bimble

8 minutes ago, Brit70053 said:

Apple Pay , what currency is that ? BOE Notes promising to 'pay the bearer' or coin derivatives are the legal tender so far as I'm concerned, unless a major purchase is in consideration when I'll use the appropriate plastic.

Another suit of The Emperor's (or King's) new clothes being touted  ?

 

 

Just another form of plastic, which in itself is neither BOE Notes (presumably you'll also accept BoS, RBS & Clydesdale notes (as well as the N. Irish notes, which I'm not so certain which they are)), or coins...

it does remian me of that story last year of the youtuber who was jailed after shooting her boyfriend through a book... YouTube prankster jailed for shooting boyfriend dead - BBC

6 hours ago, billy_anorak59 said:

 

In some situations vehicles that have a fault, usually with the engine management, record a fault code, and then go into limp mode.

 

Now I reckon that using a phone at the wheel is a pretty big fault - surely it isn't beyond the wit of man for the car to detect the 'fault' that's driving the vehicle, record it, and go into limp mode?

Surely after the inconvenience of struggling down the road at reduced speed, then having to have the code cleared by a garage (at a cost) might put most off doing it?

Just a thought.

 

They were talking on the radio only yesterday that Volvo are developing a system that can recognise if a person is dozing off (or looking away at a phone) and will pull the car over and call Volvo customer services.

A new one; 142032 being taking up the M6 on Monday,

And an older one with 144017 at York station back in 2015

6 hours ago, locoholic said:

On BBC TV Midlands Today they've just said that two-thirds of the land required for HS2 is under Schedule 16 possession: that is, HS2 has sole access to the land even though they haven't paid for it! And the landowners are legally trespassing by walking on the land that they still own. The rationale being that HS2 are avoiding paying for the land to keep their costs down, whilst still being able to progress the project. This doesn't seem like something that should be going on in a civilised country.

this two-thirds... are we talking about only phase one (London - Birmingham)...?? Because I've spent most of the last three months travelling the rest of the route for work (west & eastern branches), and have seen no signs of this, including talking* to landowners when we check in with them.

* - Indeed, schedule 16 possession preventing access to land is about the only complaint** I haven't heard.

** - the most common being "it's a waste of money just to get to (insert Birmingham/Manchester/Leeds) 20 minutes faster", which goes to show how effiecient the HS2 publicity department has been in getting across the reasons for HS2...

9 hours ago, LMS2968 said:

Well, it makes a change from changing bulbs...

though this week I have had to change both a rear light and a headlight... the later being easier than I had been expecting....

3 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

 

I hope it is more in depth and balanced than some of their recent offerings on a number of subjects. We shall see.

 

entitled "the great train robbery", I'm sure it'll be a balanced report...

The 1st one looks as though it has a pantograph?

 

Stewart

I think it's for knocking icicles in tunnels down.

Can we forget Phil on this thread and take it elsewhere and get back to the topic of fun rather than Republicans vs the Monarchy? Ta

The Police will decide the blame so don’t fall into the media trap of deciding first.

This is the internet... that is what it's for...

The latest fad from poor drivers seems to be trying desperately to put their foot down and racing every other driver into the start of roadworks with average speed cameras only to pull in sharply in front of the overtaken traffic, brake hard, then crawl through the roadworks at far less than the speed limit. I'm seeing this a lot at the moment.

The Hindhead tunnel on the A3 is another good example of this... if you're lucky the (often BMW/Audi) driver who blasts past you at +80mph just before the tunnel at least pulls into lane one as they slow down to 60mph to travel through the tunnel so you can overtake them back, just doing a steady 70mph. Then they'll overtake you again out the otherside when they get back up to cruising speed of +80mph.

But so often you'll get stuck behind cars who'll slow down to 60mph for the tunnel, just because of the average speed limit cameras... even though the limit itself is still 70mph (unless indictated otherwise).

I doubt that GPS, which is I believe only accurate to about 2 metres at best, could give more than a fairly accurate average speed. 

not quite true, whilst the GPS on your phone might only be good to a few meters, but there are real-time GPS receivers that can get a much higher accuracy. As a surveyor we normally expect our fixes to be within a couple of cm. Even higher presicion GPS fixes can be done, but they require being in a stationary position for longer to record an average fix over time.

I'd rather change a wheel than a bulb... on my first car (Hyundai Pony) bulbs were easy to change, my second (Ford Focus) they were tricky, but possible, with my current car (Toyota Auris) the front lights have to be done by touch (no chance of getting a hand AND being able to see what you're doing) & it's easier to get the guy from Halfords* who changes bulbs every day to do it.

* - especially as my car appears to be a change year so their listed bulbs for my car are the wrong ones

According to the official figures posted in the House of Commons Library on 16th October 2018, the figure for the number of police officers per 100,000 of population in England & Wales is 208.  The figures were complied as at 31st March 2018.

 

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN00634/SN00634.pdf

What do they say about stats... admittedly mine date from only 2017, but are based upon reports on the .gov.uk website... of course, the thing to keep in mine is what might be defined as "police", or working 'for the police'. If my figures included PCSO, Special Constables, Police Staff, BTP*, as opposed to Police Officers, or even 'Frontline Police Officers' you can dramatically change the numbers that are being used...

* - having checked, mine DIDN'T include the BTP for example... which is ~5,000 employees, but a workforce of 3,028 police officers, 1,530 police staff, 230 police community support officers, 30 designated officers and 330 special constables...

Kevinlms who made the comment is in Australia so perhaps there are more traffic officers. When I went to the USA there were more police officers then I am used to seeing in England.

though you would be wrong...

N.Ireland - 372 police officers per 100,000 of population,

Scotland - 324

England & Wales - 302

USA - 284

Ireland - 252

Australia - 202

Canada - 185

With most (but not all) main European countries having 200-300 police officers per 100,000 population. Worldwide there is approx 1 officer per 604 civilians.

I thought the railway in Watershed Down was based on the Didcot, Newbury & Southampton line - closed and lifted long before the Class 50s came south. (CJL)

Richard Adams based the entire novel on a real location, so it's the Basingstoke - Andover line, just west of Overton

That’s awesome!

 

Confused by the bit south of Crawley, struggling to think of any real high points there.

Also surprised as it all looks lower than the North Downs at Merstham... though it might be individual items, such as a water tower, radar station and an antena just outside Pease Pottage...

quite possibly... I know I can see Wembly stadium (when the arch is lit) from the army ranges (26 miles). Took me an age to work out what it was first time I spotted it. I'm not sure about the Shard though (31 miles), but I've not looked either. And certainly would need binos, though in theory it should be.

Perhaps its more of a question of how something is pitched.

 

If I went to see the play 'Richard III' I would expect it to be that written by Shakespeare and nothing else.

 

If I went to see a play 'based on Richard III' then I would understand that there could be significant differences from the original work.

 

Thus if I watch a TV drama called 'The ABC murders I would expect a faithful recreation of the book

 

If I watch a TV drama 'Based on the ABC murders' then I would expect there might be significant differences to the novel.

Not only called, but the opening credits went, "Agatha Christie's / The ABC Murders"

the important thing to remember is that the screen writer for the BBC adaptation of the ABC Murders was the same one that rewrote the ending to 'Ordeal by Innocence', which would explain the vast differences (extra murders, charactor death, total rewrite of Poirot's personal history)... I don't think they actually like Christie's works...

As for the final railways scenes... those are what you get when you have someone with little to no railway knowledge is asked to produce something "dramatic" via CGI...

I must say I rather enjoyed watching It although I didn't quite see the point of the remake as it didn't really improve on the original film which was a lot closer to the book.

I'm watching the BBC adaption of Christie's ABC Murders, and I feel that the later part of this statement could also apply to that! Trying to decide if I should be worried about their Les Miserables starting in a couple of days...

Some very odd railway scenes in the 'ABC Murders' tonight.

 

Poirot caught a train from London to Andover that ran through mountain scenery!

His journey back was apparently on the LNER!

 

Several other shots were difficult to place, too.

Was that his trip back, or of Cust travelling to Bexhill (on the South Coast)...?? But with the tracks literally on the beach...

you could tell that the budget was spent on the voice actors and not on what felt like early 2000s children's tv cgi... random plot changes (the night time encounter with the crows) and the trip into the village. And possibly not realising that the book (and 1978 film) were based on real locations, so Efera ending up being based in a run down factory for example.

I found the ending laughable (I literally laughed out loud at the end). It was like it was based upon briefing notes of Watership Down as opposed to being based upon the book. And that's before you get to fact the rabbits looked a lot more like hares...

Nut having spent £20m on it, I guess this is the version that the BBC are going to force upon us, even though it is inferior to the older version of the film.

Reporting arrests is one thing, but the Heil made a very derogatory comment. That was unacceptable.

 

Pictures on line is a fact of life, these days, unfortunately.

they did, but the headline was "Are these the morons who ruined Christmas?" and they would argue that the question wasn't rhetorical and turns out that the answer was 'no'. 

well... unless they actaully track the drone back to it's landing point, or shoot it down (somehow) and retrieve finger prints, the perpetrator is unlikely to be caught. Unless it's flying a predeterminded GPS route and they catch the person and the route is still programmed in the drone...

Keep in mind it takes less than a minute to replace the battery, and there's no reason why the person might not have spare batteries to replace them to give them several runs across the airfield before needing to pause to recharge them.

Of course, if they get a good photo of it and it says "fly Stansted/Luton"...

if it's flying a pre-programmed route there would be no signals to block/trace... and it's a big perimiter for people to stand about with what... shotguns to shoot it down...