Reorte

I was taught to indicate right if "straight on" was past 12 o'clock. And then left when leaving the roundabout at whatever exit (something I hardly ever see anyone doing).

Unless the markings or signs say otherwise then either lane for straight on doesn't seem unreasonable, with a rather large qualifier of "depending on the exact details of the roundabout." There's a three exit one near me that would make the right-hand lane only of use for doing a U-turn if you couldn't use the right-hand lane for straight on (TBH I'm personally of the opinion that it should be explicitly marked left lane for left and right for straight on on that particular roundabout).

3 minutes ago, Morello Cherry said:

I don't disagree but there will always a tension between those who think it is too strict and those who think it is too lax. We live in a country where the BBC will publish a story from a guy complaining that the gap between train and platform is a death trap, and will also publish a story about a gardening group needing take an H&S course or hire a contractor to hang hanging baskets (aka working at height) as H&S gone mad.

And that's what the BBC should be doing. Both are valid opinions, both shape our attitudes towards these issues. Just as long as it's not taking sides then the BBC's doing its job. I'd be rather more concerned if it started saying "... and this person is right and that one wrong," even if I agreed with which person it was saying was right. Note that that's a bit different from "... according to the rules this person is right." That's a statement of fact (that the rules say this or that), it's not offering an opinion on the rule itself. Of course it's possible to stick with those general principles but still seem to be pushing in one direction or the other; I'd argue that, people being people, journalists and editors including, it's almost impossible to avoid, but as long as a reasonable effort is being made to be neutral then the job's being done right.

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The reality is that working at height hanging a hanging basket is no different than working at height in a locoshed. You can't say 'well because it is a bunch of pensioners up a step ladder with some flowers' so the rules don't apply.

Just what you're doing and how often play a part in it IMO. As does whether it's something you're choosing to do yourself versus whether you're expected to as part of your job so practically have less choice.

On 07/05/2024 at 10:30, Morello Cherry said:

There is a point to this. The problem is that many people on this forum and elsewhere take a Boris Johnson approach to health and safety and want to pick and choose when it applies. People who will complain that x is dangerous (for them) but then rail against ORR for stopping people leaning out of windows. The reality is that H&S cultures  don't cherry pick. If someone wants a culture that looks out for the dangers for them then they have to accept that it will look out for the dangers to others. If they want a culture that says it is personal responsibility then don't come crying when a danger to them is ignored and the view is 'it is that person's responsibility'.

I don't really disagree with the general thrust of this (and I clearly lean more towards the latter), but I think it's worth mentioning that either position needs to be tempered somewhat. It makes it easier to say what a situation "should" be if you stick to an extreme, saves having to consider individual cases on their own merits when you can have a guiding principle you can follow instead, but it rarely gives particularly good results.

I don't think many people would disagree that there's a level where personal responsibility is where things should lie, and where restrictions would be getting absurd, even though there's a genuine risk (e.g. tripping over your shoelaces), and in the other direction no-one would argue that there's never a place for rules or laws to prevent people from getting hurt. So it's always a case of where do you find the appropriate balance between those extremes, and it's a simple fact of life that that point is different for different people, and that none of them are objectively right or wrong.

I hesitate to wade in to the language discussion, but I can't help myself...

I've heard people use the phrase "The proof of the pudding..." rather than "is in the", leaving the rest out. Saying part of a well-known phrase and leaving the rest hanging is fairly commonplace.

15 hours ago, Tangoman69 said:

I had crocodile many moons ago at Old Orleans in Bolton, by the Reebok.

It was very tasty, but it got me back with a vengeance the next day, let’s say I needed Imodium….

Came back to bite you?

A bash in a different direction to the usual:

https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2024-04-30/motorist-captures-moment-yacht-gets-stuck-in-railway-arch

Wasn't there some talk a few years ago about possibly reinstating the avoiding lines? They've not been built on with more than the odd bit of car park AFAICT.

Also seems odd that a small stub was left, although I suppose on a little-used line it might be easier just to clip the points in place than remove them. But the OHLE masts were removed.

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

It can be used as an identity card in the UK.

Technically there are no identity cards in the UK (thank heavens, although the ever increasing expectation and demand for ID is unpleasant).

18 hours ago, John Tomlinson said:

 

There were more Black 5's than there are 66's, in the UK anyway. So maybe even more popular, though I doubt it.

 

Being old enough to remember HST's arriving in the 70's, most folk loathed them for supplanting the Deltics, Westerns and 50's to name but three on the E.R. and W.R. Decades later they were much folllowed on their final duties, and indeed still are in Cornwall. Everything in our hobby has its day.

That can mean one of two things - either it's always the case of just looking back and it's all really the same, just our perceptions, or that things get less and less appealing.

Although there were more Black 5s the 66 must still be one of the more numerous classes of locomotive ever to run in Britain, which is pretty good going for something relatively modern. There'll certainly be nostalgia for them at some point. How much actual genuine liking is a different matter. Maybe the same's true for the Black 5, and there's a definite element of the common being more appreciated when it no longer is common, personally I doubt that's all there is to it though.

19 hours ago, didcot said:

Out of all the crashes Barrichello's looked the worst.

I'm sort of glad F1 isn't at Imola this weekend. 

It's quite a different circuit these days, but yeah, probably wouldn't be appropriate on this particular anniversary.

8 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Plenty of car chargers around!

Not very useful if you hardly ever use it. No-one's going to get in the habit of keeping a phone charged that they never use.

41 minutes ago, melmerby said:

When we had a guest house in Keswick, we learned that a lot of the shop staff, waiting staff etc came from Workington and such places where industry had died.

The locals weren't interested in the service industry.

I used to know someone who lived in Keswick but would commute out of it to help in his parents' pub just outside the Lakes. Used to go and watch Carlisle United with him. Glad I've not been doing that this year.

5 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Simple fact of life that the natives of places whose local economy depends on tourism can't stand the bl**dy tourists.

Rather like US troops during WW2 - overpaid, overfed, oversexed and over here,

The economy of the place depends on it yet it drives out those people living there anyway.

A certain level of tourism can be very good for a place, but start going beyond that and it's damaging, and in the extremes pretty destructive.

2 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

Plenty of people refer to their caravan as a 'van'. At least that was the point of my previous comment.

I've never heard that before (although I only know one person with a caravan). Is it an Aussie thing?

12 minutes ago, Izzy said:

I may be wrong but I don’t believe there are any public telephone’s in the UK anymore, certainly I don’t encounter any in my daily life. Do they still exist? Although I have a mobile - one I now mainly use on Wi-Fi - it’s just on a PAYG tariff which I only have to top up when I need to. I am told this type of PAYG is hard to find now, that most demand a monthly top-up, which I don’t class as PAYG. £10 a month for something only for use as a ‘backup’ I find extremely expensive.

 

I do see the advantages of only having a mobile for most people these days, and especially those renting or having to move around regularly. Several times it has been remarked when I have given my landline number that having a home telephone is unusual these days.

I take the view that if I've got a comms connection in to the house anyway (whether it was originally designed for a phone or not) it makes sense to use that for the phone, rather than have something additional, and I really can't see the bandwidth existing for 100% mobile for everyone connections, what with everyone wanting high speed internet.

There's the odd payphone around that I think's still nominally in use. Whether they actually work or not is a different matter. I always used to regard them as handy enough on the rare occasion I needed to make a call when away from home, but they're not any more. That was usually no more than once a year - nowhere near often enough for it to make sense to carry something around with me all the time just in case.

I don't remember much about the details from the time but I was watching it. Ratzenberger's death had already left me feeling rather off, and followed by Senna was even worse. About all I can remember was Murray Walker sounding very subdued for once, wishing the race would just be stopped.

Wasn't there also an incident with a tyre bouncing off and injuring someone in the same race?

12 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

None of that happend here, shortly after disconnecting they were recovered.

Are the repurposed ones repainted a different colour, or some other distinctive feature, such as a new logo, so people don't waste time going to them, hoping to make a call?

Ones with defibrilators often have a different coloured sign, e.g. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.336105,-1.9695366,3a,40.3y,15.9h,91.85t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1saPuF_8edK8YXspkBRz9Ipw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?ucbcb=1&entry=ttu.

No colour but it doesn't say phone:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.3299181,-1.9840673,3a,40.8y,308.26h,93.42t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sYWg91RMOUo7ttvyCOqB17A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?ucbcb=1&entry=ttu

It's mostly the old red phone boxes that have been kept like that, since they're pretty much an iconic part of the scene throughout the country. The later ones are less likely to have stayed (although some have).

I hadn't realised until now that the second one of those looks like it's been moved to that location, it's not there in older Streetview pictures (I suppose it could've been removed, cleaned up, and put back).

6 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

Depends entirely what sort of vehicle. If it's a caravan, absolutely no persons inside while it is moving!

A van, not a caravan.

6 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

You don't need any money to make calls within Australia from phone boxes. They made such calls free a few years ago.

The problem is that there are far fewer, than there used to be. But that is one thing you don't need to worry about, no coins or card required.

Still quite a lot of phone boxes around here but not all that many have phones in them, a lot have been repurposed in to defibrilator stations, book exchanges and various things like that.

Seen on the side of a van this morning:

"No persons to be inside this vehicle while it is moving."

55 minutes ago, RFS said:

If you don't have a mobile phone as a backup, then your landline phone is a single point of failure regardless of whether it's digital or analog. Power cuts are just one issue and here we've only had one in the last 12 months that was only for about 2 hours. Equipment failure is a more likely cause of failure, and BT's analog equipment is getting very old.

It is, but it's less likely to fail by all accounts. I've never had the phone line go down but I have had power cuts.

To be honest it's all more of a minor nuisance than a worry, but overall the replacement of something with a less capable system isn't something to cheer about.

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And what about emergencies away from the home? You're driving home late at night, it's dark and freezing cold, and your car breaks down. What do you do if you don't have a mobile? I went to Tesco's the other day (a 6-mile drive) and half way there realized my mobile was still at home in the charger. A bit of mild panic set in!

Same as anyone would've done before anyone had a mobile, i.e. not really worry about it happening, and just figure out how to deal with it there and then if it does.

Doesn't it worry you that you had a bit of a panic, even if only a mild one, when you realised you didn't have your mobile with you? Not having one shouldn't cause anxiety.

3 hours ago, kevinlms said:

So advising you to have a back up mobile, isn't telling you that there is a drawback?

Not if they're making the assumption that you will anyway.

This'll be (hopefully only a minor) annoyance for me. Don't have a mobile anyway (and have absolutely no need or desire to have one), and the mobile reception's poor around my way in any case. Even if I did have a mobile if I'm going to need it maybe once every few years is it reasonable to expect me to remember to keep it charged?

I get why it's happening and to be honest I wouldn't have too much of a problem with it if the response to such issues wasn't little better than a shrug. Even just admitting that there are downsides would be fine, what isn't to me is pushing things in a mobile dependency direction and pretending there's nothing wrong with that.

On the subject of Bugsworth basin there is a surviving wagon, in the NRM. I ended up having to ask the staff to find it, they seemed a bit surprised and weren't sure and had to look it up themselves. I can't imagine it's a common request! (I was interested because I live there - Buxworth, not the NRM!).

2 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

There are still quite a few blocks on the Peak Forest Tramway along with some old rails at Bugsworth Basin.

The few rails in place were restored there, but I believe they're originals dug out of the undergrowth. Plenty of blocks of course, most obviously in the basin but also in some places further along the tramway (don't know about the non-publically-accessible parts but some of those are probably even more likely to be there, buried under what's grown over them over the years).

There's a rebuilt wagon sat in the basin, AFAIK it's using an original set of wheels but the rest's recreation.

Coming down the inclined parts apparently they were braked by someone perched on the front, throwing a chain in to the wheels. Now that's a job that sounds like it's constantly an inch from disaster.