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Ronaldo47

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Posts posted by Ronaldo47

  1. A nice example of the old use of the printed  long letter "s" when it appears at the start of, and within, a word. It is sometimes said that "all the s's are f's" ,  but if you look closely, whereas in the letter "f",  the horizontal bar extends on both sides of the vertical stroke, in the long letter  "s" , the horizontal bar only extends to the left of the vertical stroke. 

  2. Diluted Jeyes fluid seems to kill most things, but can leave a smell for a while afterwards. 

     

    The instructions used to recommend it for sterilizing greenhouse soil, but don't anymore. I think it might be because they would have to do the tests required by EC legislation to show it was safe in order to recommend it, despite generations of gardeners having used it for that purpose with no problems. 

     

    Rather like the Gardeners' Question Time panellist who, when asked how to get rid of greenfly, said that they used to just tell people to spray with dilute domestic detergent or washing-up liquid, but to use that method commercially under modern  H&S requirements would now involve donning complete body protective clothing, because if you get soap in your eyes it will cause irritation.  A panellist a few years later said you should wash the leaves with dilute detergent to wash away any dust, which was allowed, and if any greenfly got in the way, then that was just too bad. 

  3. 3 hours ago, Tonka said:

    I was told when I was at school back in 1976 that there were more trees in Birmingham then in the New Forest.

     

    We normally go through the New Forest via an unclassified road to  Beaulieu, then take the B3054 to get to the Lymington-Yarmouth ferry. The part we go through is indeed mostly devoid of trees, with large areas of rough grass and gorse, providing grazing and shelter for the New Forest ponies and cattle.  Once when the B3054 was closed, we were sent on an equally tree-less lengthy diversion.

  4. The trouble is that,  in lowland England, any piece of land that is neglected will usually revert to forest. Locally we have Shenfield Common, which Victorian photos show used to be open grassland with a few trees. I believe animals used to graze there. Now only the northern-most tip is grass, the rest having reverted to dense woodland all by itself.  

  5. 12 hours ago, Mike Tee said:

    Looks like all the work is happening on the access route - although 1 - 2 weeks to build a working pad is a bit much. For example, to cut a new camp site in the bush (during the wet season) we took one day, and the camp move for 150 people was half a day, that included living quarters, workshop, kitchens, showers, literally everything for 'living'. The guys would go off to the work site at dawn, and come back to a new site with everything working that evening. Those were the days!

    Last year a columnist in "Modern Railways"  mentioned how, in times gone by,  emergency maintenance at an inaccessible spot would mean a gang walking there, carrying their tools, lunch, water, a Primus stove for heating their kettle, and a pack of toilet paper. Nowadays H&S means they have to construct a temporary access road leading to a wheelchair-accessible amenity block, all of which results in delays and a vast increase in costs. 

    • Greenie 1
  6. That reminds me of a guy I used to work with who, when reminiscing about his days doing National Service,  mentioned the sergeant who ordered his squad to dismantle some tables, take them to another hut, and mantle them back together again.

    • Happy 1
    • Haha 1
  7. As it is being used to transport staff associated with a hydroelectric power station, presumably no problem with availability or cost of electric power.

     

    The Green Maritime plan envisaged that ferrys were likely to be the only class of vessel for which pure electric power would be practical.

    .

    • Greenie 1
  8. 29 minutes ago, magnetman said:

    No. 

    Heat pumps are a terrible scam.

     

    On a radio phone-in last year, someone was complaining that, after having upgraded her insulation, putting in double glazing, and replacing  her gas boiler by a heat pump, she had been rewarded by her house being awarded a lower energy rating than it had had with the gas boiler. This was because the star rating reflects running costs and the cost of the electricity required to run the heat pump was greater than the cost had been to run the gas boiler.

  9. We have a rodent problem in the garden at home. I bought what is said on the label to be "Formula B+ advanced rat killer". I started putting it out two months ago, but judging from the undiminished rate at which the bait is continuing to vanish, the rodents  seem more likely to die of obesity than poison. Its active ingredient is "0.0029%w/w (0.029g/kg) Brodifacoum."  

     

    The label says it should eliminate them within 35 days and if that doesn't work, call in a specialist. 

     

    Can anyone recommend a rat poison that works for them? 

  10. It has been mentioned on another thread about navigation lights that you can't just replace a filament bulb by a LED. The design of traditional navigation lights requires the presence of the compact filament of a tungsten bulb positioned accurately with respect to the refracting elements of the lens in order to produce the necessary sharp cut-off in beam angle. 

    • Greenie 1
  11. My uncle used to have a metal cage rat trap in his shed that he said they used to use before the war when they lived next door to a stable. He said they always used to drown them in a bucket of water.  However, there was a newspaper  report last year of someone being prosecuted for drowning a caged rat, as it was not considered to be a humane way of killing it.  

     

     

  12. You can get small tins (typically 14ml, = 1/2 fluid ounce in imperial) of transparent paint from shops that sell plastic model kits. I use it for restoring the colour of traditional incandescent christmas tree lights and for colouring clear bulbs when no coloured replacements are available.

  13. 2 hours ago, MtB said:

    The law here AIUI, is that if a person digs away the soil on his land he is responsible for providing support to the neighbour's soil. He or she cannot just allow the neighbour's land to collapse or subside as a result of their excavations. 

    I would think that the land slip would be considered to be an Act of God as it is not a result of positive action by the landowner. 

  14. My experience is that, whenever a government encourages you to do something different, its not to benefit you, but to save itself money. So you are usually better of maintaining the status quo.  As per the encouragement to  contract out of SERPS and move your occupational pension to a private pension debacle a couple of decades ago. 

    • Greenie 2
  15. On 04/03/2024 at 17:41, Pluto said:

     Regarding technical drawings, the various projections were only just being decided upon in the early 19th century, so anything before that tends to be more of a sketch than a detailed technical drawing. 

    I understand that the modern engineering drawing conventions that we use today, were first devised by the French, and were considered to be so much better than previous practice that they were originally classified as a State Secret. 

  16. At least we will still have the Llangollen due to it being also used to convey drinking water to the Midlands. I seem to recall that it was only maintained as a navigable waterway after WWII because a manager insisted that keeping it navigable was essential so that  maintenance craft could access the many sections with no road access. 

  17. This is still being broadcast at the time of writing, no doubt available from their web site later. I missed the beginning and came in when they were dewatering Telford's masterpiece, then dealt with dredging the Monty,  currently interviewing Mr. Parry who is discussing funding. 

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