Craig Sawyers

Have a truly spectacular on Steve - happy birthday!!

Ridley Scott is of course still alive and kicking.

Ridley Scott is from my neck of the woods in the North East of England. The beginning of Blade Runner, with the gouts of flame harks back to his walk to school and back in the Winter in the dark. That passed close to the major chemical plants at that time, and they periodically burnt of waste gases in a gout of flame.

These daft things have been around since pre-pandemic, and have had a mixed reaction https://metro.co.uk/2019/10/05/liked-tide-pod-challenge-going-love-whisky-cocktail-capsules-10865974/

Oh dear - so sorry about Dunhill. It is tough having to be kind by saying goodbye to cat when it's their time. But it was the right decision Jacob. He had a great life with you and was absolutely well loved.

Well that was very interesting - thanks for posting that! Thinking of Shetland, we are going for a week of guided walking there in April. It The island group is bloody remote. Flight from Heathrow to Glasgow, and then another flight to Shetland. Reason for April is that it is before midges get going. Summer is the time these blood sucking bastards are a real Deet soaking, mesh mask wearing nightmare.

Happy birthday Jeff!

I had no idea your mum had dementia, Jacob. It is much rougher on family than it is for those with the condition. Carole's dad went that way. He was a Fire Commander. But dementia is no respecter of what you did in working life. And Dunhill - although that is fixable with antibiotics or some such. So sorry for your troubles.

You heard the latest? In the Commons, BJ accused Kier Starmer of failing to take action to bring child and vulnerable adult abuser Jimmy Saville to justice. As a direct consequence of this, the head of Downing Street Policy Munira Mirza , and having worked alongside BJ for 14 years, resigned today with a blistering attack on him https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/exclusive-boris-s-policy-chief-quits-over-jimmy-savile-slur

I had no idea that Koss was still alive, but RIP John Koss. My first pair of headphones were a new pair of PRO4AA that I bought new in 1974. Long gone. To remind myself what an uncomfortable thing they were I bought a pair maybe three years ago. Removed the tar like decomposed foam in the cups and replaced it. Took off the rock hard and empty fluid cups, and replaced them. Still bloody uncomfortable! Like a head clamp. And oddly, not that good in terms of sound quality in hindsight. Second headphones I bought were not very old second hand ESP6's. And that got me into electrostatic phones. Amazing things as compared with anything I'd heard before. Long gone. But I (again recently) bought a pair of ESP9 - again a bit of nostalgia. Needed the fluid seals replacing. Again sounds superb. The energizer is a horror story though - a spaghetti of wiring and completely unserviceable. And those electrostatic phones were what ultimately got me into Stax. So again, RIP. What a company he founded!

Here is another wonderful thing at Cheltenham - dining table with pitchfork frame. Made in 1915. Because the records exist, it is know that it too 688 hours (17x40 hour weeks!) to build and sold for $61:18s (£6700 in today's money) https://agmlib.cheltenham.gov.uk/Details/collect/6841

I'm lucky to have a fine museum not far from where I live (in Cheltenham https://agmlib.cheltenham.gov.uk/home). Mostly the Arts and Crafts furniture being the things that interest me. Speaking of Wenge, there is a piece by Alan Peters there, in which the main structure is Wenge, with drawers from Wenge and Yew. It is a thing of Japanese-inspired beauty, made by Peters in 1985. A serving table. Looks minimalist, until you get up close and look at the detail, even down to the treatment of the inside of the drawers. http://agmlib.cheltenham.gov.uk/wwwopacxImages/wwwopac.ashx?command=getcontent&server=images&value=1986.1392.jpg&width=350&height=350 Peters learnt his skills from Edward Barnsley, who he joined as an apprentice in the early 40's. At that stage Barnsley had no power, and absolutely everything was by hand. Peters was somewhat quirky - the only hand plane he ever used - for just about everything - was a #7.

That reminds me of a joke. One that goes back to the dimly recalled telegraph office. German shepherd walks into the telegraph office, puts its paws on the counter and says "woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof". The teller says "That is only nine woofs. You realize you can have a tenth woof for the same price" The dog replies "But then it wouldn't make sense"

I bought a London Plane board to make my son a chopping board. The one-man woodshop ( https://mactimbers.com/ ) I visited had 4" thick boards about 15" wide. Heavy sucker. This was too wide to go through my planer, so I asked it he could take the waney edge off. He fired up the biggest saw I have clapped eyes on. It was sited outside under a tarp. "I've only got a 30" blade in it, although it takes up to 48", which is a bit excessive". He fired it up, and with several distinct acceleration stages it became a screaming blur. He sets the fence distance and hoiks this monster plank onto the bed. It went through that chunky plank like a hot knife through butter. He'll use a push stick, I thought. Nope. The last part of the cut he just put one hand on either side of the blade and pushed it through. I almost couldn't watch. SawStop? Not a chance. One slip with that sucker and a limb comes off.

I have some big suckers outside as security lights. More like a photon cannon than a light. Anyone making the mistake of trying to break in the back of our house will stand a chance of retina damage

Happy birthday!

RIP Meat Loaf. Aged too early at 74. Was lucky enough to see him live a few years ago, with the same female vocalist from Bat Out Of Hell.

Happy birthday!

Have a fantastic day Grahame, you ex-pat Brit, you! Happy birthday!!

There was a documentary series a few years back when the host visited the hottest, wettest and coldest places that were permanently occupied. The coldest place was somewhere in Siberia, where it would get down to below -60C. The kids did not get a day off school until it was lower than -40 (when C or F is the same). To get diesel vehicles going involved lighting a pan of warm fuel under the engine to warm it up enough to start. To bury the dead in the permafrost, they had to light a fire on the ground and dig out a few inches. Repeat as necessary until the hole was deep enough. But the problem was the ground behaved so oddly between summer and winter that the coffins would resurface after some years. So there was a continuous process of reburying the dead.

Oddly enough I envy those on this list that get real snow and some chilly temperatures. In the UK snow is now a rarity, and it rarely gets below zero at all - perhaps a degree C or two overnight but that is it. Last year we got about 5mm snow for a day, then it melted next day. The highlands of Scotland get some, but bugger all down South. Currently between 8C and 10C daytime temperature, which is bonkers for this time of year. The bloody rhubarb has started to grow!

That is seriously cold.