WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Big Kev]

The 'thanks' facility can save a post but show you've read and approved. Personal preference I suppose. Nowt wrong with 'good day' as long as you mean it.
What grabbed me was losing my TV signal early in the evening. Funnily enough, Channel 4 survived the longest! Either I have had terminal failure or, more likely I suspect, the dish, mounted on the west side of the chimney stack to be as unobtrusive as possible, has been covered by drifting snow. Still off this morning. I shall survive!

Snow, or even heavy rain, will interfere with your satellite signal. With the old analogue systems it was just a degredation in quality. Unfortunately digital is either on or off. I still had a freeview signal from West Marton.

[Belle]

That was fun ( would give you a couple of exclamation marks but I don't want to upset you!!) oh no!

[catgate]

Looking out of the window at the cottonwool like fog covering Barnoldswick, Kelbrook and Foulridge.

Wonderful.
The Yorkshire dales are magical places and I was very sorry to leave them, but I was extremely happy to find that the Vale of York is infinitely drier and warmer.

[Stanley]

Yes but I can remember some remarkable fogs in the Vale of York in the days when I delivered regularly at Lincoln and Carleton Dairy at 05:30 in the morning.... When you surmounted the rise at Gringley on the Hill it was a sea of fog as far as the eye could see. Happy Days!

[Tardis]

Whilst I was delivering my quota of letters:

The number of people who haven't cleared the snow from the path at the front of their house

But a big thumbs up to whoever it was who dug out the elderly lady on Cooperative Street, and cleared the path all the way to the steps down into the co-op car park.

[catgate]

Yes but I can remember some remarkable fogs in the Vale of York in the days when I delivered regularly at Lincoln and Carleton Dairy at 05:30 in the morning.... When you surmounted the rise at Gringley on the Hill it was a sea of fog as far as the eye could see. Happy Days!

The nearest Gringley on the Hill I can find is down in Lincolnshire near Gainsborough. Was it perhaps clouds of steam escaping from the Marshall Works.
Or did you mean Garowby Hill, up on the Wold about 7 miles East of York. That, however, is rather more than "a rise".

[Stanley]

Catty, I meant what I said.
LCC gritter traversed Butts three time yesterday, no sign of any meaningful quantity of salt. Seems obvious to me that they are only 'showing the flag' on side roads. Crazy when you consider that the major cost is the actual delivery, not the salt. Source is my mate Garry, B&D's driver when he delivered my coal, he was taking particular notice.

[Nolic]

The grit in the bin near my house is more sand that salt and is useless. Nolic

[Tardis]

The grit bin on the co-op car park is half full of water

[Jamie]

After seeing the salary of Fabio, I think we have got Simon Hester on the Cheap.

Jamie

[Whyperion]

I dont think Fabio's salary was for single year and was conditional on certain qualifications , it has been mis-reported.

[Stanley]

Kev, forgot to thank you for confirmation it was snow that was affecting my satellite signal. Seems to be OK now, signal strength and quality running at about 75%.
What grabbed me was that the frost opened up the Stepmother's Blessing on my right thumb. Dry air that causes it and I always forget to put grease on it. If you don't know what I am talking about, lucky you! They are painful little sods!
Comrade I noted that the 'grit' was about 85% sand and small stones last winter and it is the same now in the bins. I suspect that the gritters are using better quality rock salt. certainly nothing like the quality we used to get from the Cheshire mines. The mine operators were asked last winter why we were importing salt when there are unlimited resources in the mines and they said it was because councils weren't buying and holding stocks, they were buying at the last minute. 'Just in Time' stock management. The problem is that there isn't enough storage space at the mines and so stocks are used quickly and after that the supply is limited to daily output. You are right about what is in the bins, possibly even worse than 15% salt. It just sits there and freezes! How's the cold?

[Tizer]

If I hear anything more about Harry Redknapp....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/cartoon/

[Stanley]

A local butcher got a telephone call early yesterday morning from a lady who wanted to know if his stocks were adequate enough to supply quite a large quantity of prime cuts of meat. He listened to the list and said that he could do it and asked the delivery address. It was in London but the lady said not to worry she'd send a courier. Cash was transferred electronically and he set about cutting and packing the order. At 2pm a taxi based in Blackpool drew up outside the shop and by 3pm the order was on its way to London. The taxi driver said they had quoted £400 for the trip and it had been paid immediately. So, someone in London knows where the good meat is and has sufficient funds to get it! The butcher said he'd done a rough calculation based on London prices for the same quality of meat and thought that the lady had probably saved quite a lot of money by getting it off him. Evidence of a North/South divide?

[Tripps]

I do wish I'd been born without the immediate knee jerk response to tales like this of "I don't believe it". Life would be so much simpler.
I'm not saying it's not true, just giving my immediate reaction.

[catgate]

They must have some terrible meat down there.

[Tizer]

This site should allow comparison of meat prices geographically but it seems difficult to make direct comparisons and the North-West doesn't exist! http://www.meat-prices.co.uk/

[Whyperion]

Apparently a salt ( from Ireland ) and sand mix gives the best anti-freezing temp range for highway use, its to do with the ways the water molecules react with the mixtures varying the freezing point.

[Gearce]

What's happened to the avatars?

Also has my last visit (Friday, February 10, 2012) wrong in the User information panel in the Portal

[Stanley]

David, butcher is known to me and his wife confirmed the story. Definitely kosher.
Whippy, funny how good rock salt did a better job for all those years! Grit in mixture give mechanical grip and only becomes useful when temperature drops below the level where the salt is working. This is far lower than the temperatures we normally experience and I fear it is being used as justification for using cheaper imported materials. I see that our local MP has fallen for the same canard, he told a constituent the other day that it was too cold for the salt to work. If you don't believe me, try putting some pure salt down, works like a charm at far lower temperatures than we have at the moment.
Ground coffee has shot up in price so I have cut down to one pint instead of two in the morning. Did not feel deprived! Probably better for me as well.

[PanBiker]

Have a look at these:

Road Salt for Winter Safety

Which gives the temperature that rock salt is effective to for melting ice as -21°C

Quite a bit colder than we have had so far this year.

Here is the Wiki on Halite to give it it's proper name.

On the same subject, I was thinking of the adverse knock on effect that an 85%/15% mix of sand or grit to salt will have on the drains. All that sand and grit has to go somewhere and that is into the top-water drainage system, not a particularly good idea I think. Council drain cleaner seems to be more of a rarity as each year passes.

[Tizer]

Ian, I had a look to see if there was information on the Web, but not much to be found. It seems to rely mostly on the grit being washed through the system and the councils having to do some extra cleaning of the drains. Where it ends up depends on whether it goes through the sewage or storm drain pipes. Grit has to be settled out at the sewage plant otherwise it damages the pumps - but it can also damage pumps if these are in the pipe system on the way to the plant. In the storm drains it gets washed into rivers. It all sounds a bit ad hoc!

[Callunna]

Roads and paths still treacherous despite gritting. I had fun skating along Valley Gardens this afternoon, not helped by a boisterous dog and a bag full of tools. So when I had to go out again, I decided to use the boot spikes which I bought from Birro’s earlier this year.

I’d heard less than enthusiastic comments about them from other people who found they pinged off easily, but I can report that - after a bit of a struggle to get them on properly (boo hoo, I broke a nail!) - they are absolutely blooming marvellous. Really! A tenner well spent if it avoids broken bones or injured pride.

Perhaps we should rely more on boot spikes and winter tyres for our vehicles than blanketing the place with ineffective gritting?

[Callunna]

If I hear anything more about Harry Redknapp....

Harry who?

[Whyperion]

Salt / Grit , My answer came from a recall of a Countryfile? interview down at a LCC depot there was a science explanation given , not a cost one. Salt does make better sense to me - it disolves in water Last time I looked Grit didnot !