Gwiwer

In other news and in answer to "What have the Romans ever done for us?" I noted this on an OS map recently.  The old Pulborough - Petworth railway seems to have been much older than we thought.  © Ordnance Survey posted under permitted extract rules.

Good morning all and welcome to Ban Collar Day.  Ironically I am wearing one of those T-shirt style tops which does have a collar so I might have to perform a quick change before leaving the house.  

Uncommonly and in defiance of tradition it is sunny and moderately warm here today although large dark grey things keep floating past overhead.  The one horse-power vehicles are out in abundance which still causes His Furship to look in a startled manner out of the window to see what is producing the clip-clopping sound.  "Giant mounted cats" is our answer.  He remains startled at the sight of something so large mounted on four legs with pricked ears at the front a swisher at the back.  

We are navigating the murky depths of the GWR website attempting to obtain refunds for Dr. SWMBO's non-travels.  Next weekend is affected by Industrial Action as mentioned a couple of days ago.  She is due full refunds totalling over £300 for journeys she cannot make.  The website is making it harder than it should be to extract that money from the operator.  

34 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

it cost me £135 to dispose of a dead fox in my shed

I might be accused of disrespect but if that were me I'd just bag it in the usual black sacks and bin it for collection.  Cost already prepaid with the Council Tax bill.  A decent pair of gloves would ensure no actual contact between the deceased and the remover.  

10 minutes ago, PupCam said:

HP printers

Hopeless Packed-up 

13 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

This was overlooked:

I wonder whether this sign might have had more impact 

14 minutes ago, Erichill16 said:

Bit of traffic about today regarding Star Wars so thought I might just drop this in, quite funny, well to me anyway.

Pertinent to the day and as creative as Weird Al has always been.  

My favourite of his is from an altogether different genre. 

POETS Day is here and if I had a knocking-off time I could celebrate it suitably.  Instead I shall have to make to with drinks and crisps at what ever time Dr. SWMBO decrees is "the end of her brain" for the week.  

It a beautiful Spring day at the Distant (Signal) West with a mostly-sunny and almost-warm feel to it.  It was T-shirt and shorts weather for the shopping run this morning and I neither looked nor felt under-dressed.  

Paint has been purchased for adding this year's shiny coat to the cottage.  I'm cheating and using water-based gloss straight onto the washed-down and lightly-rubbed previous coat.  I have neither time nor skills to do a full rub-down-to-wood and apply everything from undercoat upwards.  Neither do I have the number of Deltic Vouchers it requires these days to employ a tradesperson to do that all for me.  And a broom-handle has been purchased into which a large metal hook has been screwed.  This is the means by which the Velux windows upstairs can now be opened and closed; as they are something like 2.5m above floor level it's beyond the reach of even a tall Gwiwer standing on a chair to get them open so a pole it has to be.  

Pets at Home was visited for His Furship's requirements but his chosen diet was priced very much higher than it is for delivery.  So thanks but no thanks and I ordered it online standing in front of the shelf as a very juvenile-looking assistant asked "Can I help you at all?".  "No thanks - not at that price" was the answer as I showed her how much cheaper is was online.  Same product, with delivery included, fully £10 cheaper.  

And then the Sainbury's Grand Prix which was actually quite civilised today.  I did notice a van-plus-boat-trailer (complete with quite large boat) circulating the car park looking for a suitable place to park.  Good luck with that one mate - try dropping the trailer off at the slipway first!  

There will be ales at the bar later.  Because I say so.  

17 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

No comment necessary.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/boris-johnson-elections-polling-station-b2538777.html

Oh the irony. 
 

4 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

SWAG 25?

2025 is the target. Which month and which event it is too early to say. It would be quite a large exhibit for SWAG25 but never say never. 
 

And I shall need a van to move it. Because three full and two half-size boards, plus legs, plus stock will not fit in the car!!! 

I spent some time at club today checking out the boards and assessing the work required to restore Waddlemarsh to running order.  It's perfectly do-able.  The biggest issues are cost and space.  Cost is always an issue and available space is determined now by the needs of the club and its other members and layouts.  Ironically the plain track has largely survived intact and it is the pointwork which requires replacing.  Some because it is damaged beyond repair and some because of the new end-to-end configuration which will enforce the relocation of a few points.  

A new custom-built fiddle-yard entry crossover will be required and I shall take the opportunity to obtain a two-to-four rather than two-to-three set-up.  That requires two points feeding to a short central diamond with the exits both feeding double-slips rather than just two more points.  The old one had one double-slip and a simple turnout.  

After brushing a significant amount of mildew off the boards - thankfully it's nice and dry now after a  seemingly endless wet winter so they cleaned up nicely - the basic scenery and woodwork is not too bad at all.  It looked far worse covered in blobs of green and black but that hasn't even stained anything.  

Today I stripped the old corner board of its sharply-curved tracks and cut a piece from it which will form a link span.  That will support the crossover and will connect to the main fiddle-yard board at one end then to the station scene board at the other.  The girder bridge which was built skewed across the lines as a scenic break is OK to use with a re-skin of the Scalescenes brick paper applied and may therefore remain at a skew angle rather than reconfiguring it to a right-angle.  Too many layouts have 90-degree structures as scenic breaks; many bridges in real life are at anything but right-angle to the line.  

I have identified an area on the fiddle yard board where point control and isolating switches can be located which will minimise wiring across board joints; only the common feed will have to be connected rather than dozens of individual wires.  I have not yet identified where the power controller will go but it has to swap from what will in future be the viewing side of the board.  The best option may be to mount it in a cradle beneath a baseboard.  Point and isolation control for the rest of the layout can be placed elsewhere again hopefully reducing the number of plug-in electrical connections required.  

Progress will not be fast.  I have around 2 - 3 hours a week in the club room for my own projects.  But progress there already is.  

8 minutes ago, DaveF said:

 

I remembered to say White Rabbits this morning before I got up

 

I remembered to say “Oss Oss” and replied to myself (because Dr SWMBO is away midweek) with “Wee Oss”. 
 

Padstow marks May Day in its own way. Not quite as unique as they like to think but special nonetheless. That thumping drum is like the heartbeat of Spring. 
 

I’ll not be there this year. It’s not too far but there’s work to be done here, it’s Muddling Afternoon and I need an early night because I’m on watch first thing tomorrow. 
 

No drunken shenanigans around the maypole for this Gwiwer then. But I’ll enjoy re-living the memories 🙈🙉🙊

“Wither we are going we all shall unite in the merry morning of May”

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

"Password must contain at least one numerical character"

 

F#*%$^&@k it again!  

"Password must contain at least one special character"

🖕

Is not acceptable.

2 hours ago, TheQ said:

Yes you can walk anywhere in Britain after using the train, you can get the train to Wick and walk to Lands End if you want to....

 

Meanwhile try walking from  Berney Arms station in 2019-20 it was the least used station in the country with just 42 passengers... There is no road access and the pubs closed...

13,000 pages of friendly support, informed drivel and gastronomic delights!  Well done all.  👏    👏

Why not have a walking thread?  I already admin a Farcebook group for the South West Coast Path https://www.facebook.com/groups/1580784368659585 (13,000 members) and am a member of another for walking Britain's coast.  I have "clocked up" quite a few miles around the inlands of southern England and North Wales / Gogledd Cymru as well.  

There are perfectly good if rather pointless paths from Berney Arms station but as you say the pub is long closed and unlikely to reopen so it's a fair old hike for the sake of it if you go.  

In other news it's time for His Furship's annual Roadworthy - first time at a new vet as the previous occasion was before we moved.  I wonder how he'll take to that.  He doesn't much like change.  Nor car trips.  

This morning's tragic and regrettable events in Hainault will draw no further comment from me beyond noting that the sword-wielding offender was taken down by a taser.  

Dr. SWMBO has safely returned from her day in Paris and is back in her London-area digs.  I can go to bed now.

G'night all.  

2 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

 I'd lump the  1980's-vintage NSW Transit cops in that category! 

 

Insufficiently adequate   to get into the actual cops, they patrolled the trains and stations of the NSW rail network, armed and ready to prove it at any justification. My experience of them was when 3 mates and I were going into the city one Friday night to see a band - one of my mates showed his University of Wollongong*  travel card but it was denied by the ticket selling guy.

 

. My mate said something or other under his breath and we boarded the train but unbeknown to us, the ticket guy must have had a secret button or something because 5 minutes into our trip, 2 of the NSW transit police forces  finest came into the carriage  and confronted us.

 

The older one told my mate to leave the train as we pulled into Warwick Farm station and reached for his gun to make the point more obvious. The rest of us weren't sure if we were meant to follow or stay aboard, until the younger pretend cop  said "Yous can go too if yous want" so we did.

 

Warwick Farm station is a minor stop where only one in 10 trains pull into so we had quite a wait, but we still got to the venue well before the band bothered to show up.

 

If it had come to a shoot out I reckon my mate sitting behind the two cops could have taken at least one of them out via a  kidney punch or a whack behind the knees and I could have gone for the younger ones gun and held him hostage until they honoured the Wollongong travel concession card and refunded my other mate the cash discount he'd been denied.

  

 

* no, not Woolloomooloo, just to fend off any M. Python fans...

 

That sounds incredibly familiar.  

It was 2002 not the 1980s but I was travelling on the Hunter Valley train from Newcastle to Maitland when exactly that happened - two Transits boarded and found every fault they could with ticketing.  Including ordering two children of about 12 years of age off the train at fairly remote Sandgate station (where not all trains stop) at gun-point.  

What sort of impression does that give?  And what sort of adults will kids subjected to that treatment become?  The poor mites had tickets but for some technicality they were not valid on that train on that day at that moment in time.  Or perhaps their faces just didn't fit.  Or some other spurious and lacking in duty-of-care reason.  

I was not impressed.  Luckily I was carrying my staff ID and all-states travel authority which they decided was all in order despite them being Victorian not New South Welsh.  

I am OK with a sensible discussion around police and firearms.  I don't see it as a argument in the sense of protagonists at ten paces.  

I do respect the sentiments around the recent events at Bondi Junction mall which is most regrettable and extremely uncommon in Australia.  However whilst the officer who discharged her weapon did so in direct response to events and the ongoing threat it may well have been that a taser (had one been available) might also have brought the shooter down.  

Many UK police are issued with the non-lethal taser, or can be issued with them if they are likely to face disorder on duty which might require their use.  They are considered non-lethal weapons of defence not lethal weapons of force.  Victims are disabled instantly and for such time as it takes to secure them and remove them from the scene.  A clear shot at close range is required - unlike a gunshot which requires a clear shot but can be deployed at much greater distances - but their efficiency at ending violent confrontations is not in doubt.  

I am all in favour of police (anywhere) carrying sufficient items to protect themselves and to prevent an ongoing and immediate threat to others.  That does not by any means imply they should carry firearms.  

In response to the suggestion that British railway stations are patrolled by sub-machine-gun toting police that is not true.  St. Pancras International has a few such officers localised to the international arrivals / departures area because it is a port of entry.  Otherwise it is the unarmed British Transport Police who are responsible for all railway premises.  They - at their discretion - may invite the local force for example the Metropolitan Police in London to assist them but Met Police officers will only patrol stations in response to a direct security threat.  They did that in recent times when the UK national security threat level was raised to Critical as it was likely that a railway station would be targeted.  They were stood down when the threat level was lowered.  

I spent the last six years of my working life at one of the busiest stations in the country, just outside two major London terminals and on the direct route to Gatwick Airport.  It was (and is) a Category A list location and is considered high-risk because of its strategic importance and connectivity to other places.  We very seldom saw police on patrol.  The BTP had a base there but it was not continuously attended.  The response required from staff in the event of need was to call 999; the emergency operator would either direct the call to the BTP or, should it require a level of response they could not provide, would assign Met Police whilst notifying the BTP of events.  

We called the police around once a year.  Mostly to unruly passengers.  Only once was there a suspicious package which could not be ascertained under station protocols to be safe; the Met Police were there within 90 seconds of the call and declared it safe within 3 minutes.  Without guns or sniffer robots and without the need to close and evacuate more than the immediate 400m radius.

 That is policing by consent.   

35 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Would the bus have been fitted with cameras?

CCTV yes; dash-cam no.

2 hours ago, polybear said:

3 hours ago, Barry O said:

My view is only the armed forces should be armed.. anyone with a gun or other form of "arms" should be gently volunteered to vebin the armed forces..

 

 

Plus Police/Law Enforcement - it's unfair to expect them to go up against the baddies with guns.

Having lived in nations where policing is by consent and where policing is by big stick (in reality if not in the letter of law) I prefer the British Way.  

Most police are not armed with offensive weapons in the UK; those who carry firearms do so only in response to specific and credible threats against person(s) or in very high security situations such as the close personal protection teams or international security at ports of entry / exit.  I suspect most police members (if that is how they currently prefer to be known) would not wish that to change.  The average PC does not seek to carry lethal force neither is it needed 99% of the time.  For the 1% they can call up the ARV who will tool up as the situation demands but otherwise might be on routine - unarmed - patrol.  ARVs carry gun safes; the officers are not themselves armed until they receive the authority from above.

Australian police all routinely carry loaded weapons.  The threat of force is always there.  Policing should be by consent but to a greater extent than exists in the UK it is policing by threat of lethal force.  I never felt comfortable seeing cops on traffic duties with one hand raised to direct motor traffic and the other on their weapon.  It never felt comfortable seeing "neighbourhood" police patrolling streets and shopping malls also with one hand glued to a weapon.  I prefer to feel comfortable that the police are there as defenders rather than feeling awkward and that they are potentially aggressors.  

To each their own.  It's probably "what you grew up with" but I was taught that the police are friends.  Friends do not carry loaded weapons in my book.  It speaks volumes that the UK remains extremely safe with very low rates of gun crime, substantially low rates of knife crime (acknowledging there are localised issues with certain sections of the community here and there carrying blades) and where one can feel safe on the streets day and night.  Force met with force can escalate into a spiral of attrition.  The last thing we need is police routinely armed in the UK; that will surely lead to the criminal element tooling up in response.  

8 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

These are the last two slides from my presentation passing on my knowledge on Monday

As opposed to "I am the seagull - you are the target" as happens all too often. 

2 hours ago, kevinlms said:

I did some work for a number of years for a small legal firm

Better than working for a large illegal firm I s'pose 🤣

Here's a few of my efforts with Ratio plastic kits and later square-section rodding.  Including a facing point lock fitted and part-rodded. 

The rodding cranks beneath the platform and beneath the board crossing by the signalbox.  Each part - some of them tiny - is separate.