed to where I leave things when she is away because I know where they are! Next weekend has given her some issues. She is due to present a paper at Cambridge University on Friday and was offered accommodation in order to return to Cornwall on Saturday. There are no trains from Cambridge on Saturday owing to an incursion by the Orange Army. So she booked the overnight sleeper from London on Friday night and arranged to leave Cambridge a little earlier than they would have liked. The sleeper has now been cancelled due to "Industrial Action Short of a Strike" in other words a ban on non-contractual overtime meaning at least one member of the train crew will not be willing to work and it cannot run. So she toyed with cancelling altogether. Cambridge came across with an offer of accommodation on both Saturday and Sunday nights which means she can avoid both the Orange Army and the Industrial (absence of) Action but will not get home to Cornwall for the weekend at all. That, in turn, means she has to figure out how to carry the extra clothes she will need for being away for ten days not four. She cannot manage a bigger bag than she uses; she has difficulty getting laundry done as service washes are the only option and they are expensive in her area. We'll nut something out. Meanwhile it is time to wrangle the Shark and perform other acts of Domestic Engineering and Purificatory Eurhythmics. .

2025 is the target. Which month and which event it is too early to say. It would be quite a large exhibit for SWAG25 but never say never. And I shall need a van to move it. Because three full and two half-size boards, plus legs, plus stock will not fit in the car!!!

I spent some time at club today checking out the boards and assessing the work required to restore Waddlemarsh to running order. It's perfectly do-able. The biggest issues are cost and space. Cost is always an issue and available space is determined now by the needs of the club and its other members and layouts. Ironically the plain track has largely survived intact and it is the pointwork which requires replacing. Some because it is damaged beyond repair and some because of the new end-to-end configuration which will enforce the relocation of a few points. A new custom-built fiddle-yard entry crossover will be required and I shall take the opportunity to obtain a two-to-four rather than two-to-three set-up. That requires two points feeding to a short central diamond with the exits both feeding double-slips rather than just two more points. The old one had one double-slip and a simple turnout. After brushing a significant amount of mildew off the boards - thankfully it's nice and dry now after a seemingly endless wet winter so they cleaned up nicely - the basic scenery and woodwork is not too bad at all. It looked far worse covered in blobs of green and black but that hasn't even stained anything. Today I stripped the old corner board of its sharply-curved tracks and cut a piece from it which will form a link span. That will support the crossover and will connect to the main fiddle-yard board at one end then to the station scene board at the other. The girder bridge which was built skewed across the lines as a scenic break is OK to use with a re-skin of the Scalescenes brick paper applied and may therefore remain at a skew angle rather than reconfiguring it to a right-angle. Too many layouts have 90-degree structures as scenic breaks; many bridges in real life are at anything but right-angle to the line. I have identified an area on the fiddle yard board where point control and isolating switches can be located which will minimise wiring across board joints; only the common feed will have to be connected rather than dozens of individual wires. I have not yet identified where the power controller will go but it has to swap from what will in future be the viewing side of the board. The best option may be to mount it in a cradle beneath a baseboard. Point and isolation control for the rest of the layout can be placed elsewhere again hopefully reducing the number of plug-in electrical connections required. Progress will not be fast. I have around 2 - 3 hours a week in the club room for my own projects. But progress there already is.

I remembered to say “Oss Oss” and replied to myself (because Dr SWMBO is away midweek) with “Wee Oss”. Padstow marks May Day in its own way. Not quite as unique as they like to think but special nonetheless. That thumping drum is like the heartbeat of Spring. I’ll not be there this year. It’s not too far but there’s work to be done here, it’s Muddling Afternoon and I need an early night because I’m on watch first thing tomorrow. No drunken shenanigans around the maypole for this Gwiwer then. But I’ll enjoy re-living the memories 🙈🙉🙊 “Wither we are going we all shall unite in the merry morning of May”

"Password must contain at least one special character" 🖕 Is not acceptable.

13,000 pages of friendly support, informed drivel and gastronomic delights! Well done all. 👏 👏 Why not have a walking thread? I already admin a Farcebook group for the South West Coast Path https://www.facebook.com/groups/1580784368659585 (13,000 members) and am a member of another for walking Britain's coast. I have "clocked up" quite a few miles around the inlands of southern England and North Wales / Gogledd Cymru as well. There are perfectly good if rather pointless paths from Berney Arms station but as you say the pub is long closed and unlikely to reopen so it's a fair old hike for the sake of it if you go. In other news it's time for His Furship's annual Roadworthy - first time at a new vet as the previous occasion was before we moved. I wonder how he'll take to that. He doesn't much like change. Nor car trips. This morning's tragic and regrettable events in Hainault will draw no further comment from me beyond noting that the sword-wielding offender was taken down by a taser.

Dr. SWMBO has safely returned from her day in Paris and is back in her London-area digs. I can go to bed now. G'night all.

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.

I am OK with a sensible discussion around police and firearms. I don't see it as a argument in the sense of protagonists at ten paces. 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. Many UK police are issued with the non-lethal taser, or can be issued with them if they are likely to face disorder on duty which might require their use. They are considered non-lethal weapons of defence not lethal weapons of force. Victims are disabled instantly and for such time as it takes to secure them and remove them from the scene. A clear shot at close range is required - unlike a gunshot which requires a clear shot but can be deployed at much greater distances - but their efficiency at ending violent confrontations is not in doubt. I am all in favour of police (anywhere) carrying sufficient items to protect themselves and to prevent an ongoing and immediate threat to others. That does not by any means imply they should carry firearms. In response to the suggestion that British railway stations are patrolled by sub-machine-gun toting police that is not true. St. Pancras International has a few such officers localised to the international arrivals / departures area because it is a port of entry. Otherwise it is the unarmed British Transport Police who are responsible for all railway premises. They - at their discretion - may invite the local force for example the Metropolitan Police in London to assist them but Met Police officers will only patrol stations in response to a direct security threat. They did that in recent times when the UK national security threat level was raised to Critical as it was likely that a railway station would be targeted. They were stood down when the threat level was lowered. I spent the last six years of my working life at one of the busiest stations in the country, just outside two major London terminals and on the direct route to Gatwick Airport. It was (and is) a Category A list location and is considered high-risk because of its strategic importance and connectivity to other places. We very seldom saw police on patrol. The BTP had a base there but it was not continuously attended. The response required from staff in the event of need was to call 999; the emergency operator would either direct the call to the BTP or, should it require a level of response they could not provide, would assign Met Police whilst notifying the BTP of events. We called the police around once a year. Mostly to unruly passengers. Only once was there a suspicious package which could not be ascertained under station protocols to be safe; the Met Police were there within 90 seconds of the call and declared it safe within 3 minutes. Without guns or sniffer robots and without the need to close and evacuate more than the immediate 400m radius. That is policing by consent.

CCTV yes; dash-cam no.

Welcome one and all to a wet, windy and cold Moan-day. It began slowly as there has been no need to rush about today. Dr. SWMBO is in Paris on business. She left here yesterday afternoon, a day earlier than usual, and was aboard the 8.01 Eurostar from St. Pancras having made a very ER start indeed from her digs SW of London by minicab. She returns on the last train tonight which will make it a very long day for her. Having dropped her off at the statin I took the opportunity of negotiating the Sainsbury's Grand Prix which, for a Sunday afternoon, wasn't at all bad. Everything on the list was available except ghee. I can probably get that another time; I don't need it every day nor even every week. I then came home and came face to face with C0ckwomble Driver No.1. Heading over the moors on that hilly and winding road the oncoming bus had stopped at a rural farm lane to set down a passenger. Two cars were behind; the first came around with plenty of room to spare and the second waited. As the driver would have been unable to see anything at all around the bus due to the curvature and hills I expected they would stay waited. But no. I was perhaps a bus-length away from coming past when out he came, into my lane, with me approaching at a cautious 45mph. I hit brakes, horn and headlights all at the same time and stopped in short order only to see a green something cut sharply into the fast-closing gap with an erect middle finger poking from the driver's window in my general direction. I really MUST get that idiot-cam fitted because if it had been recording I would have had his plate and referred him to the local constabulary. Who are running a "send us your dash-cam footage of dodgy driving" campaign and publishing the results online. After safely stowing the shopping and quaffing a muggercoffy I hopped aboard the Coaster bus for a breezy trip around Lands End to Porthcurno and back. A nice enough way to end the daylight hours even if it was a bit cool. I was impressed at the numbers using the service; we picked up and set down quite a few ones and twos in all sorts of places from the larger Sennen Cove to the remote farm laneways leading off to who knows where. Porthcurno itself produced a fascinating view of light and shade which I felt obliged to record for posterity.

Plus Police/Law Enforcement - it's unfair to expect them to go up against the baddies with guns. 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. Australian police all routinely carry loaded weapons. The threat of force is always there. Policing should be by consent but to a greater extent than exists in the UK it is policing by threat of lethal force. I never felt comfortable seeing cops on traffic duties with one hand raised to direct motor traffic and the other on their weapon. It never felt comfortable seeing "neighbourhood" police patrolling streets and shopping malls also with one hand glued to a weapon. I prefer to feel comfortable that the police are there as defenders rather than feeling awkward and that they are potentially aggressors. To each their own. It's probably "what you grew up with" but I was taught that the police are friends. Friends do not carry loaded weapons in my book. It speaks volumes that the UK remains extremely safe with very low rates of gun crime, substantially low rates of knife crime (acknowledging there are localised issues with certain sections of the community here and there carrying blades) and where one can feel safe on the streets day and night. Force met with force can escalate into a spiral of attrition. The last thing we need is police routinely armed in the UK; that will surely lead to the criminal element tooling up in response.

As opposed to "I am the seagull - you are the target" as happens all too often.

Better than working for a large illegal firm I s'pose 🤣

Here's a few of my efforts with Ratio plastic kits and later square-section rodding. Including a facing point lock fitted and part-rodded. The rodding cranks beneath the platform and beneath the board crossing by the signalbox. Each part - some of them tiny - is separate.