Twas a bit foolish to down 2 bottles of red after a 4 month abstinence.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex_UK
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Twas a bit foolish to down 2 bottles of red after a 4 month abstinence.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex_UK
A French Polisher could probably sort the speaker cab, or one of these so-called 'smart repairers'. No idea what the cost would be though, and I don't know if they could fix that part of your head that thinks playing records after 2 bottles of wine is a good idea :doh: Worth getting a quote.
That's the best time to play records!Quote:
Originally Posted by Pigmy Pony
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...5f2a0d8b_b.jpg
Just had to replace a 13A wall socket. The plastic guard that prevents metallic objects being poked in the L and N conductor sockets had broken; presumably after some 45 years of use.
However what I thought would be a five minute job took at least twenty minutes to do. Anyway after much to-ing and fro-ing, and with a lot of swearing, I completed the task. Phew!
Worth the effort though - Back in 1973 my mate's 3 year-old niece died after poking something into a wall socket. Not that I'd expect you to be that daft, but those guards are there for a reason.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barry
That's bad. There was a one of those old two pin sockets in our house when I was little but it always had a lamp plugged into it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pigmy Pony
Think it finally got taken out in the 1990s when my father had the house partially re-wired. Long after we'd all grown up and left.
I have no complaint about the shuttering - it's an eminently sensible design feature of the 13A system. The socket in question had to be replaced as the broken shutter prevented anything to be plugged into it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pigmy Pony
The old method whereby the shutter was pushed down by the earth pin of the plug was IMO a better arrangement, but it would seem MK think otherwise.
I thought all UK sockets were made this way, I wasn't aware that MK did things any other way, or even that alternative methods would be compliant.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barry
I'd assumed that MK electrical products were quality items, not so sure now. Just seen this:
https://www.gov.uk/product-safety-al...ches-2411-0130
The early MK sockets had the shutter pushed down by the earth pin when the plug was inserted. The same arrangement was followed by other manufacturers: Crabtree; Volex; Nettle, etc.
The original MK sockets were very well made and IMO were the best you could buy. But over the years they have been 'value engineered', and are now not as well made as they used to be. Manufacture in China (I think the company might have been bought by China) might have something to do with it.
I should add that their plugs are still well made.
I don't think BS1362 covers the shuttering mechanism, only the requirement that the socket is shuttered.
It's all kicking off down south.
Andrew, dodgy dude formerly known as Prince, is being turfed out of his Wnidsor mansion Royal Lodge, and told to post the keys through the letterbox. Big brother Charlie has found him some space up at Sandringham, probably mindful of the shortage of social housing, while not wishing for his younger sibling to be adding to London's increasing numbers of homeless.
He could have stayed in London, if only Rachel from Accounts had got her renter's licence sorted in time. It's all her letting agent's fault, apparently.
As a republican I'm delighted. The concept of a monarchy (even a constutional monarchy) is now quite outdated. It has been going for nearly a thousand years, apart from a break courtesy of Cromwell, so a change is long overdue.
Didn't work out so well last time.
Not some big monarchist but I think if it's not broke don't try to fix it.
But it is broken. We have a family that does virtually nothing, one that expects reverence and is payed an enormous amount of money by the taxpayers. The system is hereditary, which itself is an abomination - at least with a President they are elected, and they can be changed.
Cost is £132 million which is small feed in the scheme of things and there's no reason to think a Presidency would be any cheaper.
Plus no tourists are going to come to see the President or the Presidential Palace.
As long as noblesse oblige is maintained I can't see the issue, really. When was the last 'bad' king? Maybe George III? Even that's debatable.
With an elected president you could end up with some right muppet. In fact you probably would, every single time. Some dozy politician that's been put out to grass. Would cheapen the whole country.
It's the hereditary nature of the beast that annoys me. But I'm probably alone in my opinion here, so I'll just remain quiet.
Some people enjoy good fortune by heredity, others inherit great misfortune through disease or poverty. I'm happy to be somewhere in between. I bear no ill will to those who were born into money and privilege, unless of course they are taking the piss.
Well, this is the thread for anything, so I guess no issue with continuing the subject of Royalty...
As Martin has said, the cost to the public purse is £132m, which is a drop in the ocean compared to the revenue that is generated from tourism with countries like America and Japan flocking over here to see the palaces, the history, the pomp and circumstance. Personally, I support the constitutional monarchy, and I think the King has done an amazing job with his charitable work ("The Princes Charities") raise £100m each year. According to Wikipedia, by September 2020 the Prince's Trust (started in 1976) had supported over 1,000,000 young people and created 125,000 entrepreneurs. I don't think an elected President however good is going to have that sort of longevity.
Yes sorry Barry, another Royalist here. God Save the King, hurrah!Quote:
Originally Posted by Barry
Of course all tourists get to have tea with the King.Quote:
Originally Posted by Macca
Does this mean Andrew will now have to go out and graft for a living? He could tag on to the Reform bunch of nostalgics for yesterdays Britain.
Course he won't. He's not built for lifting anything heavier than a briefcase. Though maybe he should be made to wear a hi-viz vest so folk can see him coming.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikeandvan
Anyway he's only a couple of years off retirement. So in addition to his "investments" he'll also get a couple hundred a week State pension. As long as he's paid all his stamps.
He can fly a helicopter so he's got that to fall back on I suppose.
Plus he'll get a pension from when he was in the Navy.
I can just see the advertising blurb for his helicopter tours: Come ride my chopper, great fun for people of all ages :) But I don't know if there's a maximum age for flying helicopters for a living, he's knocking on a bit.
In any case I wouldn't get in it - that might just be the day he decides to throw in the towel.
Fireworks
Around our way, November the 5th was remarkably quiet. Understandable as it was a week day, so people were waiting for the week end. Even so there weren't many loud bangs and displays tonight.
We stayed indoors and created some audio fireworks of our own! :)
Been sporadic here but not much compared to previous years. Used to be like the Tet Offensive. Just constant. You'd go out and the streets would be full of the smoke.
Died away in the last fifteen years or so, it's mostly students and foreigners round here now and a lot of the students are foreign too, so they just don't have Bonfire Night.
Been plenty of fireworks round here this week, cat hates them. It got so a TV programme we watched had a bonfire night, and the cat just looked at me with bulging eyes as if to say "What the f__k dad?"
And the fireworks have changed - no more impressive visual displays, just lengthy successions of loud bangs, with everyone trying to achieve dB levels bigger than their IQs. I'm not normally one for over-legislation, but maybe it's time to stop the private sale of fireworks (which are probably just there for money laundering like Turkish barbers, nail bars and vape shops), and just have organised displays.
I see Asda have plumbed new depths with this year's Christmas ad.
Sainsbury a very close runner up.
I would take the people who made them and the people who signed them off and lock them in a room with them playing constantly and leave them in there until Boxing day.
Slip food and water under the door for them, obviously.
They are addressing the worrying cost of living for the run up to Christmas. People don't want to spend a fortune. Not sure if I have seen Waitrose's Christmas ad - is it more frugal than usual?Quote:
Originally Posted by Macca
If no Xmas ad has a Jesus lookalikey in it then it can go fuh itself.
I think Andrew would make a good security guard in Sainsbury's.
I see that old Maxwell bitch has been moved to a nicer prison and she's quite jolly about spending the rest of her life there!!! Must be quite a step down from being a rich bitch, then again a step up from eating rat shit infested boiled cabbage. Emmmm. May be she shouldn't have indulged Jefferie's insatiable appetite for petite sprightly young 'uns.
went the chippy last night, girl behind the counter clearly had very little English but I was able to convey that I wanted fish and chips.
Bloke comes in. He wants chicken and chips four times but he has a lot of trouble explaining this to the girl since he also has almost no English. They have a back and forth for about five minutes, in the end it seems she understands.
Then she goes in the back and you can hear her crashing and banging about for what seems like an eternity. She comes back out and says to the bloke 'You want chicken chips yes?' and the whole thing started over again.
Like being on a foreign holiday but without the nice weather and the reasonable prices. And with the internet making decent telly accessible anywhere, the reasons to stay here become less and less.
Yes, a foreign holiday in a place where it's dark most of the time, rains a lot, and temperatures are around the same as in a walk-in refrigerator.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pigmy Pony
Not sure what destinations fit that description, maybe Alaska? At least they have beautiful wilderness to look at while you're freezing your balls off.
Remember 'Northern Exposure'? What got me about that is they'd go in someone's house and leave the door wide open while they chatted. I bet that doesn't happen there in real life.
I'm sure they'd have their version of "were you born in a barn? Put wood in t'hole". Tomorrow and Thursday looks like cold but sunny, then after that rain, rain, rain, rain and more rain as far as the two week forecast can see.Quote:
Originally Posted by Macca
It's raining here now, although we did have an hour of weak sun before it went dark.
Thanksgiving for the yanks today. I was there once for it back in 2004. Had lamb chops instead of turkey though as American turkey is weird.
Turkey, IMO, is tasteless, so Thanksgiving would be lost on me. If I had to celebrate I would choose roast beef.
That's why we have stuffing but the Americans never heard of that, I guess the people who knew about it didn't survive the first winter, so they use cranberry sauce instead which is yack.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barry
Cranberry sauce is just wrong. Same as apple sauce, and pineapple on pizzas or gammon.
I don't mind pineapple on pizza and gammon is inedible without it. Pretty inedible with it.
Not had gammon since about 1983 - my mother favoured it as it was cheap and quick - but had pineapple on pizza just last week.
Heretic! :lol:
But as they say "Suum cuique, de gustibus non disputandem". :)
Gammon's just thick bacon isn't it? Just about perfect when it has an egg (or two) on it. I do like pineapple, but only with evaporated milk.
I don't know who they are, (probably foreign) but here in Chorley we say "In matters of taste there can be no dispute" :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Barry
"They" were Romans, but what they said was what you now say in Chorley: "Each to their own, in matters of taste there is no dispute". :lol:
You're going to need a bigger boat:
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...af75bf2&ei=115
If they're willing to take on yachts, just wait till they come a bit further north and come across rubber dinghies, complete with a couple of dozen legs dangling in the water.Quote:
Originally Posted by Macca
I was saddened to learn of the death of Steve Cropper, who passed away Wednesday in Nashville, at the age of 84.
Cropper, a Grammy award winner, played with Booker T and the MGs, and with the Blues Brothers. He co-wrote and played on Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay", and Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour".
He will be greatly missed - RIP Steve.
Great musician I must have dozens of albums he played on.