Broithe

It's only a matter of time before these things start getting listed after the Rolex watches when CAB have conducted a successful raid.

Steady on with the negative vibes! It's still June - it might all be over by Christmas...

Customisable - http://alexandermc.com/product-detail/Pocket-Partner™-Reversible-Screwdriver/180 ...

And pictures of wagons with black chassis, the right way up.

Of course. As soon as I can remember it.

Ordered on Monday evening at 18:30 - arrived here today, Friday, at 12:30. I now have 400,000 pints of Guinness to keep me going.

Did he take an actual plaster-cast of the sea?

One gone now... I may actually be winning from all this lockdown stuff. Although I currently have zero income, I also spend virtually nothing. I haven't been in any shop (other than a weekly Lidl run) since early March. I've fixed loads of stuff 'for free' that I might have been tempted to replace, otherwise. I'm driving 28 miles per week and haven't put any fuel in since then, either. I still have half a tank. I would probably have only had two packs in 'normal' times, now I feel justified in going for a bundle.

Yeah, but it's got black horns.

It's dodgy fitting magnets on a HGV - some people might think you were trying to frig the tachograph...

We had an incident in a nearby town on the Big Island some years ago, before the practice was stopped. 'Waste matter', basically, guts, other bits and 'liquid', would be transported carefully in open wagons to a disposal facility. The smell was a constant cause of discomfort and there were regular complaints. There were also leakage issues and the odd 'splash' from the open tanks. One day, a driver was proceeding, with his usual care, through the main street of the town, when a woman in a hurry quite legitimately attempted to use a zebra crossing whilst pushing a pram. The driver had no option but to brake heavily, causing a tsunami to surge forwards, over the cab and about thirty yards down the road. People were literally covered in it, the driver was trapped in his cab and the state of their front steps seemed of little interest to people with the 'material' in their shops...

I had his old 2CV off him (after we'd used it to pull-start the CX). It developed a weird alternator fault - it would not charge for the first few minutes, after that, it would be OK all day. The number of the 'few' minutes was getting greater all the time and there came a point where I felt it necessary to intervene. Eventually, I came to the realisation that the brushes were only just touching the rings, but there was plenty of carbon left. They were being held off by a plastic post on the moulding - presumably a shipping thing, to stop the springs falling off in transit. After a bit of thought, I snapped it off - and everything was OK for a few more years. Once things had warmed up, the brushes had been just touching the rings again, but still wearing slightly, thus the 'warming up time' was constantly getting greater and there would have come a point at which the battery emptied before the alternator managed to charge it. I wonder how many extra spare brushes were sold because of that post? Something like this.

The bloke nextdoor had one of those in the 80s - lovely car to drive, but when the starter motor failed on his drive, we had to bodge up a pulley on a Black & Decker to drive the hydraulic pump to get the suspension pumped up high enough to get under it to change the motor. We couldn't even get a trolley jack under it on the drive, because it wouldn't start, and just lay on the ground.

Keep an eye on any of the various trackers - e.g., https://planefinder.net/flight/ADB3429 - she certainly won't fly under Athlone....

Currently over Nuremberg. Looking a bit cloudy here, though.

Other oils, of the type often used for sewing machines or bicycles, might be considered. But, this particular variety may require the use of some sort of protection measures. Although, it will prevent little-used equipment from going rusty.

Mmm, looking at those pictures of 007, I don't see the hatch in the roof for the ejection seat?

That's a lot of A Class, 121s and Guinness kegs wagons....

My first trip beyond 5km (to give them time to put the outside world back in place) involved passing the two bridges to the southwest of the station. The first seemed well able to resist being struck by my vehicle. The apparent 'limewash' finish on the stonework, whilst it might garner criticism if replicated on a layout, is real. Possibly Aspicilia calcarea. The track, looking back northeast towards the station, looked rather neat. The other bridge is in remarkable condition for its age, showing no real signs of ever being struck 'properly'.

If you only have five and a half minutes to spare, there is this. They were lucky the driver made it in on time, from his other job as a milkman.

Talk of things being late reminded me of the most effective and efficient job interview I've ever heard in progress... As I say, everything was late all the time, and painting was the final process, being done with brushes and then taking time to dry, of course. The painters were always under undue pressure - it wasn't their fault, they could have had it finished on time if it had been available when it should have been, but they were always the ones working on stuff when it was under extra lateness pressure. The head of the painters was a remarkable placid Sikh who was known as No, due to his name being Surinder... As I walked past one day, he was being berated by the Manufacturing Director about how long it was taking. A friend, Norman, was walking towards me from the other side. Norman liked to be 'involved' in everything and would offer an opinion about whatever was going on. As Norman walked past, he stated "My Dad can paint faster than that, and he's only got one arm!" "Well, bring him in with you on Monday!", was the instant decision. Norman's Dad worked there for the next four years. He actually had 1¾ arms, his left having been severed half-way up the forearm, but that was still OK for holding the paint tin. It remains the only time I ever saw anybody successful in a job interview when he wasn't there, or even aware that it was happening... The Manufacturing Director above was pretty much the only senior manager who was any use at all. He was involved in many of the extraordinary events that went on. My favourite was the time he nearly caused me to sustain cracked ribs. One of my "skills" was an ability to get into tight spaces. This was useful, as the stuff we made ended up as large assemblies and, should things fail on final test, it could mean days of dismantling, unless someone could get far enough in to do the work required to fix something. We had a few large assemblies of the same contract failing all around the factory floor at the same time. One of them looked like I could access it and save a day or two's work, but it was just a tiny bit too tight. My entry was via a pressure vessel with three aluminium busbars running in a triangular formation along it. I thought that I could make it up there, if we used the gantry crane to strain the two bars at the bottom upwards a bit. This proved to be possible and I inched up the tube on my back, having to breathe in a very shallow manner, due to the presence of the busbars pressing on my chest. I was aware that I needed to be sure that the strain on the busbars remained, or I would be in some trouble, having my chest movements insufficient for the necessary breathing - so I had appointed a rather laconic, but very trustworthy, chap to hang on to the pendant control of the crane for the quarter of an hour that this was going to take. I had just about reached to point where I could start to rectify the failure, the space getting tighter all the way there and was almost having to pant to breathe with the limited chest movement that I had available, when Cyril, the Manufacturing Director came running over to Whitey, holding the controls. "I want that crane and I want it now!", he demanded, expecting instant obedience. "You sound just like my ex-girlfriend" was the response that completely disarmed him, and nearly broke my ribs....

Great idea, thanks. To be honest, it's beginning to smell a bit now...

This chinchilla dust - how long do you have to dry them for before they crumble fine enough? I've had one hanging up in the airing cupboard/hot press for over a fortnight now and I'm not getting very good results yet.

Do the dials respond accurately to power and speed settings? Do they work on DC and DCC? Can they be recalibrated via DCC control or are they permanently set? Does the horn sound actually come out of the horn?