figworthy

I've been pondering on the exam results figures. When I were a lad, we were told that to get an "A" (no A* in those days), you had to be in the top 5%. When did that change ? Adrian

I had one caller who knocked on the door (which fortunately I heard). When I pointed out that I had a working bell, he said that his boss said not to use the bells because it wakes babies up. Adrian

A new pole appeared just around the corner a month or so back, and that has the climbing rungs on the upper end of it, so they are still being fitted. Adrian

Don't get him going on art again. Adrian

Isn't that the sort of thing that incurs the wrath of the carpet monster ? Adrian

By the looks of it, if they started it up, the wagon would probably fall apart. Adrian

Which I think is now the site of Oxford Parkway Station, so the site still has a rail use. Adrian

Nicely done (as usual). I think the "clutter" on the footplate is a nice finishing touch. Adrian

My dishwasher can drive a mobile phone. Adrian

For info. It did it (again) to me earlier this evening. A long delay before at all anything appeared. Page refresh produced the content almost immediately. What I've also seen a handful of times over the last couple of weeks is when going back a page, the browser indicates that it is waiting, and then when it has finished waiting, I'm still on the same page. Adrian

In recent weeks, I've seen similar behaviour several times (not today), but under different circumstances. It is when I either click a link on an index page (i.e. one level up from this page) or when clicking the next page link (when viewing a topic that has new posts over two or more pages). Adrian

Isn't the badge of a true engineer knowing where to hit it, how hard to hit it, what type and size of hammer to use ? Adrian

A sample of offerings taken today close to the manor house. The grassy bit at the bottom is an earth bank (the ground level beyond the hedge is higher) Adrian

Twenty years ago at work, we had a school leaver dumped on us for a year. When he arrived, he'd just sat his A-levels and was getting a years work experience in before heading off to university. 4 straight As, and next stop Cambridge (something STEM, I forget what). What was clear from day 1 was that if it wasn't on the syllabus for the the subjects he'd done, he didn't have a clue about it. Stuff that the rest of us (from a variety of backgrounds) would consider general knowledge was met with a blank expression. Adrian

Are you sure it wasn't the forecat walking across it ? Adrian

Indeed, but without it, and a tightish time scale to get the job done, grabbing the first one out of the bin seemed entirely reasonable. Adrian

Dad had that problem as well with his, but didn't have his tool box to hand, so I had to tow him to work. Following a trip to the local government surplus dealer, a "new" gear lever was bought and installed, at which point we discovered that they came in RHD and LHD versions. Adrian

Down to 25 overnight, and peaked at 35.8 ~1700 today. Air con has been considered a number of times, but rejected mainly on the grounds of the likely running costs (I don't have any hard figures, but the reaction always seems to be that it is expensive). This year it has been down to 1.6 degrees (February). Since May 2015 (when I started taking readings), It's varied between -0.7 (the Beast from the East) to 37.2 (August last year). If anyone is interested, I've got a Raspberry Pi running with a BME280 attached to it, reading every minute. Ah yes, our antipodean friends. That reminds me of a conversation with a guy from Perth many years ago. He was commenting that the temperatures had dropped to 20, so he was having to get some logs in for the fire. Adrian

Times are in UTC, it was a bit warm even at the coolest point.

If you can arrange (in no particular order) a new back, a substantial drop in temperature (34 degrees in there today), and for suppliers to be able to supply again, that'll do for starters and I'll gladly get back to work. Adrian

The motor / gearbox / chuck assemblies are useful for motorising lifts and traversers. Adrian

In theory Figworthy is an active build, but progress is a bit slow glacial at the moment for various reasons. Adrian

The river lies to the north of the canal, and has flooded recently (check out Fishlake). There are a lot of spot heights in that area around the 1-3 m mark. Adrian

Have we looked at seats and benches yet ? Adrian

Given the Land Rover's origins, Wilks Farm ? Adrian