Broithe

The first bits start to arrive - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31831603 .

Excellent. A friend of mine used to travel the country servicing industrial boilers - his wife suffered with arthritis and saw an advert for Royal Jelly, with addresses all over the country. "Where are you tomorrow?" - "Worcester" - "Well, go to this address I'm writing for you and get me a load of Royal Jelly". When he got to the address she'd written, it was a "private shop" and he thought it must be that she'd written it down wrong. He went home empty-handed and got it in the neck for not having the goods. So, he himself wrote the address of the source in the town he was going to the next day, which was only a few miles away this time. When he got there, it was another branch of the same "private shop" and so, he realised that he had to venture in, he just couldn't return home empty-handed again. He took a deep breath and entered - they soon fulfilled his order, but also put many leaflets of their other products in the bag. Relieved, he prepared to exit the shop and dash across the road to his van. As he ran from the door, he bumped into a couple that were walking past - he stepped back to apologise - then he realised that the couple were his next-door neighbours. Feeling that he had to say something, He said "It's not for me, it's for the wife", then the bag burst open and the leaflets started blowing up the street....

Oooh, I might have to go out and get that.... Thanks for the shout...

In the UK, in the early '60s, you could live in idyllic places that had no shortage issues of any sort - and a few miles away, you could be in Dickensian ghettoes that had hardly changed for a hundred years.

Any metal ingots that can be "compressed to a fraction of their original size" must have been cast with a fair few voids.... ..possibly amounting to about the same size of void as I would need in my head before I paid that for one..

Interesting picture, though not much help. http://starsandletters.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/help-save-quiet-man-train-station.html

I would say it was 59....

I don't care what you say, I've still got my paper tape editor to keep me happy.

Ah, mine is the fx-39, as well, not the fx-29 that I posted a picture of... ..the ability to work in fractions and hours*, minutes and seconds was useful.. ..* or degrees..

I still have my British Thornton... ..I might struggle to do much with it now, though.. ..and my Hellerman drawing set.. ..and my Facit calculator - rescued from the skip..

I still have my Sinclair Scientific - somewhere..... I still use this - - which is mid/late '80s. They made three "levels" at different prices - but, if you knew somebody with the top-of-the-range one, you could just copy their instructions and scratch the missing symbols on the keyboard - they all had the same internals, they just didn't tell you about some of the features if you bought the cheaper versions..

That's so I get down to the pub before closing, when I've had a nap after me tea - they're a bit strange about closing times over here.... Phone-wise, I still have one of these - I dial out every now and then, in case they've turned it off....

I used to use a pocket watch at work, as wristwatches were vulnerable to knocks and accidental submerging. Picked up a few nice stopwatches over the years, too.

Nice. I believe that is now compulsory under an EU directive that every model railway must have a Norstand wagon.

I do like the old Soviet watches, I have quite a few- I still want one of the 24 hour submarine watches - handy when there's no daylight to give you a clue - but, I don't think I would ever get the hang of it. It's difficult enough dealing with the fact that I refuse to change to GMT in the winter - but, everybody will catch up with me again soon...

I suppose it's a space consideration, possibly - and maybe the sheer amount of energy required may be a lot more than a mere watch needs. I only really wear a watch on the ferry these days, so that I have the time when the phone is off (to stop it hunting for a connection endlessly). I like the idea of the kinetic watch, but wonder how long it would run, if I didn't wear it much. There was a solar-powered, radio controlled watch that took my fancy. Always right, and it would stay going when you weren't wearing it. I do have a mechanical watch with an alarm, which is handy. The top winder charges and controls the alarm, the bottom does the watch, as normal. The alarm is set at around twenty to six here.

That's what happens in A4 Mallard's bathroom, when you pull the plug out.

I've never owned a watch with a battery in it. I have several watches, but they all function on renewable energy. They can be recharged without having to remove them. This is my favourite - it tells you the time quite effectively. All this "wearable technology" makes you wonder what nefarious possibilities there might be - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24608435 .

Having smugly said that I'd had no problem at all, it vanished for me at 2200 hours last night, and was still gone at midnight - back now, obviously.

I never noticed anything - and, if any changes are happening, is there any chance of something better than 'normality'...?

Crossing in Sandymount struck about three hours ago - delays ongoing...

That was about the time of the beginning of a transition in UK business culture, when people who had been called clerks, and came to work on a bike, started being called Directors of Finance, and arrived in Jags that they'd bought for themselves with other people's money.

Of course, the Irish Mk 4s are not the same as British Mk 4s..... ..just in case..