Broithe

Thursday is my standard shopping day, so I'm stocked up for a week+. I've got the shed nice and warm, in case I need it as a lifeboat. The house is oil heated, but having a tank of oil is little use if the electricity to run the burner drops out. Cooking is bottled gas in the house and the shed, so I'll be OK, as long as the roofs stay on. I always keep a few gallons of water straight from the pipe, but there is a large tank in the roof for bulk supplies, if the storage bottles run out. The practice run before Christmas was handy, a lot of the 'battened down' stuff from that is still in place, having not been needed since. I'm well inland and in a fairly sheltered location - I had no effects in the last big storm, but this one looks a bit more violent still. The wheelbarrows are upside down, with blocks on, and the outside worktable has been demolished and placed in a sheltered spot. My nice new drain in the road has a small mud dam, which forms a large puddle. I'll go out now and clear that, while the rain is stopped. All I've got left to do then is worry...

And less addictive...

Putting an 'E' in your whiskey is frowned upon by some people in uniform - and it ruins the effect, if you're taking it as a nightcap. Years ago, on the Big Island, there used to be 'E' stamps, for letters to the rest of the EU and a few other places. If you bought them, rather than stamps with the price on, then they were still usable after the price went up, as it did regularly did, so I used to get batches and keep a few in stock. One day, having bought some with a payment process that was hugely complicated, I realised, an hour later, than I didn't have the stamps, having, I presumed, left them on the counter in all the unnecessary confusion. So, I called in on my way back and got in the inevitable queue. By the time my turn at the counter came, there was a queue behind me, as well. I asked the woman behind the counter "Did I drop those Es in here this morning?" Unbeknownst to me, the chap behind me in the queue was an off-duty copper, so things got even more complicated then - eventually, I did go home with my stamps...

Well, this is not the picture I was referring to above, but it does show a (presumably) earlier tower, still there after the 'new' one was constructed. https://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000305110 And it was round... The date given is 1960. The picture I think I remember may show the same tower there on its own, but in virtually a silhouette view, so maybe I just surmised that it was rectangular...

It's been looking a bit dodgy for many years now, and was fenced off a long time ago. An unplanned self-demolition would have been problematic for the adjacent buildings. This was it in 2008. There was a lot of spalling and resultant exposed reinforcement bars. I did once come across a photo with a poor view of the earlier tower, a smaller and rectangular affair. None of the potential suspects that I have grilled can remember the earlier one or even the round one being built.

You should have gone when it was snowing..?

It works fine for me in Windows 11 and Chrome - if that is of any help to anyone.

I don't see what the fuss is about...

And, of course, out of the mainstream, there was Never Say Navan Again. An actor, retiring to live in his hometown, finds himself involved in a real-life race against time to save the world. There is a real cliff-hanger part, where a critical website becomes unavailable for a few hours, but all is well in the end.

Thunderballsbridge.

Interesting video, full of yellow things. https://x.com/IrishRail/status/1880249830574027075

As long as your donkey passes the methane emission test...

Wishing you a happy retirement*. * And expecting Portadown to have more Portaupdates...

This is, I am told, a satellite picture from earlier today.

Mmm, mine came from eBay. Maybe Jeff is a bit short of cash and worried about being able to afford my commission?

I've just come past Ballybrophy and it's still Christmassy around there.

If you're speaking to Jeff, tell him I don't mind if my commission on this sale arrives in pounds or euros.

That would be Child's play to anyone with a High enough IQ.

The dinosaur remains an enigma. The box was not sealed, so it could have been put in there by the seller, if it wasn't inserted by Tamiya themselves. Maybe it is a homage to the illustrator of this book..?

It has struck me that, once fully assembled, the only remaining loose piece is whichever of the two collets is not in current use. This seems likely to be a location issue whenever a swap might be necessary. Two possible solutions seem plausible. 1, With a suitable piece of soft tubing, the spare could be located in one of the recessed screw holes at the top. 2, A deeper and more secure bespoke storage hole could be created in the empty space above the motor. Or 3, It could just hang from the trigger guard on a piece of string... (That will do for now.)

It seems to work quite nicely. It may even be more useful than I expected. Nowhere in the paperwork is the rpm mentioned, as far as I can see, but, based on the speed that a 2mm drill draws in a thread wrapped round it, I suspect it's around 500rpm.

This thing won't be for everyone, but I've fancied one for a while. I got it a few months ago and, trapped by the blizzard today, I've finally got around to assembling it. I'm not a great fan of drilling with the Dremel-type devices, they seem rather too 'speedy' for me, with a lot of stored rotational energy, if you do get a 'snag', so a low-powered, geared-down drill seemed like a good idea. For a while, I wondered if I could bodge up something, possibly using a battery-powered toy drill, adapted to take a Dremel chuck, but I never found a decent donor machine. When this came available on eBay, I took the plunge. 2 AA batteries driving a single-speed output. It's all up to the standard Tamiya quality and goes together via snap-fits and screws, no glue required. Fine pliers, screwdriver and a scalpel were all that was necessary to assemble it. Some spares of the metal parts were supplied (handy, as I did have a circlip escape, although I did find it again). Also, there is a small tube of silicone grease. Some assembly, particularly of the trigger-switch arrangement, was very fiddly. But, It all went together nicely in the end. The trigger switch mechanism looked a bit Heath Robinson - until the last part was fitted, and it all suddenly became much more plausible then. It does work reliably and even has a 'safety-catch', should you feel the need. Two sizes of collets are supplied and, with the batteries in, it seems to work well, with a decent amount of torque and a fairly low speed. There is a spindle-lock - you can see the detent in the output shaft in the second-last picture. All in all, it seems a reasonable device, with a good compromise between the high-speed electric tools and the hand-driven devices that were necessary before, if I wanted a low speed approach. It's much easier to keep in line than a drill that I'm also trying to power with the other hand... Obviously, it's only really suitable for plastics and wood. Unfortunately, the thread on the output shaft does not match the Dremel or any other "multi-tools" that I've checked, but the collets seem likely to be OK for what use I'll give it. Also, it is really quite small - there is a €2 coin in the last picture - those with more gargantuan hands might struggle with it.

I've been warned that cataract operations will be happening in the future, if I last as far as them being bad enough to justify it. I'm not looking forward to someone fiddling with such delicate bits... I'm inclined to wait until you have some spare time coming up.

Next door's cat has popped in, to ensure that my seasonal food preparation and storage arrangements are adequate. Having completed a full assessment, she's having a rest period now.

This arrived on the Christmas services information email just now.