WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Wendyf]

Oh dear! I hope you haven't done any lasting damage.

[PanBiker]

I don't think so, I'll survive. Stiffening up a bit with the jarring, I think my ribs are the worst. Feels a bit like when I fell off my bike on the coast to coast a few years ago.

[Wendyf]

I did something to my ribcage last week, I was bent double trying to pull a tough nettle out of my muck heap when I felt something go pop! I think it might be an intercostal muscle but it hurts when I lie on that side.

[Tripps]

My sympathy to you both. My consultant on my recent 5 year checkup asked why I still used a walking stick. I said I was it was no comment on his workmanship, but I was scared of falling, and it was a precaution against doing so. It helps and gives me confidence. He nodded wisely.


This attracted my attention tonight Comic Con bans Cosplay Cup - no me neither. I think I may be rapidly losing touch with the modern world - not just the hobby itself but peoples' attitude to it. Goodness knows what they would make of my new Britannia Coconut dancers mug.

[Stanley]

Ian, hard luck. I did exactly the same thing on a flagstone edge opposite the Post Office. Nothing to do with old age China, it's badly laid flagstones!
David, if they were running three looms in the mill they'd be too tired to 'Cosplay'.
Nothing new under the sun but perhaps they couldn't spell masquerade.
Remember my pics of the Puffer Jenny wreck on Eigg? I had a message this morning from a lad whose grandfather worked on the boat.... Small world!

[chinatyke]

Ian, hard luck. I did exactly the same thing on a flagstone edge opposite the Post Office. Nothing to do with old age China, it's badly laid flagstones!

Only joking. Hope you are OK Ian. I fell in June and cracked a rib when I slipped on wet tiles so I know how it hurts. I didn't dare to sneeze for the next few weeks!

[Cathy]

Wendy and Ian, . I hope your both back to normal very soon.

[Stanley]

What's 'normal'?

[Wendyf]

I'm fine, it only hurts when I lie on it.

[Stanley]

I can't help remembering a song they used to sing on 'The Stick Buddy Jamboree' on AFN when I was in Berlin. It was a country and western song about a man pinned to a tree by arrows through his body. He is singing (!) "It hurts inside where it don't show". I always said that was the problem with things like a click rib or back-ache. There's no blood!

[PanBiker]

Oh, I had plenty of blood as well but am mending up. The various cuts and grazes made themselves known in the shower this morning. The pain above the ribcage at the right is a jarred pectoral I think, back of my upper left arm is sore as that took the impact in the reflex to break my fall. Nowt that a couple of paracetamol wont sort in the short term. Cuts and grazes will sort themselves.

I'm not suing anyone, it was my neighbours grate over the cellar window as is the norm on Bessie Street. Been there a long time and I should know better. Anyway, the blame game and constant yearning for litigation only adds to the crappy state that society is in at the moment and I'm not adding to that nonsense.

[Marilyn]

I have the tiniest chunk taken out of my knuckle when opening the door of a shop the other day. Do you think it will grow over and heal? No...it remains a raw wound and catches on everything. Sticking plasters annoy me. I need the air to get to it for it to heal ( meanwhile...everything else on earth seems to be getting at it)

[Tripps]

I'm not suing anyone, it was my neighbours grate over the cellar window as is the norm on Bessie Street. Been there a long time and I should know better. Anyway, the blame game and constant yearning for litigation only adds to the crappy state that society is in at the moment and I'm not adding to that nonsense.

Quite - I agree, which is one of the reasons I haven't sent my details to any ambulance chasing company to retrieve any PPI insurance I may have paid out. In this instance I might be tempted though especially if I was on good terms with my neighbour, and he/she had had third party liability insurance.

[PanBiker]

I consider my recent claim for miss sold PPI insurance fair game as it was a straightforward case of fraud on behalf of the bank, perpetrated against thousands of unsuspecting customers. It's only right that they should give compensation. My neighbour on the other hand regardless of insurance status does not deserve slapping for my mistake.

[Tizer]

I'm sorry to hear about your fall, Ian. I've only just caught up with the news. I hope it all heals fast. I kept getting annoyed by one of those small water company covers that they put in the pavement over water meters. It was jammed in but not at all level and one side was at least an inch above the paving. What made it worse was the location - right opposite the local shops where there's lots of foot traffic. One day I saw a van belonging to the water company outside our house so I rushed out and told him where it was and asked him to sort it. Next time I went to the shops it was flat. A few days later it was jammed up again. Now it's down again!

[Stanley]

Maz. Skin on a knuckle can be very slow to heal because of the constant movement of the skin and yes, you keep catching them! I had that same trouble when I tried to cut my finger off in the shed.
Flood alert in Earby.
The horrible reports coming in from Syria.....

[Stanley]

Trump springing a surprise on the Dunn family at the White house by having Anne Sacoolas waiting in the next room. The Dunns refused a meeting. Trump chasing a cheap news opportunity? (LINK)

[Stanley]

The fact that the DUP seem to be in charge.....
The way that food prices in the supermarket are steadily rising.

[Cathy]

Christmas prices are definitely being charged in the supermarkets already. I got quite a shock last week. So now is the time to start buying any Christmas extras , bit by bit, and put aside.

[Marilyn]

( or decide you shall go away for Christmas and will not be available to cater for anyone!)

[Stanley]

Here in the UK I reckon we're seeing a Brexit Effect already. Stocks on shelves are thinning out, some items vanish for days at a time. I reckon their stocking budget has been badly hit by stockpiling for B day all over again plus Xmas stock. If we knew what a knife edge food supplies are on there would be general panic!
There's a definite nip creeping into the weather, we slowly descend into winter. Snowfall at low level in the far North of Scotland yesterday. I have declared it Crombie time.

[Tizer]

This is a good 68 seconds of video!...
`Channel Tunnel 25th anniversary: England to France in 68 seconds' LINK
Don't miss the line at the bottom of the video image following the path of the train across the channel, following the chalk. The bit near the end too, showing how wriggly the route is, up and own, left and right. It's too easy to think the tunnel is a straight line without seeing a video like this.

[Stanley]

Brilliant! Nice that it was a lady driving the train!
That video explains why my idea for fire prevention in the tunnel using water troughs between the lines couldn't have worked. I did suggest it to them but got a polite brush off. (Same result for my scheme to stop ferries capsizing due to water shifting to the low side of the ferry....)
What has grabbed me is that after separating my wool socks for a separate wash I have put them in the normal 60 degree wash! Ah well, they may not have shrunk too much......

[Tripps]

Speaking of train drivers - It was the 20th anniversary of the Ladbroke Grove serious crash recently. there was a good description of the event by a survivor. I couldn't help comparing and contrasting the account in the Guardian, with Harold Evans', (former editor of The Times) memories of his train driver father's training. Both documents are worth reading. Chalk and Cheese.

Ladbroke Grove crash 5th Oct 1999.

The construction of a new line to Heathrow airport in the early 1990s had required the erection of electrical equipment, and this was carried on overhead cables above the trains. Train drivers had to try to pick out the signal that governed the passage of their train through a maze of overhead electrical equipment, which they often described as being like spaghetti. SN109 was passed at red with worrying frequency. In October 1995, there was a crash at Royal Oak, near Paddington, and an inquiry was held to determine the causes. A Railtrack engineer submitted a report analysing the causes of the high number of spads in the Paddington area and suggesting 11 possible improvements.

In the following years, committees were set up, talking shops opened, any number of suggestions were made and reports written, but, on the ground, virtually nothing happened to improve the situation. Railtrack was supposed to convene a signal sighting committee to investigate any signal that had been spadded more than once within a set timeframe. Six of the spads at SN109 should have resulted in the convening of a signal sighting committee. Not once did that happen.

Thus when Hodder set off from platform nine on the morning of 5 October 1999, he was driving a route that was known to be very difficult for train drivers. He had qualified as a driver just 14 days before the crash. In various respects, his training had been inadequate. He had not been instructed directly about the risk of spadding at particular signals. He had not attended a spad awareness day. The tests he had taken to become a train driver had not included questions about the area between Paddington and Ladbroke Grove.

None of this provided a full explanation for why he had not seen or reacted to the red signal. I have never had any doubt about the answer, even though the evidence from experts at the inquiry was equivocal. All my memories of the crash were drenched in the bright sunlight of that morning. It was cloudless, and the sun would have shone directly on to the east-facing signals that controlled Hodder’s journey out of London. Anyone who has driven a car will have experienced the effect that sunlight can have on traffic lights, making it difficult or impossible to appreciate the colour that is actually illuminated.

***************************************
From Harold Evans memoirs (1950's ?)

In time the Passed Cleaner could hope to become a Red Ink Fireman, on the footplate for a few months, then all being well, a Black Ink Fireman, on the rosters for regular firing; and finally Passed Fireman, tested to drive any train in his depot. As a Red Ink Driver he would be on the roster for driving in holiday periods, and the eventually a Black Ink Driver, the top of the ladder. No other craft or profession exacted such a lengthy 'apprenticeship'. Dad carefully annotated the details of every driving turn he acquired. It typically took twenty years to get there. 'Dead man's Shoes,' said Dad.

A driver could not take a train on a route until he knew its every particularity – the siting of every , the sounds and shadows that might guide him in fog or snowstorm when visibility was near zero, the shape of every curve in the track, the length and darkness of every tunnel, the trickiness of every ascent where extra steam and sand might be needed, the location of every set of points where they might be switched to a different line. They called this familiarisation 'learning the road' and Dad learned many roads, rattling most happily along the North Wales coast where many years later at Bluebell wood cemetery at Coed Bell in Prestatyn he was to find his final resting place.

[Stanley]

David, one of the glories of the old railway companies was how seriously they approached what was essentially a very long apprenticeship scheme. It ensured that by the time a man got to be a driver he had learned everything from how to clean an engine upwards.
The Quantas flight from NY to Sydney, 19 hours. I once flew from Perth to LA with a refuelling stop at Sydney. 23 hours so I can't understand why they were agonising about jet lag. You got to LA an hour earlier in the day you left Perth!