blakeyboy

I still have trouble with this. It's like someone got things muddled up years ago, and everyone since blindly followed. My problem goes like this: I realised many many years ago, medals can be lifted, but if you twist them, this will probably damage the pin or the cloth. So you mount a medal so that if you want to read the back, you lift it up, like an old-fashioned nurse's watch, not try to rip it off the wearer's jacket. I then found out the orientation labelling was the opposite of what made sense....!!!!!!!@ What?? Why? Medals have a horizontal 'hinge' at the top, intentionally. If they were to be twisted, they would hang from a single, rotatable point......

......I've really lost it this time. I realised that I'd had vehicles from the 1960's onwards, but never one from the '80's, so that's sorted. I last drove a Renault 4 when I drove the Open University one back from Lisbon in 1986, with a large geologist and a pile of rocks, and I couldn't believe how simple and capable this little car was..... I was a fan of Minis at the time, but the 4 was an eye-opener.

What if? If humans realised there would be no human presence on Earth after the next 100 or so, what would they do? If the older members started to go crazy and just have wars and stuff, the younger lot would ask for their children to have a future on a planet that wasn't a polluted wreck, but would that last generation, when getting old, just stop caring about what the planet would be like in a 1000 years time? Which aspect of human nature would prevail in the end? Good or bad?

Yes..... 'Grading' , in my mind at least, refers to the ridiculous practice of paying people to tell you what you already knew, so you can sell to a twat who can't tell and won't believe the seller, and, as such, is an obnoxious word and should be removed or replaced. 🙂 All the other words are are fine with me.

Don't get it- that Churchill looks way over VF to me...BU if the photo is right...

My wife bought a large camper van off our friends very cheaply when they bought a new one, and just loves it. I'd rent one cheaply out of season and you'll find out if it suits you very quickly! I mean a camper van, not a wife...

It's all over the trade in vintage studio gear, to the point where I've had a client call me about a certain bit of kit, a 12 channel mixer that's up for sale at a dealer in London for £60k, and I was asked "is this guy on 'effing' drugs?" Answer? No, just greedy. I saw a bit of kit that isn't that rare, and usually sells for £4k, put on by a twat on a website for £7k, and when it didn't sell, put back on for £13k, and, just I was thinking this type of selling couldn't get more sad, I read the blurb accompanying this comedy listing, and it contained a made-up "quote" from _me_ about how great this bit of kit was!!! I pressed "Launch".... my God he got a rocket.........how desperate and arrogant.....this type of stuff is rampant..... ......have a look at the classic Ford market as well.....who in their right mind would pay £60k for a Capri????....

Will somebody please remind me never to buy a coin from Atlas? I'm so worried that I might do so accidentally.... I hate all this crap - gouge gouge gouge.....

I had a studio gear dealer on the phone from Ontario yesterday, and he is sick to the back teeth of this - he refers to such stuff as 'gouging' and it's becoming endemic in many fields of interest and commerce worldwide.

This is madness....

Last year, despite all the climate change and pollution woes, I saw more dragonflies, hawkers, and damselflies than I can remember. Was this down to last year's weather? Or is this year going to be similar?

Eurgh....came back from Brussels in early november. Tested negative...yeah right.... holy crap....I told Erica that I was going to sleep again ( 4 days by then without going downstairs) and if I felt even _slightly_ worse when I woke up she was going to be calling someone.... REALLY not funny...never had chest problems like that before. I'm slim and fit for my age, and it hit me real hard. Lost a mate last month- big time anti vaxer - overweight idiot and sure enough, yet another covid hospital bed and death.... Keep going Jerry!!

Hmmm..yeah---I'm gambling-- just put out all my big tropical stuff, and took the straw cage off my Musa Basjoo clump. Last year was that very very dry April, which stuffed the woodland seed sowing I did...£70 worth of nothing....!

...is that a spele impedimers you have? oh folly...

it's a green corrugated steel village hall in Worcestershire we've bought to live in......if we survive the madness! My favourite blue plaque says: "Dr. Heisenberg might have lived here."

Oh....I used to know this......

Did that last week- put the metalwork in the car park. Hopefully gone now!! Not going through the pain of putting another one up, since we uncovered a lovely roof and a lovely proscenium arch that's WW1 vintage: Before: After:

Phoned up EMR today- nice lady in Southampton depot doing the answering- she said that you take copper coins,( or cuni, for that matter, ) and they bung 'em under the tester...... (oh- also, split your ally up into cast, extruded or rolled- clean extruded has shot up, for some reason.....)

What??? How bizarre - I use the one in Bedford, and they are used to them, and put them in 'heavy copper'.......

Not sure whether I've posted this before, but it's entertaining trying to imagine where the dots should go that represent friends, family, and acquaintances ......:-)

An excellent assessment.

I'm going to the cinema this week, apparently. I've been invited to a bowel cancer screening. Not sure what it's about....

I think there are more important things to worry about- so Crimea river....

I wish I could reply, but I find the whole arcane process of masters and dies and negatives and positives utterly bamboozling, along with things like some letters etc double struck, which is then explained by die movement, when obviously everything would be double, not just one bit.... Don't get me started on why only the waves disappear when dies get filled, not any other areas...that's just mad to me....