brianthesnail96

Meeting of predicted doom postponed due to IT failure, not as doomish as expected although still bad news- one of our senior designers is leaving, so we were informed of that & the resulting responsibility shuffle. Shame, he's a good bloke- both in terms of ability and as a person. But nowhere near as bad as we were anticipating from the tone of the email telling us to attend, so alright really.

Somehow a boing doesn't seem appropriate today. Perhaps just a hop. Morning all. Sorry to hear about the bad news coming from all directions it seems, my thoughts are with Stevo, John CB & Jock in particular. Think perhaps we should write January off and start again from Feb 1st. Can only echo the admiration for Jock's tenacity and positivity in the face of adversity (that's far too many "itys" but my coffee hasn't sunk in yet). Good on you Sir, and keep it up Nothin' much doing here. Have a compulsory attendance meeting for all the product engineering teams across both sites at 10, so that'll be bad news (it's never good!) but only pencilled in for 15 minutes so hopefully not too bad! Hey, at least it's Friday. Make the best of it all!

Boing! Late today, didn't have time to post over my coffee this morning as the test rig I'm supposed to be taking over next month "did a broken" so coffee time was spend pondering the best plan of attack to get it stripped down and rebuilt. Definitely a few design foibles that have made it interesting at times, not sure the designer intended it to be taken apart. Good to be getting my hands dirty and be doing some actual engineering work though, not just paperwork and people wrangling. Can't let esterday's conversation about university students seemingly not knowing anything about their subject pass without comment. I was lucky in that I went was it was still relatively cheap- £3k a year tuition fees (plus loan for accommodation etc, still not exactly cheap)- but even so there were plenty of people I encountered who hadn't managed to get the work/ life balance quite right. In my first year I was a in a house of 9 and mostly fairly dedicated and hard working (if allergic to washing up liquid and bin bags), except for two of the lads who were a great laugh but prioritised getting stoned and playing sports over working- one of them managed to fail his foundation year which I considered quite an achievement. I know he's now graduated with a decent degree (both in terms of grade and subject matter) but it took several extra years and therefore a fair bit of expenditure for both him & of course the state. Laura had a similar experience in halls, with the other five in her flat going out on 3 "school" nights every week, usually sitting in the communal kitchen drinking until about 11ish before heading out on the town giving her a chance to get some sleep before they all rolled back in about 3am and woke her up again. Of course they then slept most of the morning. One was on the same course as Laura and she very rarely made it to the morning lectures- 9am starts so not exactly early. Laura got so sick of this that unofficially moving in to our house (my 2nd year by then) of four male engineers and rather more motorbikes was a vastly preferable option! No complaints from me obviously. Anyway, given the dropout/ failure rate and general lack of interest shown, even on the waste of time courses (one chap in a friend's halls was doing something woolly to do with history and he had fewer contact hours in a week than I did in any given day; hardly value for money!) I was hardly surprised when they bumped up the tuition fees again. Not saying it was the right thing to do, the whole system needs a reform really as it's definitely far from fair at the moment (being able to afford the fees doesn't necessarily correlate with a good work ethic in my experience, but of course it costs the government less this way...) but I've no idea how you'd go about it. As for cinemas, Laura loves films, I'm indifferent- we compromise and she only drags me along to see a few, but she does own an awful lot of DVDs. At least we generally like similar stuff. Except "Convoy", she doesn't seem to share my enthusiasm for that. 10-4... Have a good afternoon all!

Boing! The Met Office seem to have been fairly on the ball here this year- the "coldest winter" stories seem to get trotted out every year regardless of what the Seaweed Twirlers (thanks Mike for that one!) are saying. Note to self: Need to put some antifreeze in the car. I remember to check the Marina, tucked up in winter storage, but didn't think to check the Land Rover. Oops. Still, came up to temperature OK & stayed there so I don't think there's any harm done!

I need to find somewhere to put mine. Even by GSM standards John was properly loopy (presumably still is), I seem to remember mountains by monthly instalments was another one of his schemes... Assume GSC is still going?

Afternoon all. Lovely morning here too, proper thick frost that took a considerable time to melt in the sun this morning, not that I've been staring out the office window . At the moment it's trees and fields, but several thousand houses are threatened at some point in the next few years. Better make the most of it. Did have to deice both sides of the windscreen, and my seatbelt was frozen solid and didn't want to pull through the top loop- worth that to see some sunshine. Been absent without leave again, sorry. Laura has been feeling under the weather this weekend so- somewhat on topic- we've had a couple of evenings in front of the laptop watching either (rather on topic, as it transpires) "The Herbs" or, not quite in the same league, Roadkill. The latter is a youtube series about a couple of guys in the States working on illogical car projects and going on road trips and such. It's a bit like the Top Gear challenges but without all the fakery and staged silliness. Not everyone's cup of tea but we both love it. I'm a bit difficult to age from the cartoons I watched as I was generally plonked in front of The Herbs or Ivor, both far older than me. Ringo- era Thomas is more telling, although apparently it used to make me quite cross as it was clearly no way to run a railway. My parents had recorded a couple of TV series onto VHS- "The Train Now Departing" (starring an occasional RMWeb poster and friend of NHN!) and "The Great Little Trains of Wales" which were watched as much as any cartoon. Probably explains a lot. Magic Roundabout was encountered rather later and was a brief fad but Brian the Snail has stuck with me. Was at a funeral yesterday (my Grandad's best friend- in all honesty I didn't know him that well as we hadn't seen much of him since my Grandparents moved over this way 15- odd years back but my Grandad asked us to come along), it went as well as these things can. I must come clean and admit I'm not in any way religious so tend to feel a bit of a fraud when the service is heavily biased in that direction but this was as much about celebrating his life as it was about any journeys he may be going on from here on; it was a nice reflection of a well loved man (if something of a character although he'd have had to have been to remain friends with my Grandad for the best part of 80 years!). Laura was out for the evening so tried to leave the internet alone and had an evening with the radio and a good book instead. General mood hearabouts seems to be improving, great to see Jock back to some form of normality (it's a relative term I feel in this particular corner of the internet...) and folks getting over various illnesses etc. Dom's quizzes just serve to show me how little I know about railway (tramway!)infrastructure and procedure- enjoying learning though! Boing! (Just for NHN... I found my GSM "billboard" again the other day, with the elephant and blue pill- it doesn't make any more sense now than it did then!) Enjoy the rest of the day all

Magic Roundabout you say? Will catch up properly later, supposed to be washing up...

Have just discovered that the chippy 5 mins down the road does proper faggots in gravy. Not had them for years. Blummin' lovely. Was supposed to be something involving much green stuff and general good for you, but Laura is feeling grotty and decreed that chips were the order of the day, I wasn't going to argue.

Hoping to see one of those in action NHN- I'm pretty pleased with the sound on my little Ixion Fowler but by all accounts the 24 is setting new standards. Still unconvinced by most steam sounds though (despite now being up to 3 steam sound locos, I said I was going to concentrate on diesels... oops).

Morning (a late one) from a beautifully clear and frosty Gloucestershire. This is the type of weather when I enjoy winter. Have a fairly relaxing day planned, trying to sort out some more of the wagon fleet for an exhibition next month, may do some testing too... Edit, double post. I blame my phone! Like Stevo I quite often browse from this but it's a pain to do notifications from- I'll catch up later!

Makes a change from flood watching I suppose DD... Late visit today. Definitely POETS here, even more people than usual have vanished already. Quiet afternoon of email sorting ahead, unless I'm feeling sufficiently motivated to have another play with Solidworks. Nothing I can really say to Ed that hasn't already been said, other than (hollow as it sounds) at least the termination sounds like it went smoothly and with no more stress and pain than was unavoidable, and that they can have a degree of closure now. NHN- keep trying with your friend. My young lady did eventually seek professional help (albeit after things reached a point where she wasn't really given a choice) and however good you are at listening and being there, somehow having someone unknown to confide in is different and helpful in a different way. I think in most cases to get better people probably need a mixture of the two. Can only echo what I said earlier in that you can only do what you can, and reassure yourselves that even if it doesn't seem it you will be making a difference; and don't take it out on yourselves when it doesn't feel that you are. I'm not entirely convinced by "a burden shared is a burden halved", I fear sometimes it's more "a burden shared is a burden doubled" so remember to look out for Number 1 (and yourself too!) as well. Dare I say that although it's practically ancient history now my experience left it's mark on me as I turned to the stereotypical self harm & drink as a coping mechanism and I'm lucky that I have a very understanding and caring friend in Laura (I still have no idea why she puts up with me, but I'm very grateful that she does). To 28xx, I do hope you see some improvement in your mum's condition soon. On brighter news, glad to hear that Jock is slowly shrinking in certain key areas (and hope the ease back onto the chemo isn't too much of a shock to the system), and particularly happy the BoD's sprit level eye is approaching the level & sounding promising for a return to normality. Dom's lurgy seems to be passing too and he seems to have treated himself to some new toys to make up for it. Good to see some positivity coming through. Nice to see some blummin' sunshine too, although it's clouded over again now. Forecast was for snow on Sunday earlier, but back to sun and light cloud now- they can't seem to make up their mind, presumably the seaweed is iced up and giving inaccurate readings. To Mike & the others in the habit of posting useful answers to folk's questions, do keep it up- even if the original asker doesn't seem to appreciate it others might, even much later. Mike's posts in particular stand out as being very informative while being understandable by a layman without being condescending- a real skill and something I suspect only possible with the vast amount of background knowledge. I've rambled on again and left my lunchbreak far behind- oops. Mind you the boss has gone home so there's no- one to tick me off! Have a good afternoon all, the weekend is in sight

Thanks Simon. I thought my explanation was a little too simplistic, and a little unlikely (not to mention ineffective). Edit- Should add, regardless of reason, it's beautifully modelled- please keep the updates coming Heather (and Chris, of course).

No idea in locomotives- I always assumed it was a rather rudimentary form of cab heating. In refrigerators, Wikipedia provides the answer- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vapor-compression_refrigeration. If memory serves that's pretty much correct, but it's been a while since I've studied thermodynamic cycles. A condenser in a car, assuming we are talking a component in a spark ignition system, is essentially a capacitor.

Morning all. Quieter day in the office today, yesterday was unusually busy. I now have a date for my move back "home" to the development dept.- Feb 1st- and am looking forward to getting to know my new test rig. We're going to be covering territory previously uncharted in the company (generally we go for evolution over revolution, it's easier to sell- unlike the passenger car market where gizmos rule the heavy duty side just wants proven reliability) so it should be pretty interesting and I suspect a little taxing; the last few years have been as much about people skills as technical but I that's all about to tip one way. NHN, I just did a quick search for the IoM Wallis and found that one of Bill's other engines was the lovely SCC Burrell "Diamond Queen" which lives at a sawmill (rail served from the Nailsworth branch for a long time) just down the road from here. Still very much alive and well and a regular at shows hereabouts, often belted up to their sawbench- assuming Bill was responsible for the restoration she's definitely a credit to him. 28xx, very sorry to hear about your Mum. Sounds a horrible situation and you must feel completely powerless. My Gran went that way last year, but she was in hospital (having still been living at home with my Granddad & Auntie until she was admitted) and the nurses and doctors were brilliant and did everything they could to help her be comfortable, which helped for us as well as Gran if I'm honest. By the sounds of things it's too late to try and get your mum moved now even if it would ever have been possible, so I guess it's just a case of doing what you can and being there when you can. I'm sure all of our thoughts are with you. I'm sure Chris feels equally powerless with "poorly pal". Rest assured that, even if he doesn't think it now, your trying to contact him and engage him in something will help him and hopefully he'll appreciate that someday. Unfortunately it's a vicious cycle of feeling demotivated, leading to boredom, which only makes you less motivated; then you start alienating people and adding loneliness into the mix, exacerbating the boredom and so on. As Dom has said there's no one fix- other than time and patience- but keep trying, as much as he'll let you. Little and often is probably the way forwards. It can turn people into things they don't want to be as well, don't take things personally on a bad day... Some ten years back I was close friends with a lass who suffered quite badly, I used to spend a lot of time with her and some days she'd want to talk, some days she'd just want to sit and not say a word, some days she'd just cry. She admitted later that having someone there to talk at/ ignore made all the difference, even if she didn't show it at the time. Took her a long time to get better, and made a bit of a mess of me in the process which eventually lead to us drifting apart, and although it always leaves a bit of a mark on you she's gone to uni doing the degree she always wanted to do, has a lovely and supportive boyfriend and is much happier with much more confidence in herself than she ever used to have. So there is hope- I've seen it- and if I was in the same position again I'd do it all over. Of course you aren't looking after a teenage girl- "your mileage may vary"- so I guess all I'm saying is don't give up on him even if it feels you aren't getting anywhere. I'm rambling now... time to get on with the day. Chin up folks, it's nearly Friday and they are even threatening some sunshine over the weekend!

Boing! Late on parade today, work got in the way. Didn't get on properly last night either as, having made a hash of weathering a loco at the weekend, decided I'd try some wagons. This was rather more successful, although I was also fairly successful in weathering my jeans, the desk and the floor. Thankfully the new "hobby room" has a laminate floor, a notable improvement over the carpet in the previous abode. I fear I may have been a bit harsh on Mr Bowie earlier- while his music wasn't my thing, he was undoubtedly a very talented fellow and I can see why people are so saddened by his passing- there are musicians that have played a big part of my life so far whose passing will doubtless leave something of a gap here. I've not met too many "celebrities", but one that does spring to mind is someone paid an awful lot of money to kick a round thing across a field and seems to be a source of some ridicule in the press, at least in the past. Some years back I did an exchange trip to Spain with the school, and we visited Real Madrid's training ground while a session was on. After they packed up one Mr Beckham came across to us, took the time to have a chat and find out where we were from, how we were finding Spain and so on, before signing the shirts. No TV cameras or press, no- one to put on a show to and he came across as a really nice bloke. I think he's just a man who enjoys his job and generally speaking would prefer to be allowed to get on with it, thank you very much- the fanfare of celebrity seems rather forced on to him. I see Coast has been mentioned, not sure if Mark Horton counts as a celebrity but I have crossed paths with him a few times and indeed have been raucously drunk in his basement on more than one occasion... Hugh Fearnley- Whittingstall's dad lives locally too but I've never been drunk in his house. Both were regulars in the Co- Op I used to work in (Mark's eldest son worked there too for a time), Mark being a particularly amusing customer as he had a tendency to get somewhat angry about things in a somewhat Brian Blessed esque manner, in complete contrast to his very laid back (Australian) wife who quite clearly wore the trousers and either ignored him or told him to be quiet and go away! Lunchbreak over, back to the grindstone. I'm being pestered for a report, as it's a very pleasant young lady doing the pestering I suppose I should get on with it!

Morning folks. Small amounts of blue in the sky here. Tad chilly, log basket refilled last night and suspect the fire will be lit again tonight, Laura is one of those people who tends to prioritise being warm over all else! Must admit I'm not the biggest Bowie fan in the world either, I thought I was the only one that wasn't until I came on here. Doubtless an extremely talented- and mould breaking- guy though and the world of music is definitely a duller place without him. Must admit I'm still more saddened by the loss of Lemmy though- as well as a love of railways I've inherited my dad's taste in music too unfortunately. I kind of assumed that, having survived this long, he was pretty much immortal. There's a video somewhere of me aged not a lot singing "Peaches" by The Stranglers which is fantastically inappropriate! Despite that I've managed to grow up to be reasonably civilised, if terminally uncool. Sorry to hear about NHN's friend at the Glen. Worse still when it's out of the blue like that. Still sounds like there's lots of folks feeling grotty, so best wishes as appropriate to all.

My younger brother was given a similar assignment. Knowing that my grandparents had previously lived in London he piped up with "Grandma, do you remember the Great Fire of London?" on our next visit to see them, which was the source of some amusement but not necessarily from Grandma, bless her.

Morning all. Have just caught up on what has bit of a sombre weekend in ERs. I can't even begin to imagine how Ed must feel, my thoughts are with you. I can sympathise with irritating neighbours as we had one bad lot at uni- but at least we were only there temporarily. As it happens we outlasted them and we had a nice family replace them with the only complaint being that their large ginger tom used to come and join in our barbeques! I suspect the first lot were moved on, the police were fairly regular visitors. A shame as it was otherwise a very quiet part of town, I think we had the only dodgy lot on the street! Our current neighbours are also quite loud, but that's because the old boy next door is somewhat hard of hearing and has the telly turned up to 11- not helped that we have pretty thin walls. Can live with that though as he's a nice enough chap, and the neighbours the other side are great- into old cars as well, they were as relieved as we were by this. Laura had a temp. job working in the repossessions office for one of the major lenders a few years back, mostly dealing with outgoings. The amount they had to spend on properties to get them saleable either due to wanton destruction by the defaulters prior to leaving or from vandalism and theft was ridiculous- and affected a significant proportion of cases. Of course, much like insurance fraud it's far from victimless and it's the rest of us that has to pay for it. It was interesting that most of the cases that actual got as far as repossession were dare I say "deserved" in that the majority of defaulters had been given plenty of help and chances and had wasted or abused these- very few were people who had genuinely fallen on hard times through circumstances beyond their control, despite what the media etc would have us believe. All in I think she found it a rather miserable place to work. Glad Jock has at least been reassured that the space hopper is nothing too serious, even if it's all a bit vague as to how it came about and how it'll go away- sounds like it's getting better slowly and at least you've been able to get out and about. Same for BoD's eye, painfully slow progress by the sounds of things but hopefully getting there. Dave TG's constitutional pictures from the other day look thoroughly idyllic, despite the excess of wet. It's amazing how blue skies and a bit of sunlight can completely change the ambience of a place. It was pleasant to see some sun yesterday here too, in between the heavy showers. Didn't really get to enjoy it as I was helping fit a replacement transfer box to a friend's Land Rover. Not the nicest of tasks on a cold, damp day- but needs must. The poor old thing gets a lot of abuse, towing and hauling stuff (it's got quite a lot of a Scammell Explorer winch in the back currently) so I can hardly blame it- but these things never seem to happen when the weather is behaving! Let's hope the week brightens up from here on in, in terms of weather and of illnesses and bad news

Sounds like we need a "Show us yer tractor" thread in Wheeltappers! Although perhaps not, if you lot are going to fill it with these silly little grey or red things, everyone knows that real tractors are poppy orange. Good to see some more progress Giles, the stonework is looking great.

'Fraid not. It was wet, and my hands were covered in brass polish, vaselene and steam oil having helped give her a clean before sending her on her way! It wasn't quite the same as he used the front and rear towing points (back up with a strop around the perch bracket for good measure) in the centre of the engine to strap down to, instead of something on the outside edges (e.g. the wheels). Effectively making an X shape with the chains with the engine in the centre of the X, as opposed to your suggested X X with the crate between the two Xs (if that makes sense!). However the principle of diagonal chains both ends to stop both axial and longitudinal movement was the same.

I'd agree Chaz, chains & tensioners to the diagonally opposed outer lashing points. Enjoyed watching someone who knew what he was doing lash down a rather valuable traction engine the other day, a surprisingly satisfying thing to watch being done well. He used a vaguely similar arrangement (with some additions due to the awkward shape of his load).

Billy Bob, in this case (well, William Robert officially). Good question!

John's grumble about plagiarism reminds me of a chap in my GCSE English class who did his best to drive our poor teacher to the point of despair. One particularly memorable example was a piece of travel writing, for which we were given an example for a safari holiday- herds of Wildebeest sweeping majestically across the Plain and all that. Billy copied this in it's entirety but changed all references to animals, places and weather to something suitably Welsh. Another time he copied my essay quite literally word for word, unfortunately his was higher up the marking pile than mine so he got "A big improvement Billy, well done" and I got "Great essay, shame it's the same as Billy's...". Billy came clean of course (although I'm pretty sure he didn't need to!) and she saw the funny side after we'd been suitably ticked off.

Just realised my earlier postings make me sound a bit like a wannabe property tycoon- sadly not! House no. 1 we have been renting on a fairly amicable arrangement from a member of Laura's family, bought as investment a while back- he's kindly allowed us to live there for a few years while saving for our own place. House no. 2 is "our own place", after about a year of searching we revised expectations and found somewhere. This rather pleasant arrangement allowed us to redecorate the new place without the hassle of living in it, so we sort of migrated across instead of moving in one go. As a result we kept the first place on for quite a while, said family member being undecided about renting it out to a more normal tenant or selling it on. He's decided on the latter, put it on the market a few days ago and accepted what we think was a very good offer today, hence the sudden requirement to sort the bills out! I've got a bit of a soft spot for the Co Op having worked there for 5 years on and off through 6th form and then uni- I grumble about working in retail & I'd never want to go back but I quite enjoyed it really and they were good to us. The staff on the phones are unfailingly lovely, the rates are good, but the system is a pain in the proverbial! Relieved to hear Rick's neighbour is OK, if I suspect a little disgruntled. Continuing to have fingers crossed for DD's MiL, and I don't think we've had an update on Jock's space hopper yet either, hoping it's starting to get more pogo stick instead...

I suspect probably so- however, I think they owe me money so it's in my interests to get it sorted. Otherwise I suspect nothing would continue happening indefinitely- they would continue to have the money I've given them, and continue to not attribute it to a bill! What I should have done was cancel the DD about 6 months back, with retrospect. As it is we're no longer responsible for the house as of the 1st so I want to close the account/ transfer it (but not the credit, at least the bit of it that actually belongs to me- I suspect with it being such a warm winter that it's probably in the region of £200 I'm owed). I may well go back to them in the new place once this is all settled but I want to sort the old account out first. Can't remember who we are with in the new place. The water board have very generously opened a second account in the new place when I handed over the old one despite us having been in for 5 months or so, so that's on the "to sort" list too! Worrying about Rick's neighbour. Hope she turns up safe and sound. Actual, genuine sunshine here. Looks most pleasant out. Rather surreal!