Regularity

Why didn’t the guy filming call the railway’s attention to the blockage? ”Scary for them.” (About the cab.) Yes, undoubtedly, but look how safe it is compared to the cars if flew all over tha place?

How thoroughly cynical observant of you!

Ah, I was not alone in this, then…

Lyrically, not a lot. Yellow is the first colour people learn to recognise (making it the first amongst primaries) and it was used a filler originally - like the chorus for “The Boxer”. I suspect it may have been used here to refer to the Lib-Dems, or possibly Boris’s hair, or political cowardice. Or some combination of these. As far as I can tell, we seem to have a broken party system: Blue: tax arranged to make the rich richer, as they can afford to go private for virtually everything so why should they pay for the poorest? The bonkers part of this is that so many who are disadvantaged by the policy vote for them. Believe in indirect taxation and tax “cuts” on income, which is a system that works in favour of the better off. Believe in the Union but elect someone as leader who has done more to further devolution to it than anyone else living or dead. Red: it’s all class warfare, isn’t it? I want my turn living to excess and will elevate myself above the proletariat because as their “leader”, I deserve better rewards. I will make promises for better services but not disclose how they will be paid for. Believe in massive tax increases. Not to fund a better society, but out of revenge. Believe in the Union because they want as large a tax base as possible and as many lives to control with how it is spent as they can. Yellow: they used to be seen as a safe alternative for both red and blue. In the latter case, because they weren’t (on the surface) raging socialists so better than voting red. For the reds, well, because they weren’t raging blue rinse brigade foamers, and if you look at some of their policies, they can be quite left-wing and pledge to remove tuition fees, etc, because actually, they aren’t likely to ever see power so it’s safe to make promises that won’t have to be honoured by working out how to pay for them. Probably support some form of devolution-max. Green: actually believe in a fair society, but that we have to pay for it via direct not indirect taxation. They support a mixed-economy based on sustainability and equal opportunity, but this takes time and sacrifice, so they don’t get the votes they deserve. Purples (or whatever is left for nationalist parties): we might have some good ideas, but we only want to apply them to our own independent nation state, and the RUK can sort itself out without us. Except that we want to use English economic stability via the pound until we can use the Euro. Cynical? Maybe… but… 2010. Gordon Brown was too controlling a prime minister, and the electorate voted against him in such a way as to produce the ideal circumstances for a lib-lab coalition: also, I think the nation wanted a coalition to steer us steadily through the troubled waters post 2008. Unfortunately, GB got on his high horse and refused to step down and we ended up with a ConDem coalition, whereby the LibDems appeared to jettison all their policies. This wasn’t true, but they did jettison the only one anyone remembered, and they did “side” with the wrong party as far as most of their members were concerned. Meanwhile, Cameron and Osborne began to reap the “benefits” of their “no one is talking about immigration” line as this country became nastier and less tolerant, whilst Osborne cut everything except taxes, other than business taxes, which he halved over his period in office, making it a more difficult country to live in if you are poor. 2015. The electorate turned on the liberals for selling out five years before and forming the wrong coalition. Well done, Nick Clegg: your party had its first chance of influencing major decisions for decades, and you managed it so badly with the public that you may not see power for many decades to come. The electorate looked at Labour, and said, “You fools elected the wrong Milliband to be in charge. Why did you let Len McCluskey do this? What we want is our services protected, not a communist nutter pulling the strings behind the scenes.” Against that, David Cameron had no need to make the pointless promise of Brexit to garner support for the swivel-eyed loons, but he did, which lead to, well, you know what… 2017. Despite having a clear mandate in terms of a majority in the House, Theresa May decided to call a general election to get popular endorsement of her Brexit plan. This back fired massively, in terms or party politics, but maybe the answer here was to form a coalition of the moderates from each party, which is probably more than 500 MPs, to create a more workable deal? But no, let’s pander to the extreme wing of the blues, and make people realise that I am a control freak that can’t make decisions, and get deselected. Does anyone remember what the Yellows stood for at this time? A lack of votes for other parties means Labour thinks it was within shouting distance of winning under a leader who was nominated as a token gesture to the very left wing of his own party and only won because the moderate candidates spent too much time bickering with each other, and then Len McCluskey put his union behind JC as (in his mind, I think) a win-win choice. If Labour won, they got their man. If they didn’t, then a few more years of turmoil in the country would lead to a communist revolution which would see him influencing power if not in power. The red equivalent of swivel-eyed loons is again on the ascendant. 2019: Boris appeals to people who have never voted Tory in their life, because he has somehow managed to make racism socially acceptable: just so long as it is falsehoods about white people from Eastern Europe, just like that friendly bloke in the pub. On the other side, the joke candidate was trounced as he never explained how he would fund any of his ideas, was evasive in interviews, and red-tops did a hatchet job on him. He helped here, as although more genuinely pro-Brexit than Boris, the issue had passed and he was like that quiet bloke in the corner of the pub who talked earnestly about class warfare, and no one outside his small circle of friends was interested in the concept. The reds’ own swivel-eyed loons think that perhaps the problem was not that they were immoderate, but not extreme enough. We end up with a boring leader who a[peaked quite sensible before he was in that position, but who has failed to press home every advantage he had with Boris repeatedly lying. I should add that I have the greatest respect for JC as a politician and MP, and we need people in the commons who have his views. He is often thoughtful and well advanced in some of his thinking. We also need people like Steve Baker, so that there is an outlet and focus for such views. It’s just that neither of them should be allowed power (IMO). Similarly, I am told that The Maybot was a good constituency MP, and seems to be one of the saner backbenchers on the government side of the speaker, but when DC stood down, my first comment was, “I hope we don’t get May: she’s a control freak and can’t make decisions.” But it doesn’t bode well, does it? No matter who we get in the blue corner, they are going to be all about reducing the taxation burden, by which they mean, reduce the burden on those who can afford private healthcare, retirement and education for their children (which could be via moving to a more expensive school catchment area as much as by private education) whilst decreasing the services provided to all. At least the decrease in public services is genuinely offered across the board. The red corner? Still driven by fighting the battles of the past (“class warfare”) rather than by asking tow simple questions: “What sort of society do you want, especially in terms of if you get ill or old and infirm?” and, “How should we pay for that?” Yellow: I am still not sure what they stand for. Nationalists: Still haven’t seen detailed costings for everything they claim to be able to provide, assuming that they accept that political independence also means monetary independed. Northern Ireland: The eventual demographic drift towards becoming part of the Republic seems to be accelerating. But hey, you would be part of the EU then, which has more economic advantages than being part of the UK. If the descendants of Scottish Presbyterians stopped thinking of themselves as somehow English (I know that should be British, but the SNP has made no claims on having NI within its purview, and most of the English are simply indifferent to Scottish Independence, so it will end up being English) instead of Irish, then they might even be happy about it. Greens. Still the only party talking sense and not pandering to petty nationalism or prejudice, so not going to win. We get the politicians we deserve. All my own opinions, btw.

Meanwhile…

Here’s the thing. I want to see a universal basic income. I also have no problem with anyone making lots of money. I do have a problem with some inheriting lots of money: they did nothing themselves to earn this, but the only solution here is 100% death duty above a certain threshold. There would need to be a lot of careful work on this as I don’t want to see this being used to destroy heritage and history, but have we till not yet reached a point in our sociological evolutions as a society where we understand that giving everyone a fair chance to develop without needing to worry about food in their belly and a roof over their heads, and the provision of universal regular and emergency healthcare is the very definition of a civilised society? The rest is just about redistribution of wealth to enable this. We would all like to do well, and give our kids a good start in life, but beyond that, as the saying goes you can’t take it with you…

Just don’t use it painting inwardsly…

I misread that as having a “u” and not an “a” as the third letter…

Never met her: she didn’t have much to do with him.

Well, it was an enjoyable romp… ;)

You will be pleased to know that didn’t happen. He moved on to another university (he was a post-doctoral chemist) and a visitor from that place commented to a friend of mine who worked in the original Uni told me a visiting professor a few month’s later from the new Uni said to my friend, “The only thing I knew about this place before now was that this is where that monumental tw@T Aston came from.”

Where’s the gun?

If you had know Aston at all, that latter point would concern you greatly…

It might be a standard pattern key.

Since the lock is just to stop casual nosiness rather than determined theft, you might be able to undo a couple of screws, remove it, and fit a replacement, to guarantee finding the key!

I knew a guy called Aston (his sister was called Jensen: their father had a thing about cars and I suppose they were lucky not to be called “Interceptor”, although Martin would have been ok). Who or what, then, is Clun, and how and how long is Aston on whatever/whoever it is/they be?

Thanks, Mike. We know what the (G)WR called these, anyone know about other companies which may have done this? The other thing a signaller needs is good colour vision, of course. Most people know if they don’t have this, but 20½ years ago I found out when interviewing for a position that that my colour vision wasn’t up to scratch!

Dunno. Ask me another.

Re “pulling lists”, iirc, I have seen photos of some frames where the levers had these listed on the number plates, but not all. Was this specific to certain companies?

More cubish - the edges are somewhat rounded, and only the bare-nosed wombat. Yet another example of Australian fauna weirdness!

Another example with trailing then facing (as you approach) crossovers:

Facing, or trailing? ;)

The soon-to-be Dr. RRH will be happy, then… If you lose your wombat, can you no longer play wom?

When was that ever deemed necessary when making political decisions?

Not sure: I have been told that military modelling forums can get really nasty, especially over (perceived) failure to do proper research.