At work yesterday I needed to order some diodes. I should have ordered SK56CHV6G but I copied the line above in a spreadsheet and got a pack of LL4148 instead. What* am I like, eh?
This morning, gathered round the office kettle, I had a long discussion with two colleagues about the relative merits of Precision, Jazz and Musicman bass guitars.
This evening, I’m meeting our new cat-sitter.
What tedium have you been involved in recently?
(*) Dull, that’s what.
One of our star posters!
Although, until now – fingers crossed – unfairly denied a hamper.
Nothing boring about the bass discussion…..now, if it had been relative merits of kettles…..
It’s been wild this afternoon in sunny Singapore…..
I spent most of the afternoon cleaning up the metadata and adding cover art to a bunch of downloaded BBC Glastonbury files and then transferring to my networked backup NAS drive (after deciding that I would skip loading them to the iTunes server with associated DAS drive that powers the Apple TV streaming around the house).
How could I forget….. I also extracted the multi channel and stereo DSD files from an SACD ISO image and then converted the stereo to Apple lossless (at 24 bit / 88 KHz) for use on the media player.
I bet you are jealous. Singapore – the new Cairngorms
I’m sitting in a café with an unwanted coffee waiting for the passenger side air bag to be replaced in my car. Living the dream.
Ah yes, but as you sit there you can remember all those moments lost in wonder that we’ll never
find again….
Subaru keep badgering me to have the same thing. To have it happen involves a one hour drive to my nearest main dealer. They have declined to pay me my daily rate for making this effort, so it’s not getting done. First world hassles, eh?
Badgered By Subaru – TM in a very real sense FTL
Is Subaru any relation of Nissan Maindealer?
I love that Specials song.
C’mon guys, that’s worth a few ups!
Mutliple ups. Possibly the best thing I’ve read on here for years. That song will now never be the same.
Star quality post!
@vulpes-vulpes If this badgering is in any way related to the exploding Takata airbag phenomenon (24 deaths in US so far), you’d be well advised to suck up the loss of daily rate. Subaru is definitely on the affected list – my stepson’s Outback was recalled in Oz.
Blimey … that’s a coincidence. I’ve just had a letter from our Subaru main dealer recalling our car about this airbag business. I was going to just ignore it …. but maybe I shouldn’t.
If it’s the same boiler plate that I received, it’ll also tell you that the disastrous airbag issue will only occur in the event of a head-on collision. Is that the one?
Oh, I’m sure there’s some real reason for them to offer to carry out a three hour procedure gratis – they are arse-covering of course. The failure that Subaru are concerning themseleves about isn’t an unexpected explosion, by the way, it’s to do with shoddily manufactured airbag components that in rare situations may eject metal fragments with the bag on deployment. Perhaps the deaths you mention are to do with an even more serious fault? Thanks for your concern anyway, and for taking the time to respond.
However, on an evidence based scientific approach, I factor the number of such airbag installations out there (I’m guessing well north of a million or two) against the number of problematic failures – a couple of dozen in the USA, maybe the same number elsewhere across the globe – and my fag-packet arithmetic tells me I’m not very much more likely to suffer from an airbag disaster than I am to win the lottery. It’s not as if all of the airbag installations have caused an issue when deployed – it’s a tiny proportion, as the advice note makes clear – the failures represent a very small percentage of the number of airbag operations that have taken place.
I aim not to go through life worrying very much about these things – life’s too short.
Yes, explosion was too vague, it’s being riddled with shrapnel that’s the problem. And I don’t think it’s just head-on collisions.
Heat and humidity exacerbates the problem, which is why they’re taking it so seriously in Oz. But I don’t know how much heat and humidity.
There’s no doubt Tamara has a serious quality-control problem. But you’re right: the odds are still in your favour. But they were in the favour of the folk who were killed too, no? My cars aren’t affected, so it’s easy for me to pontificate of course, but I think it would niggle away at me too much to be able to ignore it.
Surely the comparison should be between the number of airbag deployments and consequent fatalities, not just the number of airbags installed?
Probably there are still reasonably good odds that you’d be safe but it’s not millions to a double-digit number.
I too have a Subaru – is it the Afterword vehicle of choice? I have had the airbag replacement and a fuel pump thingy. Local shoo was excited that my car was actually one with the fuel pump problem. Burnt out wires or something.
Ford want me to book my Fiesta in for the day to have its front seats rebolted. Does anyone know if that’s necessary?
I’m just doing the professional fees budget for our DB pension scheme for the next 12 months, to agree it with the Chair of Trustees. It was closed to future accrual 2 weeks ago, which was a long and tedious process in itself. Life as an accountant, eh?
I surely can’t be the only one wondering now what on Earth an LL4148 is, if it’s not a diode?
A David Bowie pension scheme? Wow, did you guys buy the Bowie Bonds? Smart investment…
@bobness – is there a difference between a defined benefit scheme and a final salary scheme? If so, what is it?
Yep, a LL4148 is a diode (in a surface-mount package), based upon the old classic 1N4148 silicon diode (itself an update of the ancient 1N914).
Trouble is, it is rated at a maximum of 0.3 Amps, whereas the SK56C is rated at 5.0 Amps. So if I put the LL4148 in my power supply circuit, it will behave as a diode for a fraction of a second, after which it will behave as a fuse. A blown fuse.
Hilarious, as I’m sure you will concur.
I surely do concur, Steve. That’ll keep me giggling to myself all day.
@Black Celebration
The two terms are commonly used as synonyms, but there is a subtle difference.
A defined benefit scheme is simply one where the benefit (i.e. pension) you get at the end of it is defined. Normally (wish I could work out how to get italics in here) for probably 95+% of such schemes, this is related to a formula that involves length of service, fractions and your salary on leaving the scheme (hence the term “final salary scheme”) but it doesn’t have to be. For example, you could have a DB scheme that promises a pension of £2 a year for every day you’re employed. Thus if you work there 10 years, and then retired, your pension would be £7,300 a year (ish). That would be unusual, but is perfectly possible. That is a DB scheme (the benefit is the bit that is defined), but not a final salary scheme, as it’s got nothing to do with your final salary.
Strictly, a “final salary” scheme is a (admittedly large in practical terms) sub-set of the universe of “defined benefit” pension schemes.
Compare and contrast to a “defined contribution” (“DC”) scheme, where what is defined is the amount you put in it (italics again) and what kind of pension you get out of it depends on all kinds of factors such as time, sheer number of £ put in, investment performance, charges, macroeconomic factors like inflation and interest rates, the “type” of pension you want (annuity, drawdown, lump sum) and whether you’re an ardent smoker/drinker/bacon sandwich consumer etc.
You can also have a bit of a hybrid, known as career average revalued earnings (“CARE”) scheme, where you accrue a pension each year based on your salary for that year only. So, when you come to retire, you have to work out every year’s contribution and add them up to get the pension you receive.
I could (and frequently do) go on…
Thanks @bobness – That CARE formula you mention – I need some help with that concept. You’re working out a career-average final salary….but then it’s “based on that year only”? Do you then choose the higher of the two?
Personally I am amazed there hasn’t been a thread about pensions on the afterword before. Fluctuating Emoluments had always struck me as a great title for a prog album.
@black-celebration – re CARE – in stead of using your final salary to base your pension on, most CARE plans average out your salary over your time in the plan.
A final salary plan would often pay a pension of 1/60th of your final salary for each year in the plan. A CARE plan could pay 1/60th of your average salary for each year in the plan. Most CARE plans are more complicated but that’s the underlying concept from the plans I’ve seen.
The LGPS currently uses a CARE accrual rate at 49ths of annual salary.
So year 1, I earn (let’s make it easy) £24,500, I accrue a pension of 1/49th of this in year 1. £500.
Year 2, I get a pay rise to £24,990, I accrue a pension of 1/49th of this in year 2. £510.
Year 3, my salary is £25,480. I accrue a pension of 1/49th of this in year 3. £520.
Thus after 3 years, my accrued pension is (1/49 x £24500) + (1/49 x £24990) + (1/49 x £25480) = £1,530.
Or….
3/49 x (24500 +24990 + 25480)/3 = £1,530. (This explains the A in CARE better)
The issue with this is, for me, if you stay at the same job for 30 years (let’s say, and also ignore inflation) your pension after 30 years will be effectively 30/49 of your final salary (which is the same as your initial salary) rather than 30/60 (as above, a common final salary scheme accrual rate) of final salary, so the pension you accrue under a CARE basis is 22% bigger than under a final salary arrangement.
Clearly, if you go “up the tree” over your working life, a CARE pension will be more likely lower than a final salary one.
I told you I could go on.
I’m really sorry about this but I have a follow up question and you’re going to love it. Ready?
Isn’t the CARE formula just an alternative definition of final salary? It’s common to have the average of the best three years in the last 10 years, for example, so a CARE formula is an inferior version of that – isn’t it?
@black-celebration
Apologies for the delay.
I think I’ve understood what you’ve asked, but please let me know if not.
Yes, it is to that extent, but if you have significantly longer service and have moved up the ladder, so to speak, an FS scheme will be better, generally. With an FS scheme, that common “average of the last 3 years” applies to all the years you’ve been a member.
If you have stayed in the same job at the same pay, CARE accrual rates are generally better (I guess the thought is that people do tend to move up) so you’d get a better pension, but if you move up the ladder, FS schemes will give a better one.
Example.
I start in a job at £20k, and get a £1k “real” (i.e. above inflation) pay rise each year, and retire after 30 years. My final “real” salary is thus £50k.
My CARE pension is (on a 50ths accrual rate to make it simple) 1/50th of £20k, plus 1/50th of £21k etc = £15.8k (ish).
An FS version of that at 60ths would be 30/60 of £50k = £25k.
If visualising things helps, rather than a pension that looks like a triangle when you plot pension for that year over time, you get one that’s a rectangle (and the area of the rectangle is much greater than that of the triangle). That’s a lot of the reason why FS schemes are expensive. If you get promoted significantly for the last few years of your employment, the effect that has on your pension promise can be very large, and that has to be funded by the scheme (effectively the employer).
In the same example, if the £20k real salary just stays at that for 30 years, the CARE pension is (effectively) 30/50 x £20k = £12k, whereas the FS version is 30/60 x £20k = £10k.
Thanks @bobness that’s very clear and well explained. I can’t help imagining what that would be like to calculate manually, as we did in the 80s, longhand on graph paper and have someone check it manually. I assume/hope that is now a thing of the past.
@black-celebration
Indeed, I believe it’s all done with them new fangled computer things now.
Gone are the days of 16 column A3 sheets to do manual calculations etc.
Shame.
Ah, I can’t help with pensions but I can with HMTL. Did I mention I was dull?
For italics you want:
{edit: FFS, it keeps italicising even when I get the code deliberately wrong. Try again:}
pointy bracket (shift – comma)
the letter I
pointy bracket (shift – fullstop)
words to italicise
pointy bracket (shift – comma)
forward stroke (under the ?)
the letter I
pointy bracket (shift – fullstop)
Also, @bobness, to properly flag @Black Celebration, you need to put a hyphen where the space is. Thus: @Black-Celebration.
Thanks @Tiggerlion , I did wonder…
Is it just the diodes down your left side, Steve?
Or is it all of them?
Sounds ghastly.
He’s probably very depressed.
We have recently made the move to register our football club membership records from backs of shinpad packets to one of those online data-leak platforms..
We’ve got 40 teams aged 8 – 18, boys and girls and their parents.
My job has been to wade through the lists , make sure everyone has enrolled their team by the deadline and correct inputs such as the many parents who signed up as players for their kids’ teams..
On the ( Ted) Ditchwater Scale of Nerve – Rattling Tedium, it has been like watching Arsenal play against Arsenal..
Bring on the proof-reading of the GDPR policy !
GDPR is straightforward.
Find out exactly what data you hold that is attributable to an individual person – the data “owner”.
Ask yourself if you have a legitimate reason for holding each bit of data – a reason to need it for some operational purpose that serves the owner of the data.
If you can’t identify a legitimate reason, bin the data, if you can, make sure the data’s secure and only accessible to those who will use it for whatever that legitimate reason is.
Seemples.
Yep. Previous regulations related to your use of the data for the reason it was supplied (so, for instance, you were already prevented from selling or giving the kids’ addresses to a sportswear firm who might wish to market to them). The new regulations mean that even when you can share the data legitimately you are responsible for any misuse the new owner commits, although you might be entirely unaware of it.
Some of it is waiting to be tested in case law, and of course as well as wanting to be responsible data owners no one wants to be the own who is made an example of for breach of the new laws.
…and meanwhile, over in too-big-to-give-a-fuck land, various organisations are carrying on as if no such regulation exists.
Chimney sweep due so I can’t take the dogs out, I’ve spent the time with chillies. I’ve made 3 jars of chilli ketchup and a chilli con carne for dinner.
That’s verging on not-boring.
How will/did the dogs react to the activities of the sweep?
How strong is the chilli ketchup?
Almost interesting, that, if you ask me.
I’ve just been sorting through the latest batch of my CDs to see which ones need re-ripping to digital. Fripp & Eno to Gil Evans Orchestra today.
All have been digitised previously but up to about 3 years ago they were all ripped as .mp3s. There are also some that were bought from Amazon and came together with downloadable mp3 versions which I lazily used at the time. Now I’m replacing all of the mp3s with lossless .FLAC files and getting artwork for the ones where it was previously missing. Likely to take me the rest of this year to complete.
I’m also seriously considering getting a cheap little touch screen for my Raspberry Pi-based NAS in the hall, so that I no longer have to connect a screen, mouse and keyboard to it whenever I need to update the OS/software.
That may be verging on the interesting though.
Sounds like a lot of fun to me.
I find it almost impossible not to say “chimbley” instead of “chimney”, in tribute to my late Uncle George who was a master of these things (cerstificates, Labour leader Neil McKinnock, digical television etc)
My best man’s mum is a whiz at those, too. “Decapitated coffee” being my favourite.
I like that! Given that me morning cup is required to exhume the Numskulls from their torpor, starting with a caff-free would feel like approaching the tasks of the day decapitated…
A mate of mine says “telepathetic’. I find it hard to say telepathic these days.
It means to read somebody else’s mind in a really half-arsed way.
A bloke I know says “nucular”. He used to be a mate, but isn’t any longer. Idiot.
Harsh. But fair.
I pacifically hate that kind of thing.
As well as people who get principal and principle wrong. And don’t get me started on “should of…” etc.
But I digress…
…at least principal sounds the same as principle. Nucular just sounds like stupid.
You know George W Bush?
I used to. Idiot.
That would be George I. Bush.
‘Minnellium’.
(Victoria Wood, Dinner Ladies)
“Pelanty” (Chris Waddle)
When Liza celebrated her 1000th birthday
Earlier I thought I heard someone shouting outside. But when I looked out of the window there didn’t appear to be anyone there
We’ll have no trouble here.
When I was in the bathroom, bare
I heard a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
But somebody’s taken my towel away.
Weirdo. I usually go for ladies’ tights…
Now, that’s the kind of thing we’re after.
To be fair I did “think” I heard someone shouting, which in itself is not without interest. Nothing comparable since. I did look out the window again later and I saw someone at the end of the street just about to walk around the corner. Hard to say from this distance whether it was a man or a woman
Are you anywhere near the Wirral? I think they just turned up here. No-one obvious though.
I’ve still got three sets of CD shelving to put up. They’ve been sat in the garage for the best part of a year. Trouble is, the garage roof has fallen in a bit & I can’t decide what to do with it….
Sorry… What was I saying? I think I dozed off for a minute there.
I’m enjoying the cricket, some of you may think this belongs on the boring thread.
Smith and Carey are looking comfortable.
Yes. Carey’s chin doesn’t though.
Yes we need to break this partnership.
Mrs Japanese and I have a six-month old labrador. In the last thirty minutes, she has brought in twenty-eight rocks/stones/pebbles from the garden. I counted so she didn’t have to.
I have 4 year old Jack Russell who still does that. Her bed is like a mini rockery
I recently asked my wife to get two spare wheel nuts from the Auto Parts store. When she came back she said they were very expensive and had bought two complete wheel lugs sets. How we laughed when she realised her mistake. Never a dull moment in our house. I’m thinking of writing a Danny Baker style memoir.
Just emailed our IT as I’ve had a bounce-back from an email I’ve sent stuff to several time before.
UPDATE: They apparently have their security settings on very high and other people get bouncebacks too.
Bouncebacks sounds like more fun than I suspect it is.
If it’s real excitement you’re after…
I’ve got a fun little project planned for the afternoon (more of this later) and a beer and curry with an old pal tonight so mustn’t grumble.
I’m putting this here to create a bit of distance between Twang’s comment and the dildo chat below.
I must confess I misread the first lines of this thread and assumed we had acquired a new star poster who, in the course of his work yesterday, ordered some dildos.
In an inquisitive frame of mind, I did wonder briefly how many dildos one requires.
One for each hole and a spare?
The availability of a variety of different textures, sizes, shapes and colours mean the possibilities are endless.
You forgot to say allegedly.
No. It’s true. No allegedly about it.
*innocent face*
The problem is when I’m in Dildos R Us and I’ve got a trolley full of dildos and the hard-of-hearing assistant asks do I need anymore and I say “ That’ll do” he thinks I’m saying “That dildo” and I don’t want to embarrass him over the whole hearing issue and sure it wouldn’t do any harm to have a spare…
My advice is to use them in rotation, provided they are a snug fit.
^^ Sewer^^
Heart full of soul, Jockey full of Bourbon, trolley full of dildos.
Unexpected item in the shagging area.
I SAID, Unexpected item in the…oh, please yourselves.
Oh, go on, then. Very good.
Have an up.
I SAID use them in rotation!
Is the correct answer n + 1, where n = the number of dildos one already owns?
Two hour webinar on Charity Accounts this morning, I still have my ironing to do and I need to replace a button on my suit jacket before taking it to the dry cleaners. Dizzy with excitement.
I had a dentist appointment this morning. My appointment was for 10.00 and I arrived a little early to find a good parking spot. But when I went in they told me that the dentist was running late and would I mind coming back in an hour? I did mind, but I said I didn’t and went back home. When I returned 50 minutes later I found a parking spot not that far from my original one! True story!
Repairing and restoring a pair of huge, wardrobe apeing transmission line speakers.
They were gifted to me after spending over 20 years at the back of a friend’s garage.
Last night the wife was off to bed early leaving me in the kitchen surrounded by cable, waddling (the correct lambs wool…of course), soldering iron and drivers.
She may have had her “come and get it” underwear on but I was oblivious…
Testing them at realistic volumes well after midnight I discovered I had wired a bass driver out of phase….tch.
Today my back hates me……
That sounds like proper fun*. What are they? I like a bit of audio gear porn.
(*) If you’re dull, like me.
Very well made from a kit design….maybe Rogers, but the only pics I could find on the net showed a ribbon super.
They mimic the driver layout of Cambridge R50s…Kef B139, B110 with T27 tweeters and Coles 4001 supertweeters.
The T27 and Coles were US in both cabs so I had to improvise with some nice Audax cloth domes and a pair of 80s Celestion titanium domes for the supertweeters.
Fitting and gluing the waddling with Evostick was a bitch…non of yer stringing up here.
Tested them properly today and the bass is smooth and low….really low.
I think they are pretty linear down to 40hz.
Have noted a slight squark in the upper mid but given they, and the replacement bits were free I can live with it.
Did I mention they were big….a proper two man lift….hence my back pain.
Nice.
One* of the best setups I ever heard was active Linn Isobariks (using a pair of KEF B139 in isobaric loading), a pair of B110 in transmission lines & a pair of T27) driven by Naim amps. One day I’ll buy a pair s/h and test Mrs F’s resolve (she has already vetoed similarly cavernous PMC MB2s).
(*) the other being active BBC LS5/8s driven by Quads in an after-hours acoustically-treated BBC radio studio.
I am moist.*
@fishface, how does waddling help?
*not really.
At a 40kg lift each, I’d be waddling too.
I blame Linn for my hi-fi addiction. I was working at Arcam at the time and popped into the Linn exhibition room at lunchtime – I didn’t come out until evening.
Curse my spellchecker…..it’s of course wadding.
The purpose of which is to absorb all but the lowest bass frequencies emanating from the rear of the driver……these are of course out of phase with the front output and the tuned “pipe” (typically with a slot on the front of the enclosure) returns them in phase, thus reinforcing bass output.
Lambs wool was once considered best, but being non supporting has to wrapped and hung from string anchored inside the tuned section….
This pissed me off no end so I cheated and resorted to lovely smelling Evostick.
If this wasn’t exciting enough….the absorbed frequencies are turned to heat…..
Just spent 30 minutes looking for my prescription safety glasses. I’m slightly long-sighted, but had to do a bit of soldering just before lunch, so needed my ‘readers’. I pushed them up onto my head after soldering, but they had gone by the time I went for lunch.
Turns out they’d fallen off my head, into the bin next to the soldering bench. I’m now considering one of those bathplug chain thingies. Did I mention I’m nearly 50?
In the past few weeks I have acquired reading glasses (lenses only, thankfully I never throw old specs frames away) and prescription swimming goggles (surprisingly cheap), and am now awaiting my newly-upgraded sunglasses: bifocals. Funnily enough I hit 45 later this year. 👵
Have you got one of those prescription windscreens yet?
I have only just started wearing RGs and already have 3 sets of the buggers. The novelty of a) losing them (boo!) and b) pointing at things with them (hurray!) hasn’t worn off yet.
I’m switching between my normal specs and the reading ones so frequently I fear it’ll be time for bi- or varifocals before long. Though I will miss peering over the top of the reading ones in a sexy but playful manner.
Also you can wear them on top of each other in a hilarious recreation of John Lennon on Walls and Bridges.
(carefully ignoring the “sexy” bit… my therapist will be so pleased with me)
Sorry, it should have read “boring but playful”.
Blimmin’ autocorrect!
And I’m peering back over the top of mine. Foxy Lady.
Why would one need prescription swimming goggles? Can’t you see the pool lane markings with normal ones?
In case of mistakenly jumping, splashing or heavy petting.
Of course but I was getting headaches. Now headache-free, plus I can read the clock and recognise people’s faces to say hello instead of squinting at them or just blanking them.
The only downside is being able to see all the bad tattoos.
I spent £3k on laser eye surgery in the late ’90s but no bastard ever mentioned that 12 years later I’d need reading glasses – so much for “no more glasses”.
Needing them to be handy essentially all the time I took to wearing them around my neck using sports-type retainers i.e. the ones that push on the glasses as I wouldn’t be seen dead with the type where the arms go through a little loop.
You can get all sorts of types and colours. Silicon is especially great as they don’t break and come in very loud colours if you fancy it (and I do). The reading glasses themselves, however, get caught on things with some regularity so I find less expensive pairs are best (although I draw the line at the very slim ones). Still prefer replacing them rather than getting frustrated because they’re never EVER where you want them.
The wearing of tee-shirts, jumpers etc. is handy when you frequently need to take your specs off. Just fold ’em and tuck one of the side-arms down the neck of the tee or jumper at the front. Not nearly so in the way as having them on a lanyard. Also good for sunglasses when you’ve come indoors. Obviously this will not work if you’re in a collar & tie, in which case a shirt with a reasonably deep breast pocket is handy.
My eyesight is actually improving. I’ve been short-sighted since childhood because my eyeballs are rugby shaped. Now, my lenses are less powerful, so light comes into focus closer to the retina. Won’t be long before macular degeneration sets in.
Keep eating the spinach, Tigs.
Well I subscribe to this; dull and quite often boring (is there a distinction?).
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dullmensclubgroup/
Let’s have a song!
Oh and I’ve been weeding the allotment.
Any relation to the Far From Dull book?
https://lesserspotted.myshopify.com/products/far-from-dull-and-other-places
It’s come to my attention that Neil Innes still has the price of a cup of tea in his pocket, so I have therefore copyrighted the word “boring” and will see the thieving bastard in court.
This is boredom he can afford.
I’m pretty sure that John Martyn’s Spencer the Rover may well be the best record ever to mention Rotherham.
…I said contain yerselves!
You forget that great music hall song by Vestige Trilley
“You don’t want to botheram in Rotherham”
Tried to find the rest of the lyrics but the internest has let me down again.
As a man in his early 30s, I much prefer the Arctic Monkeys –
‘Yeah I’d love to tell you all my problem:
You’re not from New York City, you’re from Roblem.”
Are you sure he doesn’t just sing Protherham?
Protherham…. the name of an officious lawyer’s clerk in a Dickens novel, I feel.
Vestige was female alas Moose, died without trace.
In the end, don’t we all?
I can hardly wait for the wedding I am attending in Rotherham this w/e.
I shall of course be looking out for the mountain and fountain to which our curly-haired boy refers.
There’ll be kids prittle-prattling* all over the place.
(*That’s olde-worlde speak for “doing bad cartwheels and armpit-farts”)
Knee-slides on the dancefloor, ties around their heads.
Mate, that’s the uncles.
There was a famous (in it’s day) advertising slogan for Oldham car batteries (actually made in Denton by the Oldham family, not made in Oldham) wherein the catchphrase was “I told ’em Oldham”.
Believe it or not, this phrase still gets an occasional outing chez Hairnet. Back in the 70s I had a season ticket at Maine Road, in the Platt Lane stand behind the goal. This was the perfect vantage point to observe Oldham’s advertising board on top of the Kippax stand. My mates and I used to riff on the slogan and, to this day, it remains a knowing nod to our past.
Im pretty sure “I Told em Oldham” was also used by the NME to announce the Jam playing at Saddleworth Arts Festival……
I’m reading this post in the pub. By myself. With the dogs.
A pub contains the possibility, if not often the reality, of beer and other stimulating beverages – which is far too exciting for this thread, especially if they are consumed transgressively in the middle of a weekday afternoon.
And crisps. Crisps!
I routinely have to put stuff away, the dullest items are cables, lots and lots of cables. Sometimes I have to tape them in a coil.
Working up the enthusiasm for annual PAT testing next month. Every mains cable and piece of equipment must be tested and the results recorded. It usually takes me a solid week of ten hour days.
Your mention of PAT testing reminds me that a few weeks back an electrician was sent round by the letting agents to PAT test the portable appliances belonging to my landlady. Of which there aren’t any. Just as he did last year and the year before, he tested the microwave, the kettle, the washing machine, the tumble drier, the fridge and the freezer. All of them my own property.
I’ve been living here since 2007 but they’ve never done a full electrical test in that time. The recommendation is to give a full test every 5 years but that has no legal force.
Is ‘PAT test the portable appliances’ the shortest clause one can make where either every letter of the acronym or every letter of the explanation is tautologous? This has been my boring contribution. You’re welcome.
Unless it’s an imperative directed informally at someone called Patrick.
Or Patricia. Hey, let’s be careful out there kids.
In a previous life working for a calibration/repair firm I PAT tested a brand new 30grand plus Hewlett-Packard all singing, all dancing touchscreen scope.
A small crack, a whisp of smoke and the cooling fan did a turn or two…….fucked it.
Ouch! I’m always a bit nervous when I test something expensive for the first time. Got away with it so far.
Forget the formalities, give Fentonboy his hamper now. A brilliant riposte, cap duly doffed.
I had a box of screws but can’t find it. I’m thinking a nail and a hammer will do the job but the cat needs feeding and then what with all this heat the garden needs watering but if you think I’m going out there in all this heat , did I tell you it was 43C last week, the grapes are literally burning on the vines and my neighbour engaged me in his usual patois ( a mixture of French, Catalan and Swahili) and I didn’t understand a word but I can nod for Scotland and say oui and non in all (well almost all) the right places but I’m pretty sure he said we’re all doomed and the battery in my watch has gone. It’s a maelstrom here, a maelstrom
What’s your bra size got to do with it?
Touche
Having recently decorated we had the hall floor restored and a coconut mat inserted into a hole by the front door. I decided after the work was complete to edge the hole with something to protect the edges of the wood. After several days of pondering and trips to B and Q (I’ve been there so many times lately that I can now say with authority that I know where things are in B and Q and as such can enjoy the song on a deeper level, but I digress) I settled on using the edging strips that tilers use on the edges of tiles, you know like in a bathroom or kitchen? So, I bought a length that has a chrome effect with a slightly brushed finish (£17.50) but here’s where it gets interesting, it wasn’t long enough to edge all three sides.
So I went back to B and Q but they didn’t have any with the same brushed finish left in stock. I must have been there for 20 minutes checking each piece, some were easy to dismiss as they were plastic, some were a T shape and others were much wider than the piece I wanted (which is 8m/m. )
So, long story short, we have two sides with edging and one without (I suggested we simply use a piece that isn’t brushed finish but my lovely wife can’t go for that.) So the search goes on. PM me for updates
Are you saying that the hole by the front door is triangular? That sounds like a radical entrance.
Your post is not boring at all. In fact, I find it quite edgy.
Don’t worry, @Lemonhope, I found it the most boring post on the thread. My eyes glazed over before the end of the first sentence.
😃
🙌
Triangle? sounds like trouble
These are the key phrases that made me think triangle: “we have two sides with edging and one without”; “it wasn’t long enough to edge all three sides.”
I am fascinated by your edging story, but am struggling to visualise the reality ‘on the ground.’ Feel free to provide lots more boring detail.
It’s a pretty boring detail that under the circumstances I’m ashamed to have left out. Visualise a rectangle. Along one of the long edges visualise a door. Now, visualise the remaining three edges, two short and one long. Those are the edges that need edging, but of course, as we know only two, one short and one long have been edged so far. And I know I don’t need to point this out, but to save any further misunderstandings I will, it’s a short edge that is missing it’s edging.
An easy way to think of it and a handy visual aid is to think of an elongated ‘u’ – no. wait that could be even more confusing. There is a symbol on my phone keypad that I don’t know how to access on my computer. So what I’ll do is post this now, and then reply shortly with the aforementioned symbol using my phone keypad/keyboard, that should help with the visualisation. Back in a minute.
Possibly less, it shouldn’t take long.
[
I hope that helps
Bloody nora, James Burke walks amongst us!
The scales have fallen from my eyes. Everything is clear now – boringly so. Silly me. I was imagining a hole entirely contained by the restored floor. I realise now you are talking about a rectangular recess behind the front door, where the coconut mat goes.
Brushed chrome though. Are you sure?
And I assume you’re doing mitred joints at the corners?
Phew! I was a bit worried “a coconut mat inserted into a hole by the front door” was something special I didn’t know about.
You know, the kind of thing Moose would have to explain to me once the big boys had stopped sniggering at my ignorance.
Where the coconut mat goes, there go I
In brightly coloured pants I lie
There I crouch when vacuum-frightened dogs do cry
On the waddling I do fly
etc.
Re: brushed chrome. I know. It was doomed from the start. I told my lovely wife that we’re not living in that London, we’re not even living in a city these days, so perhaps we should just set our expectations a little lower. She said no, she can’t go for that. And of course the corners are mitred.
It was much easier to get a good join than I had anticipated. As I had anticipated it to be much harder than it was.
Brushed chrome… it reminds you of 70s hifi hardware. You were lost from the get-go. All it needed was a couple of VU meters and no deliberation would have been necessary.
Update – Today I managed to procure another *length* of the 8m/m brushed steel trim to complete the job!
I gave up on B & Q and tried Wickes, but if you’re thinking that I just walked in and purchased it in an easy and pleasant transaction then Whoah Nelly! Think again.
I had of course checked their stock levels on the World Wide Web and my local [Warrington] store was showing 4 *lengths* in stock, but when I got there and tried to find one I failed. Part of the problem was a that I had forgotten to take in my readers in with me. I returned to the car and collected my readers and went back in to try again. They had 6m/m, 10 m/m, and 12.5 m/m [which surprise me because B & Q don’t do 6 m/m] How I wish I had used 10m/m in the first place and I confess that I considered starting again with 10m/m, but just then an assistant came into view. I asked him if he could check because the website was showing 4 *lengths* of 8m/m [fun fact – Wickes call it ‘Stainless Steel Effect] ‘If we’ve got it, it will be out here’ he said, ‘Oh’, I said.
He had a good *root* around and in about 24 seconds he had found the correct item for me!
Hurrah!
I was intending to fit it when I got home, but by the time I had stopped off at Tesco, for some bits and then Lidl for some suncream it was very sunny out and I am now going to spend the afternoon in the garden instead – I will report back once the job is complete and will probably post some pictures on Insta.
Words denoted with *-* are purely to assist Moose
You missed *job*.
Why does a coconut need a mat?
To wipe its wellies on of course.
Oho!
I went to Croydon on a train for a meeting that was due to start at 3pm. At 2:40 the meeting was cancelled.
I left Croydon on a train, that looked just the same but WENT THE OTHER WAY, soon after.
Did you get the numbers?
@beezer
Croydon. You win.
Seconded – without doubt.
One of my favourite bits in the whole of popular music is on the Dirk Wears White Sox album: the song Family of Noise concludes, apropos of nothing else in the lyric, with Adam chirpily singing “….in Croydon!”
Thanks @Freddy Steady and @Lunaman
I had to have a lie down and a sanatogen today after all that frisson. No more Croydon ‘The Mid-Town Manhattan of Surrey’ for me until next week.
I have spent most of today reformatting Process Documents – basically a day of Copy, Paste Special and error checking.
There was some light relief later when updating the Cost Models when I forgot to add the FALSE variable to a VLOOKUP formula. Oh, how we laughed
This morning, getting dressed, I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to wear navy blue socks or gray socks. In the end, I went for neither, deciding instead on a new pair in sky blue, which I thought was a good compromise.
I like to try and co-ordinate my socks to my t-shirts.
I wore socks that at one point have been bleach-damaged and have ended up with a rather groovy tie-dye effect.
Mr B often co-ordinates his sock colour to his pants.
That would make perfect sense as long as he wears his pants on top of his trousers. What a look.
Pants that are different colours??
My good woman, I fear you may have inadvertently married a bohemian.
Absolutely. Aren’t all shoes, socks and underpants black? Trousers are either grey or blue. Shirts are white or blue. Cardigans and jumpers are grey or navy. Suits and coats are grey or blue. Ties should not be worn at all. Jackets, gloves and hats can go rogue.
Your gloves… none roguer.
Socks are black during the working week (with coloured toes and heels to make them easier to pair) but they can be, in the words of Pink Floyd, any colour you like when you’re not in the office.
Bedding, towels and men’s pants are always, but always, plain white. Anyone who’s says different is a fool and a liar.
Who are you calling a fool and a liar?
Oh I’m aware that those items exist in other colours; I’ve even seen them in shops. But surely they are only there to vary the display. No one would ever buy or use them?
While I am in general agreement with Gatz on the bedding, I am more equivocal on the towel and underpant departments. White towels look good – until they are used. Then they look dirty. And they are hopeless for the beach.
As a pensions manager you can imagine how my eyes lit up when I saw ‘Boring Thread’ and then utter bliss when there was a full, and dare I say , very accurate description of defined benefit vs final salary. Sadly no one mentioned actuarial reduction or trivial commutation but I have now. I trust this will be only time that my dull professional life will ever cross with my sparkly AW alter ego.
I think I read in the NME in the 80s that you could commute a “trivial” pension to a lump sum as long as it was under 104 quid a year? I believe those rules have changed since then.
But – and this is possibly veering into “interesting” territory – when I started in pensions you could declare a normal retirement age of 35 if you were a footballer or a pop musician. Naming no names we had a policy for a headband-wearing virtuoso guitarist who should have retired by now.. He’s obviously struggling to make ends meet because he didn’t retire and still makes music now (I think). You see, in the early 80s a pop star over 35 was rare. You could only really get away with it if you were a Beatle or a Stone.
He could always fit some microwave ovens
Doesn’t he “install” as well as “fit” some microwave ovens? The installation and fitting of such items as part of a custom kitchen delivery requires a little bit of skill and expertise I’d have thought. Hardly “Money for Nothin’ ! “
Certainly.
Their first match is away at Newcastle on 11th August.
Lummee! Hamper time!
….can’t touch this…
Stop…
The King of boring….
https://mobile.twitter.com/BoringMilner
Just been cleaning the chickens out and filling up their feeder with layers pellets. We use Heygates pellets. Chickens seem to like them.
Are we all energy vampires now?
How long does ‘cleaning out’ take per chicken? Is there some kind of rota?
They queue up, of course!
I forgot to report that it was a good washing day today, sun with a breeze, so I washed the spare room duvet cover, sheets and pillow cases then, once dry, put them back on with the summer duvet. Rock n roll eh.
Do you use one of those origami-like YouTube techniques for putting the duvet cover back on, or do you, like me, just stuff the duvet in and spend the next hour faffing around trying to get the bastard thing to fit right?
Ram it in, then hang over the top of the stairs and shake the bejeesus out of the bugger until it’s filled to the corners. Fold and put ready for use. Have a G&T.
I live in a bungalow. #duvetdifficulties
I’m a corners guy. Get the two corners, push inside, find left corner and hold cover/duvet, then the right one, then hold them and give it a good shake (oooh Moosie). Much easier if the wife helps. (Oooh Moosie). Very satisfied once done (oooh Moosie). Makes me think actually, the undeniable satisfaction of changing the duvet cover and putting it back on has something suspiciously Freudian and sublimated about it?
I’m not married. #duvetdifficulties
When Mrs thep is in residence the duvet (or doona as she calls it) cover is changed about once every 2 weeks. When I’m on my own, about once every 2 months. Takes me about a month to build up the courage. #duvetdifficulties
I remember an item on Blue Peter explaining the best way to change one, when the armed forces were switching from blankets and sheets to duvets.
What you do is start with the cover inside out. Put your arms in until you reach the far corners. With the corners over your hands, glove puppet style, grasp the two bottom corners of the duvet. Give it a yank and a shake until the cover has fallen the length of the duvet, and voilà! Beddy-byes!
This is one of the many useful things Mrs M has taught me in the bedroom.
Did she get them all from watching Blue Peter?
“Now you’ll need to ask an adult to help you with this bit.”
😂😂😂
I’m grateful he didn’t mention sticky-backed plastic. Or indeed “Here’s one I made earlier”
Wow brilliant. But you’re barred from this thread as that is not boring.
I’ve never understood why duvet covers only open at one end.
If they opened along two sides (or preferably three, though I can understand you wouldn’t want buttons, zips or other fastening devices under your chin at beddy-byes time) then you could lay the cover flat on the bed and place the corners of the duvet in their correct position in the corners of the cover. Easily fastened then.
Alternatively Velcro attached to the corners of the cover and on the corners of the duvet would allow for easy attachment.
Or have I given this too much thought.
Yours having once been trapped inside a duvet cover, and unable to find my way out for several minutes.
⬆️
Genius…a three sided duvet. Absolute genius.
Genius! Does this mean I don’t belong on this thread?
@Freddy-Steady
Surely the correct answer is to climb inside the duvet cover with your arms out, sneak up behind Mrs F*, and go “Wooooo!” in a Scooby Doo style?
(*) other partners are available for scaring
Never grows old that one, does it?
Oh man, I love a good drying day 😍😍
Such a gamble choosing whether or not to change to the summer duvet. Getting it wrong is a totes disaster.
Quite, hot spell, put the summer one on, then an unseasonable cold snap and you’re freezing all night. Mind you, putting the winter one back on is a guaranteed method of the warm weather returning.
Great thread this.
Oh no! I’ve snagged me toenail in it!
Mrs Japanese and I have always had seperate duvets. Hers will always be thicker of tog.
Got a cheery bloke in to fix the toilet, which had been getting lazier and lazier and gave up flushing altogether yesterday morning. Rather amazingly, he replaced every moving part in the cistern, plus installed a new flexible hose to the mains instead of a copper pipe (a good thing apparently, though not sure why). Flusherama – we don’t know ourselves.
Also went to Waitrose.
I have to clean out the waste pipe of the spare room shower, which my daughter uses, and is clogged up with her long hair.
And I have to defrost the freezer, as my son didn’t shut the door properly retrieving a choc-ice, and is now iced up.
I’m saving them both for the weekend as I’m going to work in a bit and can’t risk having too much fun in one day.
Sorry Mike, you have inadvertently made your post slightly interesting by divulging that Waitrose has a presence “Down Under.” This was new information to me and therefore I felt a slight pang of interest. I know it was an accident, but let’s be careful out there.
I should have mentioned that as of last Thursday I am back in Blighty. But that might have been thought to be interesting too.
I recently visited one in Dubai. Free bags at the checkout still too
Surprise surprise. None of that environmentalist nonsense in the middle east.
There’s no “environment” out there ! It’s the bloody desert!
(apologies to John Clarke)
I too think of toilets as grafters or shirkers. My toilet works like a Trojan. If it was human it’d be built like a brick shithouse. As it were.
I’m told it needs to be but that veers on, if not interesting, prurient. (Has there been a done any good poos thread before? That’ll get em tutting on fb.)
It does. Sometimes I actually salute its indefatigability.
Do you stand up first?
Yes. Otherwise I’m saluting the washbasin, which would be daft.
Important too, as it can also accommodate the post defaecatory wee, to help with the later flushing, should there be any evidence above the water mark.
Absolutely – the old pressure-washer.
I like the look of these new toilet/bidet combos. I remember a few years back HP singing the praises of the bum gun. A loo with a built in bum gun is obviously the next evolutionary step. Haven’t used toilet paper in years, and my arse is so much better for it.
It was HP’S musings on the virtues of the bum gun that elevated him to elite status, as I recall.
I saw a bum gun on a stag do in Amsterdam. I suspect the thing HP spoke of is something different. I hope it is, to be honest.
My new work phone – a Samsung Galaxy J5 – is unable to connect to the internet because the device is locked down through the Blackberry UEM.
So I am about to ring work’s helpline to find out the authentication details required to get through our proxy server’s firewall.
A pigeon just landed on my conservatory roof. It pecked a bit at the roof, upset the dogs and then flew away.
A sparrow flew into our kitchen the other day. It flew around for a bit, sat on the bin, and then flew out the back door. I found it quite interesting at the time so I’m not sure why I’m telling you this.
Sparrows totally rule.
Sparrows scoff all the bird seed from the feeder(s) in our garden.
You need to get that Labrador on the case. Less pebble collecting, more barking at Sparrows.
It’s raining here his morning and I might well get wet on my 10 minute walk to work. I have got an umbrella and a showerproof jacket I could use I suppose.
I went to work without any kind of jacket for the second time this week. Mrs M, a cautious person, looked askance.
In reply to my own comment I did get a bit wet but it wasn’t too bad.
One of my dogs is frightened of umbrellas.
One of mine is scared of farts.
All of my dogs hate the vacuum cleaner to the point of physically attacking it (even when it is standing in the cupboard not being used)
Their powers of recognition are pretty good – they even bark at the TV when the GTech advert is on.
My dog was cured of hoover anxiety by placing treats on it for him to scoff. So now he just barks at the lawn mower and the bloke pushing it.
My dog is scared of the vacuum cleaner, but will happily lie in front of the lawnmower
This thing about dogs and vacuum cleaners is easily explained by the dog being jealous of the fact that you are taking something else for a walk and not it.
Also, the dog doesn’t understand the idea of cleaning up a mess rather than creating it, like dogs, or people do. To them it’s like watching somebody with a pen that sucks the ink off the paper – clever but very freaky.
You might be on to something there. Our dog hates the old-style walkies vacuum but is completely unperturbed by the robot vacuum, even only becoming slightly irritated when the ‘bot is bashing the edge of its bed..
But.
Doesn’t the dog assume that I’m taking the lawnmower for a walk as well?
No.
This just indicates that your dog is a keen gardener.
Dormant umbrellas are dead sinister, and when being primed for deployment they look incredibly dangerous.
Unless it’s one of those little fold-up ones. In which case your only fear is, “This will blow inside-out, making me look a divvy”
One of my cats is shit scared of carrier bags.
Last week my wife and I walked through the lounge with a couple of bags of shopping each en route to the kitchen.
Ralf…for that his name…..leapt onto the window ledge, in a vain attempt to escape through a closed window, knocking down three expensive drops on our Hillary’s vertical blinds.
If you haven’t named your cat after Brer Kraftwerk, please leave me with my illusions.
I have just cleaned the kitchen. The dish-washing sponge was a bit tatty, so I replaced it with a new model. The old sponge hasn’t been thrown away. It has been relocated to its new position under the sink, and will function as a utility sponge for general cleaning jobs around the house.
I bought some new bin bags a couple of weeks ago. As I was replacing the bin liner this morning I found myself admiring the way the opening on the bag was slightly tailored to fir snugly over the top of the bin. ‘I must remember where I bought these bin bags’ I thought. But I had thrown away the wrapper in a previous bag and have already forgotten where they came from.
Have you thought about hiring a private investigator?
I’m going to something really boring today.
I recently bought a new Wacom Intuos graphics tablet, and have discovered an irritating flaw with it. I use it on Macs. One of the ways on a Mac that you can change a file name is to click once on the file’s name and wait; the file’s name (but not the extension) is highlighted, and a new or revised name can be entered.
If I put a file on the desktop, I cannot change the name by this method using the pen and tablet; the entire file name including the extension is highlighted, and the cursor arrow does not change to the text tool. Click-and-wait does work if I use the mouse.
If I make a folder on the desktop, and put the file in that, then I can use the click-and-wait method.
The previous Wacom tablet and its driver did not have this issue.
Is this thread still boring if it’s had this much interest, or has the purpose of the thread been lost? I think a ‘boring’ thread and any subsequent comments within said thread should’ve garnered no responses.
Boring is as boring does, as my grandmother almost used to say.
I’m spending this afternoon re-loading Windows 10 on my laptop. I upgraded to a Windows Insiders preview version last week, but I’ve got some hardware incompatibility issues with the new drivers, causing green screen panics.
Spent this morning painting skirting board in front room, afterwards sat in chair contemplating my work, whilst observing the gloss become less moist
Watching paint dry, I like it. Proper boring.
Double hamper time!
Cue Moussey…
You’ve been upgraded from luncheon meat to foie gras.
And the bag of crisps has a picture of a man with a pipe and some jokey crap about “Thank you for buying me !” on the back so they must be really expensive.
Ay ay ay ay
From the Dull Men’s Club today.
A poster writes
‘I saw a plastic hub cap by the side of the road today and it made me nostalgic. I also saw an earwig last week, which I haven’t seen since the early 90s (I assumed they’d been phased out). I feel a bit like how those fishermen who caught a coelocanth must have felt. What things of yesteryear that you thought were consigned to the dustbin of history have you seen recently?
AW
Well, this morning I saw a heavily pregnant woman smoking while pushing a buggy down the street. A taste of the good old days for the lovely little bump there.
About this time last year, not far from the village, I saw loads of cassette tape billowing along the verge of the road.
I have a small collection of lost hubcaps/plastic wheel trims. I spray them bright colours, and put them on sticks. They look very silly in amongst the flower bed.
A friend of mine who lives near Wrexham collects bricks. I mean bricks from different places with different names on them and so on. If he’s out driving and he sees bricks dumped anywhere he’ll pull over and rootle around to see if there are any interesting ones.
I snort at them all laid out in his back yard and take the piss endlessly, but of course I’m actually quite jealous.
There’s a bloke called Nick in the Dull Men of Great Britain book who collects bricks. He’s one of the top 12 dullest men.
https://www.lifedeathprizes.com/amazing-stuff/britains-dullest-men-52254
I aspire to that level. The best I can manage is 100 or so mid-90s beermats.
I lived near Wrexham in my teens. The6 actually have a ‘famous brick’ around there. Ruabon Brick is the dark reddish brick that a lot of the Victorian terraces are built from. Apparently reclined Ruabon bricks are highly sought after.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_east/7245028.stm
Reclaimed Victorian bricks are quite valuable, especially to people having extensions/alterations to Victorian buildings done. One of the great perks of the demolition trade is selling salvaged bricks. See also slate roofing tiles.
I seem to recall a good few years back (i.e. more than 5 years ago) there was a nationwide shortage of bricks for some reason and anyone requiring a quantity of them had to place their order with the builder’s merchant well in advance to be sure they’d arrive on time. Naturally, due to the shortage, prices rose dramatically and thefts of bricks from building sites became more common.
There was once a huge brick and tile industry in ‘our’ part of Somerset, and many of the tiles and coping stones on our house have stamps on them saying who made them. There were some very vivid glazed roof tiles produced, but black seems to be the most popular. The odd decorative ‘dragon* finial’ can be seen, on the end of a roof ridge.
*Probably a wyvern, in Somerset’s case.
@gatz
That’s actually interesting. My wife is from around there and knows about Ruabon brick but has never mentioned it to me before.
Hopefully you should see a brick.
I do see a brick. I’ll show it to my wife.
I see a brick, too, but I’ve got no-one to show it to.
Yes, my mate near Wrexham may well have shown me one of these, I can’t remember as I would have been struggling to stay awake.
Takes one to know one, I spose.
Excellent!
May I show it to you?
I suppose so.
Don’t pick it up, you’ll spoil your gloves.
I saw a half brick today, but it only had half the name in the frog (i think that’s what the concave bit is called), so not very collectable.
I must go and check our rain gauge. . .
How’s yer shovel?
Its fine. Its our Spear & Jackson digging fork that worries me. It creaks noticeably in use, and I will soon have to turn about 1 cubic metre of compost from No. 1 heap into No.2.
As an ex bricklaying lecturer I concur it is indeed the frog, also the name for the hollow part under a horse’s hoof.
A Norse’s oof recently
I’m happy that the pictures appear.
I’ve spent ages looking at that picture and I can’t see the Ruabon anywhere.
Frog Up or Frog Down when laying bricks?
The consensus seems to be Frog Up, as that way the frog is sure to be filled with mortar and thus the wall will be stronger and more resistant to lateral forces. For walls where lateral strength is not so important, it doesn’t really matter which way up you lay them.
Of course some bricks don’t have frogs anyway.
Those round wire circles that clip on to the back of hubcaps are excellent for making runner bean teepees.
They often don’t survive the de-wheel trim incident, but one that did is used as the base of a ‘hop wreath’. We have hops at the bottom of the garden, and wrap the bines-in-flower around the wire circle, and dry them.
‘I saw a plastic hub cap by the side of the road today and it made me nostalgic’
Don’t look back. You can never look back.
Use of a couple of plastic tie-wraps ensures that your wheel trims will not dislodge after a scrape against the kerb. The downside to this is that if you get a puncture and need to change a wheel, you’ll be f***ed if you don’t have a sharp knife or pair of side cutters with you.
I think we can rule out any sub-post that got a reply on the grounds of being “too interesting.” Just a thought.
I replied to my own post – does that count ?
I only replied here to knock you out of the running…….
Last night I was away from home and my computer. I wanted to show a friend an amusing pic that I’d found earlier on Facebook so I went to Facebook on my phone but I couldn’t remember my FB password. That was the end of that idea.
I’m watching the Formula 1. Hamilton will start on the medium tyres tomorrow, unlike everyone around him.
Are those the ones with the right-angled valves?
I think they have a central nut (that could be the guy with a helmet) but I’m not an expert.
We are the 801. We are the central nut.
You win. Even golf and cricket aren’t as boring as F1.
Thank you.
Interesting. The medium compound may take a while longer to bed in, but he should be able to go further. The time difference is negligible, but an extra pit stop (if on soft tyres) would, I believe, negate any advantage.
The Silverstone tarmac is very smooth which would increase degradation to softer tyres. Medium may be the optimum
Yes. But you have to factor in the rain. Conditions are very changeable at Silverstone.
Boring? I just watched the Grand Prix in full. I’d recorded it as the cricket took precedence. What a race!! Easily the most thrilling of the year, capped by Hamilton’s God-like perfection on the last lap!!
Fastest lap when he didn’t need to, and didn’t look like he was really trying.
A few more battles like leclerc and Verstappen should add to the enjoyment.
And (possibly perversely) a few more kamikaze Vettel braking jobs may add a bit of spice too
Can’t be bothered cooking. I think I’ll go to the chippy.
We had f&c yesterday from a place that used to be our favourite but we haven’t used since we moved house five years ago. Still the same three people work there and the food was as good as ever.
City will win the league, Liverpool will finish second, Chelsea third … Tottenham-no-trophies, Arsenal-no-trophies and Man. Utd. will scramble for the sacred (very, very, very exciting and important – copyright) fourth place.
Still more interesting than summer.
What is the point of summer?
It’s boring.
Put Revolver on and have a beer. THAT’s the point of summer.
Turn off your mind, relax, and drink some beer
It is not boring. It is not boring
Leicester will make the top 6
(you heard it here first)
Burnley, Norwich and Sheffield Utd for the drop?
Villa survive on the last day, on goal difference
I’ve had my haddock and chips. Time to watch Boris and Jeremy on the tellybox.
👏👏👏
A triple hamper!
Sorry to bore you with such a tedious question, but where does the ‘hamper’ idea originate from? Does a minor celebrity knock on your door and hand it over? Would I be expected to give a speech at an awards ceremony hosted by Denise Van Outen and Johnny Vaughan at the end of the year?
Denise Van Outen is currently on Celebrity Gogglebox. She’s had an ill-advised lip-job and comes across as disappointingly shallow.
Johnny Vaughan? The music of his heart is roots music.
Has anybody ever had a lip-job that wasn’t ill-advised?
You’ve got a point there. I can only think of Janice from The Muppets.
My go to reference point is Leslie Ash.
Anna Friel has now also gone for the paying-good-money-to look-like-you’ve-snogged-a-vacuum-cleaner look.
It’s enough to frighten your dog.
I saw Lesley Ash on something recently and was quite alarmed. These procedures are reversible aren’t they? When they go horribly wrong I don’t understand why they feel they are stuck with it / them.
I read a terrible story about a young woman who felt her labia were too big, even though no man had ever complained. She went to have them trimmed but, unfortunately, they were completely removed. No going back with that one.
Plastic Surgery, kids. Just say No!
Singing, yoghurt, people: natural is best.
That’s the sort of thing they put on Channel 4s Embarrassing Bodies “shudders”
It was in Saturdays Graun. I just read it too as we had visitors yesterday
That’s it! It was in The Guardian.
What did the visitors think?
They’d gone by the time I read it today, but possibly not the discussion for a meet the boyfriend session. (It’s bad enough I had to bite my tongue when he said his name was Billy, as I had a friend called Billy we used to sing about.)
I think of that literally every time I see a rake.
Middle name Joe?
Yup, Billy Joe Jacksonandspears. How did you know?
Ive just spent the last half hour reading about how to change a duvet. Oddly I found it interesting so contra to the point of this thread. However I’m also watching BBC breakfast………
Well at least that’s the Sports Personality Team of the Year decided. Wonder if Ben Stokes will get the main award?
No. Lewis will.
Back to boring, I need to make a lid for the pond filter. Any tips? I have 21 goldfish settling in nicely but they hide under the lilys at the moment. Ponds are lovely.
Instead of a day spent watching cricket/tennis/Glasto on catchup, I chose* to replace a fence post which my neighbours’ drunken Saturday BBQ guests leaned against and knocked over.
They tried drunkenly climbing the oak tree on the park at 1am, too. Going for a Darwin award, some of them, I reckon.
(*) as in Mrs F chose, really.
As my Dad would say, “Where’s the ground when you need it?”
It’s the middle of the night and having woken up I couldn’t get back to sleep. That thread has done the job nicely. ‘ Night, all.
This is the most commented thread in the last 7 days, and last 30 days. We only need 200 more views to get it to most viewed as well. Let’s go for the triple! Dull power! Keep pressing refresh.
‘Star posters’, my arse…
You are up against Abbey Road.
Good luck!
Steaming ahead, though – 100 views this morning. Another 100 to go…
Steaming anyway.
And we’ve done it! Go team Boring!
Give me a ‘B’. Give me an… oh well, suit yourselves.
This morning, I went to the Post Office to collect my Reading Festival tickets. In the queue, I stood behind my pal Derek – he was taking some cash out.
Was he on his way to the park to let it have a run around?
Hey! No fair self-inflating 😉
Try that and it’ll blow up in your face.
…er…
I never look at those stats. So imagine how thrilled I am to discover that my modest, and modestly commented on, post on the obituary of Norman Stone is neck and neck with a thread on the Fabs for toppermost of the poppermost. Nothing to do with my checking it every two minutes to see if anyone’s commented on it, oh no.
Is that how it works? I thought only one view per person per day counts.
Dammit – that’s where I’m going wrong….
Most commented in both week and month, most viewed in month too?
This is now getting dangerously close to exciting.
Steady on!
Big discussion going on over on AW FB – is a cherry a Berry or a Prunus drupe?
If that doesn’t get you signed up to Zuckerberg’s window on the first circle of Hell, I don’t know what will.
Well, after last week’s laptop re-installation, I’m doing it yet again. On Tuesday I downloaded some video manipulation software, based on a website recommendation, but it installed some other unwanted software at the same time – software that likes to send pop-ups to screen at inopportune moments. That unwanted software is proving difficult to remove, and I’m not fully certain that I’ve discovered everything it does. Therefore I’m blowing the whole system away and starting again.
My work PC has started to switch itself off again. The first time it was resolved by unplugging and re-plugging all of the connections from the Power Supply Unit to the motherboard, each with a satisfying click.
This time I’m thinking the PSU itself might be have to be replaced.
It’s a pain in the arse when it switches off mid-
Suprising that it turned itself off mid-sentence, yet you still managed to post your comment. You can’t fool me, mate.
Bang to rights, but I’ll do anything* for a punchline.
And a return to the top of Most Viewed This Month – there must only be a handful of views between the top 3. Not that this is a competition, but it does prove a point.
(*) but I won’t do that
Twang Jr’s PC slowed down to glacial pace. Periodically it seemed to want to update Windows but it also said it was up to date. I googled and looked at various insane solutions proposed on line but one seemed to know what he was talking about and said to look for a weirdly named temp folder with about 14 levels of subfolder. If there was stuff in the one named some incomprehensible random set of numbers and !etters that meant an update had crashed mid process, and the contents should be deleted but not the folder itself. This I duly did and when I rebooted it completed the update and ran like a dream. I felt like a golden God.
I’m in the market for brass hose connectors. I’ve discovered that you can’t get a pack of four with a threaded tap connector. There’s no way of doing it without ending up with a redundant tap connector. Oh well, a spare’s always useful.
I had the same problem. Frustrating, isn’t it?
I drive a little old Ford Bantam (silver grey), for which I have great affection. In it I have a little old CD player.
Anyway, what happens is that it suddenly changes from the CD to the radio for no apparent reason. So, for example, Voodoo Lounge will suddenly be interrupted by the weather report. (Or by the road traffic report, which might be useful, but it’s always about other places far away where they have traffic). I have tried to tell whether it does this because of the many potholes or just because it’s getting too old and wants to be retired and replaced. The funny part is that the CD invariably comes back on again after a minute or so, as if nothing had happened. And by then the CD is on the next song already. Every time it happens I laugh out loud, even when I’m on my own.
I don’t know why. (I laugh like that, I mean)
There’s a setting in the radio part of the car audio system that does that. On mine (A 2003 Saab) there’s a button labelled TP. When it’s on (the letters TP appear in the display) it interrupts the CD player or the radio station that I’m listening to and switches to the nearest radio station that has a traffic news bulletin. I keep it switched off except when I specifically want to catch traffic bulletins.
Pretty much all UK FM stations that broadcast traffic news bulletins generate a code that radios with the TP function active will detect so they can tune to that station temporarily. The station is supposed to broadcast another signal at the end of the traffic bulletin so that your system can resume doing what it was before it was activated. Often they don’t broadcast the end signal straight away because they don’t want you to tune away once they’ve got you. Very occasionally the end signal is missed altogether and you have to manually switch back.
I wouldn’t mind Voodoo Lounge being interrupted by Weather Report.
Aaaaaand that’s a hamper on its way to fentonsteve.
Hang on….belay that last post.
(It’s been that kind of day)
There aren’t enough threads about the Beatles or their associates these days. Have we picked our favourite ‘aaaaaaaaaaaah’ from ‘A Day In The Life’ yet?
That would be easy. The last one.
Best Beatle ‘yeah’ in 1963 is a much tougher ask.
After that we’d have to go on to their best “oooo” I suppose.