spikey

Gosh. 136 views ...

It seems that in 1938, the 1630 from Manchester Central to St Pancras started out as a seven or eight-coach train. At Derby, however, it was reinforced by another three coaches plus anything up to six loaded 3000-gallon milk tankers. What would the formation be leaving Derby, and how would that formation have been achieved?

Gad sir, a gentleman would never wear a fedora with a cravat!

I'd quite fancy that too. I've still got an ancient Harris Tweed hacking jacket somewhere and possibly a pipe, so I'd just need a cravat and a ratting hat worn backwards.

I would so love to see a film of this being taken off the stand and ridden off up the road with a passenger on board. The more I've thought about that, the less I can fathom out exactly how 'twas done ...

Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly does "reset" mean in this context? And while I'm at it, do you just aim that at the foe, press the button and hope for the best, or are the rockets more akin to guided missiles?

A propos which, I have just discovered how marvelous ex-British Army thermal vests are. An absolute bargain at £6 each unissued (i.e. new), and seemingly indestructible in the wash - which is more than can be said for the corresponding M&S product at three times the price.

Indeed they do, which it's always a good idea to ask the chap who services your boiler to measure room temp against stat indicated. In this house, the hall stat is accurate within 0.5°C against the actual air temp in the room in which we spend most of the day, that room having no door into the hall. In the colder evenings we decant into the front room and be grateful for our logburner. For the record we never use the upstairs rads unless one of us is poorly, and the downstairs bathroom is unheated (unfortunately).

Gosh. Ours (non-smart, and in the hall) is usually set at 19°C. Before I turned 75 it was usually a degree or so lower. Neither of us here can imagine being comfortable with it set as high as yours.

Same here. I'd love a crisp tenner for every young couple I've met in their home in midwinter going about the house in shorts, tee shirt and bare feet. Presumably they're the same folk who must have heated seats in their SUVs so they can just add a pair of flipflops before nipping to the filling station.

Not in my experience. The house I grew up in was built in 1913 and was occupied from new by my grandparents. It still had credit meters when I left home in 1965. I never encountered a slot meter nor knew of anybody who had one until we moved into a rented property in 1982. It had slot meters for both electric and gas, but we had no difficulty getting them replaced by credit meters.

Ref the new gun linked to above, can somebody please tell me what the difference is between a Variable Time Fuze (HE-VT) and a Controlled Variable Time Fuze (HE-CVT)?

Which nowadays is pretty much everything.

No, it's based on unit costs. See point 3 in the article to which I linked above.

Hurrah! For the benefit of anyone else vexed by the meaningless of the figures quoted so far by the msm, here's the answer to my question https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/09/energy-bills-price-freeze-cost-of-living-government-liz-truss-/?_ga=2.99825494.933922153.1660380690-612078237.1654188458&_gl=1*1ea3y2*_ga*NjEyMDc4MjM3LjE2NTQxODg0NTg.*_ga_X74CWQS9F0*MTY2MjYyNjA0Mi4xMTcuMS4xNjYyNjM2Mjc4LjQ5LjA

So, Liz Truss has announced plans to cap average household energy bills at £2,500 a year from October. Has anyone yet discovered what that actually means? The Ofgem site's no help because it hasn't yet been updated.

Oh I say! Are you still allowed to use that word? Do be careful old bean. Don't want the Thought Police knocking on your door ...

... which is why I was scratching my head. No doubt invitations have already gone out to what used to be known in the RAF as a meeting without coffee ...

That post about the Vincent lawnmower has spoiled my day. Back in the days when Tony Middlehurst was editing Superbike magazine, I was researching an article about Vincents and I actually ended up finding a really bizarre link between the factory, the lawnmowers and of all things Eric Blair (aka George Orwell). The link was far more direct than just the film version of "1984" with the Thought Police on Black Knights (Princes?), but can I hell as like think now what it was ... 🙃

Much obliged to you 🙂

Gosh, this is all good stuff 🙂 Pardon my ignorance of such matters, but when you say "outboard" coupling, does that mean it gets wet? And if so, why isn't the last part of the shaft (i.e. that part outside the hull) in one piece?

Now the RN are saying a propos this broken aircraft carrier that "Our initial assessment has shown that the coupling that joins the final two sections of the shaft has failed". They also admit to "significant damage" to the propshaft and "superficial damage" to the rudder, but no mention of the prop. So I'm more than usually puzzled. Anybody up to speed enough with this stuff to make any sense of it? ETA - would "superficial damage to the rudder" alone be reason for drydocking?

Anybody know what exactly are the short sticky-uppy bits at the back end of a B-1, as clearly seen at 5'00" in this video?

It's yonks since I was up to speed with Egri Vins and whatnot but is that a Munch front brake? A mate of mine had an Egli framed C Shadow which IMO looked a lot better when he took it apart, got the frame stoved black and got somebody to make him a really nice 5 gallon Manx-style tank (which was nothing like 5 gallons really) that he got stoved black. Looked right and proper to my eyes. It certainly went well and rode well, but I think folk forget just how good the original forks were. OK they took a while to shim up properly, but strong as hell and anti-dive ... I do like that yellow one, but it ought to be a twin 🙂