eastglosmog

But in extremis, you can always use the book as a fire under your saucepan (well. it must have some use)..........

It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier - Tom Lehrer

And mine!

A vindication of a departed maidenhood - trad

You mean people also need to be taught that? Don't parents teach their children anything these days?

Yes, in the days before NHS dentistry and many old people being toothless, making sucking the contents of an egg the easiest thing for them to eat.

Yet its what my mother (still going strong at 99) taught me (with other basic cookery) before I ventured out into the big bad world.

Didn't Delia Smith (or one of those cookery writers) include how to boil an egg in one of her books?

The Baldwin and Alco pannier tank locos for the WD in WW1 (narrow gauge,of course).

There is another down near Swindon. Supposed to refer to the appearance of the mixture of soil and stone resembling a cats brain (if such a thing exists....).

Being somewhat cynical, the advice from my GP's practice could be interpreted as they should stay at home and die so as no to infect anyone else!

According to WHO guidance (as reported in the New Scientist last week) there is not thought to be any benefit to a healthy person of wearing a face mask.

Letsby Avenue in Sheffield has the South Yorkshire Police Operations Complex (otherwise known as a Police Station) Think it was deliberately named that way.

What I have read is that the received wisdom is that Belpair firebox = Pannier tank, Round topped firebox = saddle tank, for ease of fitting. But I am sure there are plenty of exceptions!

To quote the old song "In days of old, when knights were bold, and bogs not yet invented, they wiped their a**e on lumps of grass, and went away contented."

Then there is Princetown on Dartmoor, 1430ft OD, certainly more than 2 streets and quite civilized as I remember!

Pishill if you please!

How do you define the height? The lowest, highest or mid point? Some upland villages have quite a vertical spread. Although smaller than Wanlockhead, Allenheads in Northumbria varies between 1330ft and 1440 ft (the Old School House B&B) is definateley civilized (has a pub (1355ft) and a cafe and has more than 2 streets). And Reorte, you should certainly detour to the lead mining museum, it is well worth the long winding trip across the hills.

Summertime, an' the livin' is easy - Gershwin and Heyward

Well, as I've got a month's supply of cat food in, nothing else matters (according to my cat, anyway).

That insignificant place on the eastern seaboard of the USA called Boston comes to mind, nowhere near as important as Boston in Lincolnshire, of course!

County Durham has Quebec, just west of Esh. Then there is Mount Pleasant in the Taff Valley, just south of Merthyr Vale - always struck me as misnamed!

My non-expert take on this: Q1 - HMS Cornwall - the external bulges make it a Type 1 County, the presence of a hanger in 1937 and the lack of a cut down stern point to Cornwall rather than any of the others. Q2 - Agree with Jim, its HMS Hermes Q3 - Agree this is a Cavendish (or Hawkins) class cruiser but think it is probably Vindictive, which was a training cruiser at the time, but could also be Frobisher (also a training cruiser up to 1937). Doubt if it would be Hawkins, as she was in Portsmouth reserve at the time. Q4 - No idea what the fuzzy ship is. Edit: On blowing it up as much as possible, ship appears to have three funnels, so I suspect it is Cornwall again Q5 - Can't see enough of the depot ship to identify her. Destroyer appears to be an Admiralty Large Leader class(it has two apparently round funnels, a midships gun on a bandstand and small gun shields that don't reach the deck) Inboard submarine looks like a minelaying submarine of the Grampus class, probably Narwhal, as the other two that were in commission at the time (Grampus and Rorqual) were in China at the time. Outboard sumbarine looks like a Group 1 S class (Swordfish class) (later Groups of the S class (Shark and following types) had a longer projection forwards from the base of the conning tower).

How about Joseph Addison's hymn "When rising from the bed of death" famously combined with a Thomas Tallis Third Mode motet by Ralph Vaughn Williams (the tune subsequently used by RVW for his Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis)?

Born on the 4th July - Tom Paxton