Broithe

Sorry for the late reply... We went to Emo yesterday and, chatting to the Information Officer, this photo was mentioned. She was unaware of it and I said I would source it for her. I found it in the book here, but it doesn't seem to exist publicly online anywhere. In Father Browne's Laois - on page 105.

Killarney Fassbender.

The chap across the road is from Kerry and he struggled with it. I love the fact that that was a genuine evening news item and it might as well have been in Klingon... Some my remember the old Pirelli tyre adverts. They were much easier to follow.

To be fair, it can be a bit of a challenge...

Galmoy Mine, in the north of Co Kilkenny, is in the process of reopening. I have heard talk of the fairly 'strong' ore from there being mixed with other ore from elsewhere, to achieve a more saleable product. I have an inside woman in there, I do know that she has been up to Navan recently. I might slightly interrogate her, if it doesn't rain tomorrow evening. Having escaped from 'industry' a while back, I don't generally get too involved with what she is doing there. One amusing thing, which happened recently, was that, being German and with a strong history in shipbuilding, she was surprised to come across a term in the waste water treatment plant which she didn't recognise. Goul Pump. Wanting to know what sort of specialist pump this might be, she made some enquiries, but Google was completely unhelpful, and it took her a fortnight to find out, without asking any of the generally older males in the organisation. There is a company in England called Gould Pumps, but their stuff is fairly ordinary and it is spelled 'Goul' in many places in the paperwork, so it was not that. It turns out that this may be the only Goul Pump on the planet. Eventually, she did find out what it meant and felt safe asking me on one of our hiking expeditions. "Do you know what a Goul pump is?" "Not really, but that'll just be the pump that sends the waste water into the River Goul, I presume". If I'd been listening carefully, I might have learned the German word for "Bollocks!".

HSTs are having some issues in Mexico. https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0veas8J9ygJy11zXkYJX1aNb8u6jjMWqWxwTV8W2aLqhx7echzKGWM6f9ykU7gDb3l&id=61551481905785

Landslide in Norway cuts motorway and the adjacent railway. A long way round for the bus replacement service for a while yet...

And the chassis were black.

A crematorium that I have frequently attended in England has a sign on the last side-door, just before you enter the 'main arena' - it proclaims the availability of a defibrillator. To be fair, my informant there tells me that it has been used twice - but on audience members, rather than the main act. It also has smoke detectors in the apex of the roof.

Disappointed. In these modern times, it should surely be DCC Rail Freight..?

I have a set of the 1910 revision of the 1" maps, covering the whole of Laois/Queen's County and extending into the necessary parts of the adjoining counties. It shows the coalfield railways and I will (one day) create an overlay above the current Google Maps output. There is always a risk with maps of that era that they can show things that were intended, but may have been different in reality, or even never have happened at all. I have an old UK OS map showing the railway that ran behind my house in England, until 1976 - it shows it crossing the road via a level crossing, which it never did, it ran parallel to the road all the way, never crossing it. Presumably the intended route was supplied and the maps were printed before the revised route could be amended.

Today, that may have mutated into 'Carry a soft stick and speak bigly'...

I learned a long time ago that, unless there is a very clear reason to believe otherwise, then, when dealing with media people, journalists, presenters, etc., the end result will usually have little of reality involved in it. They generally only care about the 'look' and filling the time/space that they need to, in a way that will entertain people with little real interest in the subject anyway. That basic rule is even stronger today than it ever was. It's a bit like discussing conspiracy theories, etc - just not worth the bother most of the time.

A-hem. Things are not always what they seam. Let's get back on thread here now...

Also, anybody looking for a name for a fictional station name on a layout, perhaps with overtones of a Podge & Rodge-style atmosphere, might like to reuse the real Ballygunge Junction - a suburban station in Kolkata.

It's not always trucks and buses that hit bridges... https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgjyd194gp0o

At sunset from Castlefleming bridge.

A bus made of pallets, for the full experience?

A career in tourism promotion beckons... Your comment also reminded me of the time that the people across the road came to ask my father to keep an eye on the house, post, etc. He asked them where they were going, they said they were off to Dublin Airport to fly to Venice. His manner made it clear that he felt this was an unnecessary extravagance, but both sides glossed over this and nothing more was said. It was only when a postcard arrived for him that we found out he thought they were flying to Ennis, when it was only a few stops down on the train.

Many years ago, on the nine o'clock train down to Ballybrophy, which met a branch connection, the announcements were being done by a chap of some sort of African origin. He was making valiant attempts at Roscrea, Nenagh and Cloughjordan, but it was clear that his introductory training package had not covered this aspect of the job thoroughly. I spent a profitable few minutes coaching him and the next announcements were noticeably better, even though anybody likely to be heading off to the side would have a fair idea of where they were going anyway. I must send IÉ that invoice soon. Also, I see - or don't see - that I seem to have failed to record the Edward VII post box in the wall by the station building - a rare enough item on the Big island.

Taking a friend to the hospital in Nenagh today, for him to be stabbed in the eye, I realised that, in my whole life, I have never really had my feet on the ground in the town, beyond the hospital carpark - except for occasionally putting one foot down fifty years ago, if I had to stop briefly on a motorbike, when you still had to go through the town in those far-off pre-motorway days. Knowing that he would be there for at least an hour, as they would first have to stun him sufficiently for the stabbing to be done in a reasonably civilised manner, I had a stroll up to the station area. The footbridge, of course, is not necessary now, as public access to the other platform is not required, so it has not been upgraded for disability access - indeed, it is fairly disabled itself now. The fairly large carpark was around 85% full and I didn't see any notices requiring payment anywhere. The goods shed is fundamentally sound. As is the station building itself. There is a display of a water crane featured by the carpark entrance. And other historical buildings in the immediate vicinity. I suspect that the nice cast iron railings on the overbridge might not be approved if they were suggested today - they seem a little low to me and it would be easy for someone six-foot plus to stumble over them. I did check below and there were no bodies, bloodstains or suspicious dents in the ground surface.

He just needed to learn how to (ice)pick his friends more carefully...

It will become difficult, impossible, or just not worth the effort, to refute the nonsense that people 'know that they know'. Only a couple of weeks ago, I saw posts where someone was stating widely repeated "facts" about an aircraft - they were virtually just propaganda nonsense, but he wouldn't accept the truth, even when it was being supplied by a chap who had actually flown the individual aircraft in the photo being discussed - and for many years. It's not all down to AI, but it will greatly accelerate the 'fake fact' phenomenon. Even before AI, people could be a bit dim - I remember being told that a clear fake picture couldn't be a fake - because it had been taken before Photoshop was invented. I'm getting better at just leaving people to dwell in their own world...

AI. Artificial Ignorance. Not quite as good as real ignorance yet, but it's getting there.