runs as required

That apparently is where Mary Beard has fallen foul of Dominic Wotsit Downing Street as a Trustee of the BM (for being a Remainer!) 2 I was really about to post a malapropism that amused us overheard in our (Community) pub last night: ”We’re wondering whether to self-immolate for a bit till it blows over”

Aye true, we called our first cat Loco cos’ she came from Littlle Lever. Sadly she ran away to sea on a Kelly boat from Herculaneum L’pool, once our firstborn arrived back from Maternity hospital to Grafton St in the Dingle in 1964. We still mourn her. dh

I say I say I say My wife has gone off to the West Indies Where? Jamaica? No she went of her own accord Now who first said that? Ned Seagoon Spike Milligan? Variants here dh

... And wasn’t there a 1960s pop singer called Little Lever ? (Scroll on a wee bit NE from Nob End) dh

I think the (Pithead) Bath has long gone at Philadelphia, County Durham, where they still build steam engines

Actually I think you are right. Since I returned to Britain in the late 1970s from familiarity with nations such as Nigeria, the UK Public Realm has been been steadily trashed and abandoned in favour of fenced off privatised ownerships. The old Bazalgette notion of public health water & sewers benefitting us all that peaked with Chamberlain’s ‘City Beautiful’ patterns for urbanisation and Howard’s notions of the best of Urban and Rural combined in the Garden City movement have long been forgotten. It began with the Refuse Collection strikes and rubbish piling in the streets of the late 1970s and then a long period of abandonment of trust in Local Authorities, Centralisation and a dogma that ‘the market knows best’. Even in our local Borough - the Park (that once even had a small outdoor Swimming pool much loved by our kids) has been forgotten, pavements indiscriminately parked upon and destroyed, roadsides trees and planting long untended and befouled by dogs - newly built Local Authority care homes closed. In short, I never realised that in Nigeria, I was experiencing the future!

Ah! That is what we octogenarians here are wondering - at what stage do we start 'self isolating'? At present normal life continues though with increased hand washing after things like shopping, going to our Community pub (& in my case bell-ringing yesterday morning along with Christians) As April arrives things may well have to change. The last time I sailed off to Norway out of the Tyne - was from York direct down to Tyne Commission Quay. Could it have been on a train sealed up to pass through Newcastle and N Tyneside ? Hope it goes well for you.

No, I my case you are entirely justified in your opening comment. I discovered at Sunderland that I'd been right all along not to give up my day job for art - just as John Martin apparently might have done better sticking to his [BIG] art. But Margate can claim a higher rating for JMW Turner as a painter of the Sublime - particularly for 'Rain Steam and Speed' Now what about that as a Boxed Set?

I hope I am not too late to join in this art theory exchange (he says, flaunting his Upper Second in Fine Art from Sunderland University) My favourite in all this Northern Powerhouse C19 stuff is John Martin the Newcastle painter of the Sublime. My partisan ‘Mackem’ Art History critic said of Martin that he only ever painted one picture which was from just outside his studio above Cruddas Park in the West End of Newcastle looking out over the Team and Derwent Valleys and the heights of Winlaton across the Tyne at sunset. (which is the reciprocal of our west Gateshead view of Newcastle) It had never struck me before how this was such a penetrating (but unkind) analysis of this OTT artist. And as usual there is just one on show in the Laing gallery and about 10 hidden away in the basement. A bit like Landseer and all his stags (at Bay) and dogs. dh edit Sorry - in my haste not to miss 'Last Tango in Halifax' on the box, I forgot to add the pics and the link to the interesting 2011 Grauniad Review article (which does mention his far less profitable life as an engineer).

Living abroad with my young family for 12 years changed our whole attitude to loo paper. It was hardly available Daily essentials like rice, sugar, salt, tins of fish, tinned milk were rarely openly available on shop shelves (and never included loo rolls) Most folk cleaned their bums up with water - even in desert areas (using their left hand - which you never shook hands with, or even waved at friends with ) The most sought after luxury was a Japanese electric toilet. The most awful thought (still with our kids and grandchildren) is to imagine using loo roll to polish some disgusting faeces into one's pubes.

Sorry, but the link worked for me on an elderly MacBook. An interesting piece about a demanding piece of modelling, but not at all promising about there being a repeat issue of the kit. dh

I thought it interesting on this morning's 'Today' programme to hear from some top WHO medico and then from a Brit EFL teacher married to a Chinese who stayed put in Wuhan. They were both relaying the same message that it was not solely due to the Authoritarian regime but also the strong Confucian sense of Community that comes from the 5 thousand year old Chinese Yin and Yang balancing act with Daoism. Mr Hill (the Brit) emphasised how it had been the strong Community spirit within his 15 building (no doubt all multi-storey) housing complex that had got them through their isolation. It did put me in mind of Eyam Derbyshire during the Plague of 1665 dh

You could create a fair bit of moral panic spreading Fake News around about another cross-over virus named OVS-BULLEID

Agreed, but it would need a good head for heights to be whisked up as far as that in the little cabin. The one I sadly missed traveling over was the M&GN Breydon Water swing bridge. It looks fun in that little cabin chatting to all the boaters It features prominently in 'Coot Club' one of the Arthur Ransome books Glad it is getting cooler for you, mazed at your productivity. Things are improving here too, lovely spring day - equal day and night length in a fortnight ! dh

This, including the speculation about percentages in my earlier post, I heard aired among fellow bellringers in the pub after our Practice Night. The process of testing and approval of new pharmaceuticals is well known (and benefitting professionals as Brexit has added to the complexities). Advantages are increasing to Big Pharm dominance, and against smaller Pharmacologists' inspirations. Haemorrhaging per day through loss of Chinese production was from just one corporation, not a total. Bellringers historically have often been thought of as untrustworthy and heretical anarchists. I've picked up some more info since: that the UK outbreak is expected to peak in between 3-9 weeks ... A vaccine isn't likely within the UK outbreak We have already had news of Bill Gates taking the lead Biggest perhaps is your assertion: Where did you get this information from, please?

M'learned Friends concerned with "Intellectual Property"are interesting about all this. An obstacle to early adoption of products such as sprays known to deliver 24 hour decontamination of surfaces and spaces against "cross-over" viruses are the long drawn out procedures that may take two to three years to register full Pharmaceutical 'compliance' (even longer now with Brexit complexities - that enhance legal fee income) . A friend put it like this: " You like trains: We are on the slow line stopping at all stations, while corona viruses speed past on the fast lines" What may eliminate these stages are the large Global corporations who are currently losing $50M a day on lost Chinese production (not Hornby). They may simply 'buy out' efficacious pharmaceutical break-throughs to apply and replicate in China, by-passing all our Western 'red tape'. This way the big Corporations get praised as Benefactors, instead of their usual bad press.

Crewe was really poetic as a 'night owls' stop-over point. I did a year (while courting a Glossop schoolmistress) travelling the other way N to W through Crewe on the last train from Manchester - so as to arrive in Shrewsbury in time for work on Monday in 1959-60. There was a beautiful old (ex LNWR Wolverton? because it had large square cornered windows) centre aisled corridor carriage with lavishly upholstered carved wooden seats always to be found in a north facing bay platform against the buffers, available for those to wishing to kip down between the last train in and the first out . It was spectacular to witness the up night trains behind Class 8 Pacifics roll in, steam leaking up from heating pipes under the carriages like a black & white Anna Karenina film. A bleary eyed squaddie once hailed me out of a window with "Hey Jock ! is this Glasgy?" Preceded by his kitbag, he fell onto the platform just in the nick of time - opposite the all night tea buffet. He joined me in the dossers carriage to await his first train north, dh

Thanks for that interesting graph. Sorry, I have not had time to root back through the posts already made on this thread. But I've been trying to get my head around estimates. I heard on the Today programme an expert say the UK has 6,000 a year die due to seasonal flu - which I make to be .001% of our 60 million population. Taking Covid-19, is it therefore reasonable to ask what 6,000 deaths is 1% of ? Which is 600,000 cases or 6% of uk population Supposing it could be 2 million cases. By early June the whole thing should have passed. May we conclude that three to four times as many of us old farts over 80s are likely to die as usual? Speaking for myself I already have two more unpleasant lingering ways of dying diagnosed as probable for me in my weekly NHS post bag :-) dh

1 I'm surprised about taking the sleeper to Lime Street from Euston, the old trick as a student was to get on the train early and bag one of the net luggage racks in a non smoker - an excellent night's sleep could be guaranteed (though minus the attendant's wake-up tea and biscuits) 2 Our experience of a honeymoon trip on the (Simplon) Orient Express was perhaps even more dreamlike. By the time we were deep into the Balkans in Macedonia, the train had managed to flip day and night - so the the Restaurant car would be attached to our Blue Wagon Lits cars and breakfast served in the early evening, lunch at about 23.00 local time and dinner (if you were lucky) around the time of an early breakfast ! A day and a half late at Sirkeji, we had tickets on from Haydarpasa to Aleppo but the young bride cried "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH" About 6 months later "From Russia with Love" hit our screens, the northbound Orient Express was clearly a lot sharper. In Sophia - instead of the best part of a day we lurked (time enough for a trolley bus ride to the centre), northbound they stopped just a few minutes, time enough for a dastardly murder. dh

Another favourite night-time spot (in the days of railway owned hotels) was the back door of the great station hotel at York that opened out onto the platforms. I'd surface at about 3-4 in the early hours and wonder what might be going on and descend with minimal over-cladding of night clothes to have a dekko, taking in the atmosphere. Strangely I would not be alone - there were others revelling in the "night-time on the railway" Edward Hopper like sounds and smells. None of us would talk, but all quickly scurried back up the great stair to our beds. Do others have favourite old railway hotels? I also loved Holyhead (I'm sure they dispatched their laundry up to Euston for laundering!) dh

And my old BR(E) boss Jerry Fiennes had an agreement with the Briish Museum whereby their leading Hieroglyphics decipherer and his wife would be put out to grass as Stationmaster at Gorleston on Sea (costs born by the railway) They were was very gracious to me when I turned up to modernise the ticket office and got everything A about Face regarding up & down platforms. Dh

That is what gave the old Euston its charm and its smells, nosing around between the departure and arrival sides north of the Great Hall. My favourites were the baskets of dirty laundry and crockery waiting to be laundered and re-dispatched. Happy days

As I interpreted CK&PR’s post about the M&CR it was as if the S&D had fended off merger with the NER right down to the Grouping as a company in its own right. 2 The railway that became a bus company I most enjoyed was the Loch Swilly out around the glorious Donegal coastline, The driver always stopped and ran off to various off-road croft’s to deliver odd shaped parcels. dh

I'm envious of your handle CKPR (and always regret I never travelled over it or the SD&LUR when I had the chance). Can I ask about "certainly the oldest in the LMSR? I assume this to be justified because the M&CR actually survived as an independent Company up to the Grouping in 1922 ? 2 I'd claim my avi Brunton's 'Steam Horse' in 1813 travelled successfully over the waggonway up a 1in 50 from Jessop & Outram's 1794 Cromford Canal at Amber Wharf to Crich on a network that included the C&HPR (authorised in 1825, opened in 1830) that eventually spanned the Peak District from the Trent to Manchester. Stephenson made his fortune building the York & N Midland past the Butterley Co's mines below Crich. The Midland went on to absorb the Cromford Canal. The LNW formally absorbed the C&HPR in 1887. The LNW even went on to try a Buxton to Euston express (via Parsley Hay and Asbourne) to compete with Buxton to StPancras via the Midland!. 3 I enjoyed the Wiki history of the Maryport and Carlisle Railway: Living in the Tyne Valley, we still hear a fair amount about this. It invariably gets revived in Regional media (like recently with Brexit) as a great C2C Seaway whenever the Scots threaten Independence! dh PS Most of this post should be in one of Edwardian's other scattered Empire of threads Regency Rails - Georgian, Williamine & Early Victorian Railways

I used to love that universally vilified People’s Republic of S Yorks PTE. Looked at now it was the one with the conservationist forward looking policies - and not the mainstream privatisers. I still remember the squirm of comfort descending from the bogs of Bleaklow on a winter Sunday down the Derwent reservoirs to the comforting sight of a Weyman bodied Regent with its open platform waiting all lit-up at the lonely terminus by the dam