Gruffalo

Yes Neil, Dutch Antilles which comprise Bonaire, Aruba and Curacao. Shell had a huge plant on Curacao in the 60's & 70's which was where we used to load all manner of oil products for anywhere coastal on the North American continent. It was worse than various posts about Canvey Island - by a long way! Sounds like you don't need computer distractions at the moment! PIR board bought and now in garage but weather not conducive to having the door open and I won't cut or trim it until I can do it in fresh air. I will be fitting a thin plywood edging strip but the board cuts must be true to accept that.

I first encountered computerised process control on DEC PDP8s and PDP11s. They used their own coding language and it was pretty basic (though not Basic). The 8 used a simple expression similar to 'if', 'then' & 'wait' but the 11 used a very basic bit logic constructed from AND, OR, NAND and NOR plus timers. Understanding the mind of teh original programmer was the tricky bit in that their program was never an exact standard but always showed their "character" in how they approached each step. More recently I have been heavily involved in PLCs from Mitsubishi, Allen-Bradley and Siemens. The instruction set is always defined but how you use it again becomes something more personal, different programmers get to the same result following different routes. We never had touch screens in the 1970's with our old DEC machines whereas today it is almost expected that any package will include some sort of touch panel (which has to be connected via tags to the PLC). Pocket now £75 lighter as that was the excess for the screen, which will be fitted tomorrow - weather permitting. Builders' merchants beckon once I have armed myself with a sharp knife and a straight edge - thanks Don.

Off to builders merchants to see if they will sell me only one PIR board for a test track. Must arrange the fitting of a new windscreen following a high speed meeting between it and a lump of stone from a truck on the A46. Later, we have a village Boys (well really Old Farts) Night Out at a very good Indian Restaurant in Rugby - so much for dieting! One shade of grey and a very cool breeze outside but it is dry at the moment. Outside work is definitely not enticing at the moment.

Back in the world of reality at last! Grand kid sitting over for next couple of weeks and last visit to brewery yesterday got everything signed off so: SOME MODELLING TIME IS IN THE OFFING Well, that is what I have in mind but the weather gods and SWMBO may well have other plans! Sorry Bob's got Windoze problems. We have a Compaq for SWMBO's now occasional use, a Sony for my specialist work-related stuff and a MacBook for almost everything else. SWMBO is always struggling and that is Windoze 7. I run that on the Sony as several of the specialist programs are only just going onto Windoze 8 and I hate being a guinea pig with the routine issues early software releases seem to have. The MacBook quietly gets on with everything thrown at it, picks up network Multi-function devices at the drop of a hat and is more intuitive to use. But then, it is a more expensive purchase. I don't know for certain but I was told Windoze 8 was an attempt to make the Windoze OS more like a tablet in day-to-day use and linking a scanner to a tablet isn't something that has crossed my list of requirements. Can you backtrack to Windoze 7? That is much more "PC like" without being political?

Morning from Bedlam. Very overcast with rain forecast within the next hour or so and it is due to last until sunset (although I don't think I will notice the sun at any time today! At least we are not afflicted by the weather here or at home, unlike some poor souls with whom I sympathise. Apparently I have a motor scooter and an outside light to fix, eldest grandson's homework to guide him through, food to cook for lunch and evening - an old fart's work is never done! Peace should return tomorrow as I will escape from this asylum to go back to a beverage plant in Birmingham!

Umm Polly... Saints beat Dragons in a right quagmire a little while ago. Weather was so bad that the ref took the players off for a hailstorm and as for aquaplaning, last try was preceded by a spectacular bow wave by the scorer!

Another request to the organisers for a GROAN button!!!

Bob, Microsoft and breweries are working in cahoots - one drives the user of its products to the other! I am forced to use some Windows stuff but prefer to do everything else on my Mac platforms. Next toy will be Linux as I want to see what I can do with Raspberry Pi before introducing my 7-y-o grandson to logic - that is if I survive this weekend without becoming deaf or worse, locked up for murder!

To quote JJ Cale - "after midnight, we gonna let it all hang out". Perhaps the Squirrel Nutkins family will be doing this to aid Tony and Aditi.

Well, from here to...

or a coded message?

I would love to add many more funny marks for that one, tickled my fancy!

Alan, I love the atmosphere that pervades your Wencombe layout and it is one that inspires me. Clearly this is true for many others too or how else does one explain so many visitors? Please keep it up and I hope to see you have had your 250,000th viewer in the not too distant!

More lycra, more lycra and yet more lycra -

I am reminded that churches never flood so always buy a house at the same level or higher than your local church. Of course, developers want to erect as many as they can at the lowest possible cost so on one hand, there is a nearby development which in parts has 35 units per hectare and the site has to be elevated to get it above the level of an existing EA Flood Risk 3 plain whilst another developer wants to concrete over 21 Hectares to build 500 houses which will cause yet more surface water run off to be directed into the first site. Rearrange the following words to describe our LPA and money-grabbing developers and farmer: asylum, charge, of, the, are, The, in, idiots

Il Dottore hits the nail on the head. Everything is focused upon London, where more than 15% of the country's opulation live within the M25 and even more money is being focused on preserving its monopoly (more airport runways, HS2 as examples). Land and property around London are becoming beyond the prices of most people of "normal" means whilst we seems to have an increasing influx of people with foreign accents doing all the service jobs in the capital, how do they afford to live there? Outside the capital, planners say we must have many more houses for our rapidly growing population as directed by the central politicos but in their rush to build houses, they even sell off land allocated for a new primary school to serve a development for yet more houses - with no school! As for employment, the vast warehouse operation a few miles away is claimed to provide plenty of opportunities, just as it will for the 3,500 houses this district council wants within 6 miles of that site and the 6,500 houses to be built between the warehouses and Rugby! So, we have 10,000 houses to be built all depending for work on 300Ha of highly automated shed operations. The nearest A&E facilities have closed, the ambulance service has centralised its operation to a point 15 miles away across two strategic highways, the nearest main hospital regularly fails to meet good levels of performance and yet this area is "ideally placed for growth". Would someone take away my soap box before I have an accident please?

I've said before and I'll say again that there are a lot of hard-working and very effective civil servants. Sadly, there are some who bring the hard work of the majority into disrepute. In the private sector they would be dismissed or their company would go under, in the Civil Service these bad apples seem bullet-proof regardless of complaints made against them.

Sadly I cannot reconcile a City of Culture with Lord "Bruiser" Prescott.

Welcome back Stewart, stress is a pretty unpleasant thing and manifests itself in ways many do not understand. I hope it all works out for you soon, certainly the mindless cretins who create computer problems have no idea the personal impact they cause and I would leave them hanging from a lamppost by their tender parts until those fell off!

I read this and noted that the study was conducted using a number of (London based?) civil servants. Now, as a very large generalisation (for which I will don flak jacket and tin helmet), civil servants get promoted throughout their lives so the older they are, the more senior they become - ergo, the more senior they become and having had the opportunity / been forced to drink 2 pints a day every day from the age of 40, the more their brains have become addled. MOMENT OF PROFOUND ENLIGHTENMENT - this is why Westminster civil servants seem to think they and only they know what to do - they have forgotten anyone else exists!

Oh dear, just when you think the next couple of weeks are sorted, someone throws a curved ball into the mix! I thought I was set for some decent modelling time in between familial duties but now I have another brewery job to deal with. The last one dragged on whilst waiting for parts and services, I just hope this one is better. Light grey outside today with a light breeze. Report to customer on yesterday's job to complete and see if the Saintly bunch can put Castres to the sword tonight so it is a bit of a POETS day for me too. I might just squeeze in buying a large piece of PIR insulation in advance of a September event!

Not long in so haven't really caught up but hope Torbay's finest have a good time (and wake up with a reasonably clear head and in time tomorrow).

I believe that to be simply a renaming of the Balls syndrome, the Darling syndrome, the Brown syndrome and previous names under which it was to be found include the Major syndrome, the Lawson syndrome and the Brittan syndrome! I believe it starts with a belief that one has a right to squander money one robs from society in the form of general taxation to spend on projects and whims aimed at improving the lot of those who will offer you fabulous riches as soon as you leave public office (definitely NOT public service). Grumpy old cynical f@rt moi???

Today the weather hasn't got past page 1 of THAT book. With a local farmer trying to rape and pillage our community by pushing for planning permission to dump almost twice as many houses as we presently have in the village so he can pocket some £8,000,000 is only introducing another darker shade from said book. Got on the scales this morning - which had remained at the same figure +/- 1Kg over Christmas to find it indicated an increase of 3Kg in last 10 days (and that is with hardly any alcohol, bread and 30 minutes walking every day) so the view out is certainly not sweetness and light. Madam Gruff's nephew getting married in July is seen by her as a reason to buy yet another outfit that will be worn once and she anticipates I will get a new suit - like bl**dy hell I will! There you are, my personal four shades of grey this morning and not a single one gives a fleeting sense of pleasure. I know how Monsieur le President must feel with his (grey) elephant in the room! P.s. - this is not an appeal for sympathy, just an explanation of why I shall be extremely rude to any cold caller today.

I appeal to the reportors - do not let this string start to have ridiculous fictional storylines else it will become nothing more than Coronation Street on rails. I do like an honest tale of everyday country folk and ANTB has a duty to present the facts, unlike our news industry.