WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Stanley]

Remember that when Mallard did 126mph one of the main bearings overheated and stopped her......
Only one day to go till new bottom gobblers.....
Five tyres blew out at Silverstone yesterday. Pirelli have some questions to answer. See this LINK.

[Tardis]

Graham's Hierarchy of disagreement (Ad Hominem)

[Tardis]

Grant money available for music and art festivals, maybe a good link for next year:

http://www.superact.org.uk/ourbiggig/events/north-west

[hartley353]

Remember that when Mallard did 126mph one of the main bearings overheated and stopped her......
Only one day to go till new bottom gobblers.....
Five tyres blew out at Silverstone yesterday. Pirelli have some questions to answer. See this LINK.

Checked my facts before posting and memory still good, She was only 5 mths old at time of trial, and they Knew she had big end problems on the centre cylinder. In case they had overheating they fitted the centre bearing with a stink bomb full of aniseed oil, this is were Stanleys expertise comes in what was this stink bomb and how did it work.

[Stanley]

The Mallard bearings were bronze, lined with white metal. Though this has a lower melting point it was hot enough to boil the aniseed oil before the metal actually melted and destroyed the bearing. The distinctive smell warned the crew that the white metal was on the verge of failure and they were able to slow down before the bronze bearing or the surface of the shaft could be damaged. When this happened on a shaft bearing it was always known as a 'hot neck'. We used special high temperature grease in the shed on the shaft bearings so that in the event of a hot neck the grease melted and kept us going to the end of the shift. In a new engine this was almost always caused by fitting to close. Remember that a loco is moving and flexing all the time it is running and this can affect the fit of the bearings. Traction engines are very prone to this. John fitted his gearing bearings too close in the horn plates and they seized. He didn't like me giving the new bearings 1/16" clearance but it was a cure. Classic case was getting the bearings too close on the outside coupling rods on the driving wheels of a loco. If they weren't loose the engine sized on a sharp bend in the track. That's why, when running light, they almost always clanked. Funny thing is that the faster the engine runs, the less noise you get from the slack fit of the bearings.
What grabs me today is the fact I get me teeth back!

[EileenDavid]

The euro going down again. Eileen

[hartley353]

Many thanks to Stanley for an excellent explanation of Mallards problem, my best guess would have been it was a nasal indicator. They must have had good noses in those days to smell it on the footplate.

[Tardis]

The Pendle Council website has Matthew Kennedy as Chair of Barnoldswick Town Council

Has their been a change? Has Ken Hartley resigned?

http://www.pendle.gov.uk/info/723/paris ... h_councils

[Bruff]

More good stuff from our ever-industrious Education Secretary (in England).

Ten 'golden rules' of writing have been circulated by him to his civil servants in the DfE. To whit:


1. If in doubt, cut it out.

2. Read it out loud – if it sounds wrong, don't send it.

3. In letters, adjectives add little, adverbs even less.

4. The more the letter reads like a political speech the less good it is as a letter.

5. Would your mum understand that word, phrase or sentence? Would mine?

6. Read the great writers to improve your own prose – George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh, Jane Austen and George Eliot, Matthew Parris and Christopher Hitchens.

7. Always use concrete words and phrases in preference to abstractions.

8. Gwynne's Grammar is a brief guide to the best writing style.

9. Simon Heffer's Strictly English is a more comprehensive – and very entertaining – companion volume.

10. Our written work should be the clearest, most elegant, and most enjoyable to read of any Whitehall department's because the Department for Education has the best civil servants in Whitehall.


Now, I like to think I'm not bad at writing. Not brilliant, but OK whilst there's always room for improvement. But looking at that list I was puzzled by the construction of one rule as it just didn't seem right, and that was [10]. Others in the ether have picked it up and explained why it seems the Education Secretary has been hoist by his own petard (which I couldn't quite explain). Can folk work out what's wrong?

That said, I've mentioned before I don't get too bothered over grammar unless it is a howler of such magnitude it renders the prose meaningless. After all, that one guide to grammar is picked above others there, with another thrown in, suggests that there is no standard. At least it does to me. I gamely split my infinitives left, right and centre. And quite often start a sentence with 'and'. But on occasions will start one with 'but'. As for not ending a sentence with a preposition well, that's for others to fret about.

Richard Broughton

[Thomo]

Hear, Here, Ear!

[Tizer]

Richard, like you I'm not too bothered about split infinitives and the like and prefer that priority is given to writing that's easy to understand and pleasing to read. Without searching on the Web I'm not sure exactly what they're criticising about Rule 10 but I suspect it revolves around the phrase "clearest, most elegant, and most enjoyable to read of any Whitehall department's". I guess I would have written "clearer, more elegant, and more enjoyable to read than that of any other Whitehall department." For the original version to make sense it probably needs to read "of any Whitehall departments" (i.e. without the apostrophe in departments).

Oliver Kamm, in his column `The Pedant' in The Times, has been laying into the Plain English Campaign and the Apostrophe Protection Society because they simply don't know what they're talking about. They make mistakes in their claims while trying to enforce `rules'. Kamm's position is that there are no rules, just common usage which changes day by day, year by year.

[Tripps]

" Kamm's position is that there are no rules,"

perhaps - when you are as intelligent as he is. Otherwise - rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.
I have an English grammar book which belonged to my late mother in law. It's terrifying, and must have been torture for the young. Dated about 1920. I'm still wrestling with the difference between gerunds and participles. I also have one of her school prize books called "Cripple George". (amazingly still available to buy on abebooks) I turn to it whenever I hear the phrase 'political correctness gone mad ' - and reflect that I think modern attitudes, though far from perfect, are better.

Ref - Gove's rules of writing - I once had Michael Heseltine at the head of my tree. and when he arrived, his minions sent out an email to all staff saying the Minister was dyslexic, and would only take submissions written in in large font , and not occupying more than one side of A4 paper. He seemed to get by with that. though never quite to the top of the greasy pole.

[Bodger]

Health & Safety ?
http://i.imgur.com/6b3NOC1.jpg

[Bodger]

further to the previous
http://imgur.com/r/historyporn/6b3NOC1

[PanBiker]

Some fascinating pictures on that site Bodge. As for the one above, Elf and Safety indeed, if only they knew, probably did later in life.

[Stanley]

Richard, I had an old-fashioned grammar School education by masters who would have retired long ago if it hadn't been for the war but I have no recollection of ever being taught 'grammar'. Judge then how surprised I was when, as a mature first year at Lancaster in the English department, I got top marks for grammar in the end of year exams. They judged me to be an example for everyone else! All I can say is that I must have got the facility by osmosis, probably reading my Wizard, Hotspur and Rover mainly....
As for taking advice from Mr Gove.... All he had to do was tell them to read, learn and inwardly digest 'A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language' By Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik, widely recognised as the bible of grammar. A good, informative 1,800 page read.....

On a more mundane note: My new teeth are OK. At the moment they feel like a small dustbin lid because my jaw has adjusted to having none over the last few weeks but that's to be expected. I shall soon get used to them. One surprising thing that I notice is how sharp they are! We get used to our teeth wearing down slightly over the years and these are much more efficient at chewing. The dentist said she'd see me in 6 months for a check up, I told her no, it would be 55 years....

Jeremy Hunt says he is disappointed that NHS Direct got their figures wrong during the contract negotiations and are now pulling out of at least two contracts to run the 111 service. So it's their fault?

A woman complains about a Sainsbury check-out assistant who refused to check a woman out until she got off her mobile phone. She evidently thought the customer was being dismissive. I happen to agree with the assistant. How would the customer react if the assistant had done it to her?

[Bruff]

On grammar and the Education Secretary's rule [10] above, the issue folk spotted with what is written (aside from there probably being scope for it being 'better' written) is this. The superlatives 'clearest', and 'most' suggest first among a number of departments. Thus, the apostrophe should come after the 's' as 'departments' is clearly plural and referring back to the 'work' of those departments.

Now I am sure the Education Secretary could make a spirited defence of what is written. But that does rather suggest that given the debate, it's best not to prescribe any one 'grammar' as definitive.

I spilt infinitives left, right and centre largely on the basis of whether the prose scans better on reading. As I wrote above, to me at least, 'to gamely split infinitives' scans far better that 'to split gamely infinitives'. I do recognise though, that to some folk this is a heinous crime and my doing it would mark me out as another beggared by our failing educational system. Some suggest this 'rule' on infinitives comes from those hung-up on Latin, where you can't split them.

Richard Broughton

[Tizer]

A woman complains about a Sainsbury check-out assistant who refused to check a woman out until she got off her mobile phone. She evidently thought the customer was being dismissive. I happen to agree with the assistant. How would the customer react if the assistant had done it to her?

I agree too. Sainsbury's have been silly, they gave the woman a £10 voucher `as compensation' so they'll probably now have more customers using their phones during check-out and hoping for a `reward'. We make a financial transaction at the check-out and should be paying attention, not gabbling on the phone. As Giles Coren has pointed out, people on their mobile phones are `not here', they are elsewhere - which is why it's so dangerous to use a mobile phone whilst driving.

[Tardis]

Mallard 75 at the National Railway Museum:

http://www.nrm.org.uk/PlanaVisit/Events/mallard75.aspx

Hopefully see all 6 this weekend

[hartley353]

further to the previous
http://imgur.com/r/historyporn/6b3NOC1

Just as an add on. in 1980 I was offered the contract to remove Cranes and Gantries from a recently closed Asbestos factory in Trafford Park. When I viited the site the amount of fibres lying on the stuctures was huge, I of course declined the job. The workers in that plant must hae been sprinkled with this material every time the cranes ran over head.

[Bodger]

A an apprentice in the early 50s, the machine shop was steam powered, one of my jobs at shut down was to repair lagging on the pipes, a bag of asbestos fibre, a bucket of water, mix well, and apply, luckily i'm still here

[Stanley]

Snap Bodge! Read 'Magic Mineral or Killer Dust', the whole sorry story is in there. What is seldom addressed is the workers at the asbestos mines who were even more badly affected, the nearer to raw it is, the more dangerous.
Richard, I believe you may be right about the Classicists being more sensitive about grammar. In many cases it is a form of snobbery, It was no doubt a classicist who first wrote down the rules of grammar.... In my experience, the less a person reads, the more idiosyncratic their grammar.
Sir Norman Bettison in the news again. (LINK) Not been found culpable of anything as yet but if innocent he is definitely accident-prone. Think of the damage this does to public perception of the police.

[Tizer]

A an apprentice in the early 50s, the machine shop was steam powered, one of my jobs at shut down was to repair lagging on the pipes, a bag of asbestos fibre, a bucket of water, mix well, and apply, luckily i'm still here

Perhaps Guiness is the antidote Bodger, you should patent it!

[hartley353]

During the sixties we were issued with a new form of wall plug. This was prior to the electric drill, at that time we used a a star bit and hammer to make holes in walls. The new product came in a tobacco sized tin, and was a mixture of asbestos fibre and plaster dust, and required only water to mould into a plug the normal source of moisture would be spittle I believe it was called Phil Plug. It was only available for a couple of years before being withdrawn we all know why now.

[Tizer]

Talking of plugs (electric this time), I was discussing with a retailer about buying an electric fire and that I'd take the plug off, feed the wire through a hole drilled in the side wall of the chimney breast, wire the plug back on and put it in the socket which is a few inches from the chimney breast. He told me that if I remove the plug I will be invalidating the manufacturer's warranty. Is this true?