BokStein

Hope the coconut crème brûlée desSert is not as gritty / sandy as it has been portrayed!

Morning, I've had a few of those TV emails too. My response is to shift-delete them into oblivion!

Sorry!

Marseilles St Charles (MSC, perhaps) an excellent station! I often get asked by telephone callers if they can 'pick my brains'. Given my gut reaction to their enquiry, I have often reduced many to an hysterical heap by replying 'may I get them from my drawer first, please'!

When I worked in a North East outpost of London, I often had to visit the French Office at Quincy Voisins and was usually billeted at Meaux. That's where I encountered the pork in mustard and pastry, delicious! However, I also encountered the best Brie I have ever tasted. Unlike every other wishy-washy bries I have tried, Brie de Meaux has a strong flavour. While occasionally, Tess coes may have it on their shelves, it also features in the Lidl Deluxe range.

Methinks you should perhaps add 'Melancholy Man' by the Moody Blues to your infamous hessian bag!

Dijon mustard is too dry for this; the recipe is a speciality of Meaux in France Whilst growing old may be mandatory, growing up is optional!

Might I suggest a recipe for Pork in Mustard? Coat the bottom of an oven-proof pan with a layer of Moutarde de Meaux (NOT Dijon!) Add pork chops to the pan then add another layer of said mustard. Oven cook the assembly to your satisfaction and enjoy. For reference, the town of Meaux usually wraps this in pastry.

Good Evening, The Station Master is in form with his TLAs relating to French stations. il Dottore is equally on form with his culinary aspirations. At my Father's funeral, a former colleague said to me that he had worked with computers through most of his employment; the last thing he wanted in retirement was a computer. "I have a pen, I have paper and I have a telephone, why do I need more?" Respect!

Many years ago, I was taken to A&E having fallen in the kitchen and impaled my throat on a pan holder on the cooker! I had 3 stitches and accepted the offer to take the tools used; the pliers are excellent for removing bones from fish "fillets"!

Isn't Izal now rebranded as grease proof paper?

So should we be using handkerchiefs in other areas or are Andrex and other similar products exempt? Andrex et alia work perfectly well at both ends!

Best Wishes to Beth; hope all is OK!

Sir, I beg to disagree! In the first instance, the use of the term 'earlier' is superfluous as, chronologically, it HAS to be before your post; no way could it have been, for example, later! Whilst a passenger is, clearly, an item being transported, with or without pre-payment, from A to B (possibly via C, D E & F) by some mechanical (teleporting?) means other than walking, the term 'Customer' is multi-faceted. Whether or not financial remuneration is involved is irrelevant. A customer is simply the recipient of anything offered and received from a 'donor'. Example: if I were to find myself working in a warehouse and one of the fitters came to me and requested a floggletoggle which I was able to supply to them, they would thus be my customer. Example: If I worked in the IT department (oxymoron alert?) and a colleague asked me to install some software, said colleague would then be my customer. Agreed but if the Railway Station, as it should be, is thus referred, does the Bus Station then become a Road Station and where does that leave a Gas Petrol Station? Whilst I also abhor the term you quote, I see that there may be some logic behind the abuse, init, like? The logic of linen handkerchiefs faded from my memory some 40 years ago when I realised several things: Why do I want to preserve that which is dispelled from my nose? Will my washing machine be thorough enough to not wash the residue into the other garments in the same cycle? Brands like Kleenex (others are available) offer perfectly serviceable tissues designed for use once and dispose of. Toilet roll has a similar texture and composition to the branded paper tissues and is flushable (and less labour intensive in washing and, all too often, ironing!) If out-and-about, I will indulge in the purchase of packs of pocket tissues; at Migros, for example, a brick of 42 packs of 10 tissues for under CHF4.00 is not, IMHO, to be sneezed at!

A very understanding and supportive thread!

A few years back, I presented for PAT Certification.IIRC, I scored 29/30 in a multiple choice test. (I won't compare it to the older scenario referred to as Exams!) RTFQ, akin with RTFM seem to be the bain of our lives. There is a well known post from a helpline about a customer problem. If I may quote from an external source: “Word Perfect Technical support; may I help you?” “Yes, well, I’m having trouble with WordPerfect.” “What sort of trouble?” “Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away.” “Went away?” “They disappeared.” “Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?” “Nothing.” “Nothing?” “It’s blank; it won’t accept anything when I type.” “Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?” “How do I tell?” “Can you see the C: prompt on the screen?” “What’s a sea-prompt?” “Never mind. Can you move the cursor around on the screen?” “There isn’t any cursor: I told you, it won’t accept anything I type.” “Does your monitor have a power indicator?” “What’s a monitor?” “It’s the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it have a little light that tells you when it’s on?” “I don’t know.” “Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that?” …..”Yes, I think so.” “Great! Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it’s plugged into the wall.” …..”Yes, it is.” “When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?” “No.” “Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable.” …..”Okay, here it is.” “Follow it for me, and tell me if it’s plugged securely into the back of your computer.” “I can’t reach it.” “Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?” “No.” “Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?” “Oh, it’s not because I don’t have the right angle-it’s because it’s dark.” “Dark?” “Yes-the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the window.” “Well, turn on the office light then.” “I can’t.” “No? Why not?” “Because there’s a power outage.” “A power… A power outage? Aha! Okay, we’ve got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?” “Well, yes. I keep them in the closet.” “Good! Go get them and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from.” “Really! Is it that bad?” “Yes, I’m afraid it is.” “Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?” “Tell them you’re too stupid to own a computer.” Who hasn't read this before?

Whereas to a realist:

Arranged by purity! Mathematics forms the foundation of Engineering which seems to be off the scale!

iL Dottore: I can not disagree with you! Whilst working with a company who manufactured indexing mechanisms, I read up about the way in which their cam profiles were designed and found many restrictions given a few standard profiles (Mod Sine, SHM, etc.) which were in common use. I spent three days going back to basics (wasn't there a model supplier by the name of 'Back 2 Bay 6'?) and generated some 50 pages of differential / integral calculus which, when fed with the 'standard' parameters, concurred with the ESDU and other factoids. I then went on to mix and match the motion profiles so that the mechanisms could perform as specified. In this respect, I contest that I am not a d3x/dt3! I managed to confuse the heck out of the drawing office by designing a six-indexer system to drive a bidirectional rack-and-pinion transport system so that transfer from drive to drive was seamless. Normally used to working in degrees of rotation, this contract was better calculated in teeth on the rack. This design in itself took a month! I had the good fortune of being invited to the customer and seeing the end results working perfectly!

But STILL no Groan Button!! ;(

Evening. The concept of Sumo is interesting and on one Food Network broadcast, Jack Maxwell's 'Booze Traveller' witnessed a Sumo downing a bottle of sake 'in one', just pouring it down his throat! The heaviest recorded Sumo weighed, apparently, 272Kg. Newton's Laws of Motion suggest that Force is the time rate of change of momentum, is always equally opposed and that a moving body will only change its speed if a force is applied to it. On the subject of collision, it depends much on the Coefficient of Restitution. I submit that, in Sumo terms, this is pretty close to 0 whereas with billiard balls, for example, it is closer to 1. By the way, you are asking about the engineering science of Dynamics rather than mathematics! I offer you rocket science (abridged). (I carry an every-day item which demonstrates this effect succinctly - my key chain!)

Sole Survivor Asia

Morning. Then there's Robertson's Jam's logo; golly! Songs like "Young, Gifted and Black" and "Melting Pot - Blue Mink" would never even leave the composer / writer's desk. History teaches us much but is all too often ignored. Gulf War 1 and GW2 have even been cited by a popular TV satirist as an example of such. In many ways, it's a shame that PC has come about because most of it is in the mind of the receiver. Where would the English Language be without the Double Entendre, for example? The thirty Carry On films would never even left the writers' desk let alone made it to celluloid.

Night Awl! Time for bed, said Zebedee!