zarniwhoop

I never met John, but after one of my posts about Switzerland / The Engadine I had a PM last year suggesting I drop in when I was at Ford. Unfortunately, at that time there was nothing available that I wanted so in the end I told him that I wasn't likely to be there in the short term. I noticed he had not posted for months, so I surmised that things were not well. Very sorry he has gone, and sorry not to have met him. From what you all have posted, his memory will live on. ĸen

After being extremely discombobulated by the jams in the supermarket car parks, the absence of most of what I was looking for, and the queues, I've now got most of the food and drink I want. Ideally I would take an extended break and not go out again until several days into January, but still need a few things, and will have to collect a prescription whenever it is ready. I used to put up a "tree" with fibre-optic lighting and a revolving colour wheel in its base (to change the light colour), but that packed up last year - it was only 28 years old, sob - and I can't be bothered to do much. Somewhere I've got strings of white or whiteish LEDs, but I cannot find those so might have to make do with traditional multicoloured LEDS. But on the bright side I've got my Arras sufficiently in gear to have another go at making Stollen. I found a recipe in 1993 and used to make one for myself (and my parents when they were alive) and one to take to work. But I'd got out of the habit (tended to have too much carbs now there is only me). This year I've taken advantage of t'internet (didn't have that in '93) to review variations on Stollen. Baking once the oven is heated (Economy 7). After that I need to refresh my sourdough so I can make a (small) bread with nuts in it and an attempt at fougasse, then I'll be sorted. Already got a large amount of sprouts and some root vegetables for roasting, plus some cheeses including a local sheep's blue cheese. Will probably have to cook some beans (not baked on this occasion), but starting to look forward to the eating as well as the drinking. For those celebrating Yule, Happy Yule, and for everyone else have a happy time whatever you celebrate. ĸen

Agree. With TVs, my complaint is that (cheap, from supermarket) TVs become problematic in a couple of years. For computers, my experience is that cheaper laptops and their chargers are built to last just over 12 months (my last laptop needed a new machine-specific charger after about 13 or 14 months, and about a year later the motherboard was flexing so much when I opened the machine that most of the display was problematic and the keyboard did not work (brand supplied on request - it was something which was available in Argos, rather than what I really wanted). For desktop PCs, the CPU manufacturers just want you to upgrade every few years: my AMDs have not had available microcode updates (for newly discovered firmware vulnerabilities) in several years - I had one once, for a 'K8' and those were last manufactured about 8 years ago , intel used to provide updates but they fairly quickly decide things are no-longer supported (currently 'Skylake' and older generations).

Surely, to a Southern man, different brakes at each end (other than in a BSK/BCK pair) looks wrong ? I suspect that a five coach set will anyway tend to look odd (I'm sure there were some, but three, four and six-or-more seem much more likely). Of course, Rule One can happily override what anybody says.

Thanks. I don't have one (I'm a veggie and retired, slow cookers are not useful for my normal meals). Google finds some 'crock pot' recipes taking 2½ to 3 hours (with yeast) which is neither here nor there (I'm willing to do a couple of hours in the oven, but I won't get a maillard reaction so not pumpernickel). A quick look suggests that 'low' on a slow cooker may be in the upper 80s C, but my 80°C oven setting is because my ovens run hot. In theory I should be steaming the sourdough, and I'm not sure that 80°C would do that - they only seem to come with slow|medium|hot settings.

I think the 'ff' tends to come from french, which used to be the lingua franca for diplomats.

'Rotted bovine lactations' (the Auditors in 'Thief of Time' by Sir Pterry.

Before the pandemic started, I used to frequently make wholemeal sourdough ("artisanal", i.e. not the sort of thing people would want to buy 😊 ) with a well-overbaked crust so that the crust would remain for a week if the loaf lasted that long. Mainly for eating with my dinner. During the pandemic I could not get my normal Doves flour at some times (I only have storage for small amounts) and my results varied. Then in recent months, first with the summer heat and then with "show willing by reducing the amount of electricity used" I baked much less frequently. Small loaves, usually about 330gm, and more of a bâtard than any other shape - or sometimes pain polka. Tried refreshing my starter (kept in a sealed plastic container in the fridge between use), but I could not persuade it to work. Started afresh about a week ago, got it working (a nice fresh taste in the (stiff) levain), baked two loaves early this morning (economy 7). Rather underweight and not wonderful expansion, but good crumb and holes, thick crunchy crust with some burning, which is how I like it, and the wonderful flavour I had almost forgotten. I think I'm back in business! Now to decide what to do for (very) sour wholegrain rye - in the past I've made german pumpernickel-style (only a small amount of rye grain, or flakes) loaves with bread spices and sometimes with other grains, but I don't think I can justify running my small over at 80° for 15 hours or more, which is a pity - the house did smell good after that.

I had one years ago, but in the end (2011) my bank started playing silly beggars and refusing the payments - I recall it was fun and games managing to eventually pay the overdue amount and penalty. Yes, it was fun coming up the A6 (?) from the south and going into the correct lane past the queues, with loads of people flashing their headlights and tooting, then sailing through.

From my days when I occasionally rode a mountain bike, I know that Mint was a famous sheep who road a mountain bike and featured in cartoons in the MBUK magazine. A quick gurgle found https://www.pinterest.co.uk/toby73ta/mint-sauce/ , more history at https://en.everybodywiki.com/Mint_Sauce_(cartoon_strip) . Searching for 'mint sauce cartoon' will find a number of links if ewe are interested. 😀

For your own stopping they should indeed help. But in this part of the world winter tyres are unusual and all you need is one driver behind you who notices your car is stopping well, so moves closer because it is obviously not slippy here.

By the same token, ED is a short description. I've seen class 73 referred to as 'little Ed' to distinguish them from 'big Ed' (class 74). That was from an ex BR guy, not sure whether he used 'ED' or 'Ed'.

I'm another one where my favourite changes regularly. At the moment, I suppose for album I'd go with Live In Europe by Rory Gallagher, and for favourite track I guess Strange Kind of Woman by Deep Purple. But maybe I'll change my mind before I go to bed.

From memory, core stability coupled with shoulder flexibility were the key things. https://excelptmt.com/2016/01/20/injury-prevention-in-nordic-skiing-lower-back-pain/ is not encouraging, but if the tracks are suitable for skating then it might be more possible (shorter skis than for classic, if you are hiring then getting skating skis might be a problem). Probably lots of deep heat or similar around the lumber area (and maybe on other muscles if you keep at it). For any adult, starting to XC ski needs preparation to be loose enough - and starting on easy tracks to be able to stop in some manner without hurting anything other than your dignity. If you are going to give it a try, some lessons from a qualified instructor would be useful. Best wishes, whatever you decide. ĸen

I suspect there is no hope for me - I cannot abide the smell of Tamiya paints! Will need to get my ars in gear and dig out the plans I made for an initial trial build. Thanks.

I can't access that - the full address gives me a 404, trying to access a little further up the directory tree gave me 403 (forbidden). But I guess I've got to the complete set of brick pages at https://www.brocross.com/Bricks/Penmorfa/index.htm Various other topics at www.brocross.com might be of interest to some peopel here.

Possibly, I found some duff info somewhere. From https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/56716-slaters-embossed-brick-sheets/ four courses per foot and a typical (domestic) door height of 6'6".

Coming back to this - For that last point, as Linus Torvalds often says - the perfect is the enemy of the good. Me, I'll settle for adequate (if I ever get a 4mm layout it will be 16.5mm gauge). I like that flemish bond, and particularly the mortar (not sure about the brick colour, but I know nothing of that area and I'd assumed it would be very dirty). I keep trying to convince myself to have a go at test building part of a station (OK, maybe just the loo block 😀 ) based on Bramber, Southwater and similar) but on S.E. Finecast brick sheets I can't see where the courses are unless I prime them in grey - and then adding the mortar colour has so far beaten me. So I'd be interested in a link to your thread on that, or just a title to search for, or hints on how you did it ? Pretty please with sugar on ? Meanwhile I'll go back to agonizing about what size bricks really were! I find Peco/Ratio/Wills have nice relief, probably overstated but shows up well, S.E. Finecast seem a sensible size, but looking at photos of platforms built from the 1840s to the 1880s it seems to me that the bricks were smaller (i.e .more courses above the rail than you would expect for platform surfaces at 2'9" or 3' above the rail level - the typical estimate is 3 courses per foot, but when I can make out the mortar, 12 or 13 courses seem more likely in the ex-LBSCR photos I've looked at).

I can remember watching a video of Steam trains on youtube which I think was about the Steyning line. At one point it showed some sort of steam loco pulling a set of three Mk1 coaches on the approach to Brighton - with the BSK in the middle. If so, it was somewhat earlier - but I don't have a link to the video.

In the days when most people used trains to go on holiday, many holiday trains carried a lot of luggage (or, apparently, luggage in advance) and the brakes were also used for parcels and animals. As you note, some Maunsell 3 sets had 4 compartment brakes, others had 6 - in part it probably depended on the expected traffic for which the carriages were built.

Yeah, BT, sure. The best I get are purportedly virginmedia or ntlworld telling me my payment failed, click on link, or email password needs to be validated for some change. Strangely, they all claim to come from gmail (or occasionally, japanese) addresses 🤣

In discworld, the strength of a god grows, or declines, with the number of their believers. See the 'small gods' book (violent in places, both from the gods and those claiming to worship them (e.g. the Quisition). But apart from Om they are mostly your 'traditional' gods, i.e. god of this and god of that.

It's all gone downhill since the days of Eddie Waring. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etve0fUz6VI Oh, sorry, I might have confused that with the mid-welsh national anthem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c_3Licm2KI although I suspect most of you profess not to know what that is about. 😇

Well, that was an interesting evening - cooked some red cabbage with onion, a small amount of semi-sauted potatoes, a pepper, some pre-cooked chestnuts, canned tomatoes, sweet smoked paprika, walnuts, red wine vinegar. In best Sam Vimes style I allowed it to dry out at one point, to get the burnt bits. Tasted great, but near the end my throat (not sure where - I didn't do biology) and swallowing - even sips of water - was too painful and I ended up by coughing up a lot of phlegm. I suspect some burned smoked paprika was the cause. Had to lie down, after 30 minutes I was fine. But I had similar experiences (different foods) a couple of years ago, hope they are not returning. At least I didn't have to make an offering to Vometia on this occasion. Summary: fine at the moment, hope it was a one-off and I can go back to invoking the goddess Anoia (when necessary) and worshipping Bibulous.😊 https://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/Gods

Nowadays, I normally build new systems from the current development or current release of LFS (and my development builds usually only have a life of a few months, the release builds are kept semi-maintained for between a year and eighteen months. My first distro was indeed Red Hat, 6.1 or 6.2 - nowadays their free version is fedora,and Red Hat provide paid-for long-term support (and there are also a couple of free forks of that without paid support). After that I moved to mandrake. From then on, I quickly switched to using LFS to build LFS. The exceptions have been when I bought new machines on which I could not load a precompiled LFS to make a native build - first a ppc G3 apple laptop (used Yellow Dog, I actually paid for that!), then for a ppc64 I think I used ubuntu. More recently I had a UEFI acer laptop (not recommended, poor quality) and in the end used Mandriva to get started, and on my main desktop that was again UEFI and I used devuan. For general issues, yes, move fast, break often is now the common form of development. Security is a big concern. I like to think that we are more on top of this for the last couple of years. For a while before that two of us got a bit more involved in detailing things in 'errata', then with his help I spent time moving the current items to a new basis (accessible via the LFS and BLFS 'read online' pages at linuxfromscratch.org if anyone really cares). Fortunately, we cover far fewer packages than the big distros (and only intel/amd) so many known vulnerabilities are not relevant to us.