The really boring and totally pointless snippets thread IV

[Ex-Ascot]

Nice photo OSFO. Guess those are frog hills. Was always turbulent flying over them. Probably frog hot air.

Another plonker. The lagoon is so dry on the other side a vehicle track has developed. Some idiot has driven along it in a white transit van and has decided to back in towards the water. He is now axle deep in mud. They are trying to push it out. Not a chance in hell. Just rear wheel drive and the back of the chassis is on the ground.

With the floods in the UK just read an article produced on the depth of water various 4x4s can negotiate. It isn't much. Our Land Cruiser has a snorkel. For a quick river crossing we can go through about a metre. The problem is knowing the depth in the middle. We have been through some pretty deep water in the bush but with guides driving, who know the depth.

[Pontius Navigator]

Good Weather App?
Someone posted one but I lost the link. Can anyone suggest a good app?

Oddly enough, BBC Weather pretty good most of the time. For more interest, have you tried VentuSky.com

Thanks Jim. I will give it a try. I use Weather Underground and also Windy. I like the detail on WU and the flow charts on Windy. For local weather I simply ask Akexa.

[Pontius Navigator]

Stirrup pump or pogo stick?

My father was a wartime fireman (on Tyneside) and we had various accoutrements, including a stirrup pump.
Damn clever!

I was a Special Safety Team leader in the 60s and 70s. We had the same pumps then for decontamination. Hoses perished, washers in the pumps too. Then some bright spark for the idea of using a garden sprayer.

[Slasher]

Hope that they aren't working you too hard today Capt. What did you get for your birthday? A riot shield maybe.

Theyy are working me to death today sah. Birthdays mean nothin’. 2 x 4 hour LOFTs and one cadet reinforcement sesh of 2h. This is a 14 hour+ working day. The pay is what’s making all this tolerable. Surprisingly I’m still quite awake. Briefing for the child is in 7 mins.

Also surprisingly I tend to be where the riots aren’t. Yesterday it was over there. When I go over there it’s now going on over here. When I get back to over here it’s occurring elsewhere over there. Plain lucky I suppose, although rather than a riot shield I’d prefer having my trusty 7.62mm slung over me shoulder as a warning not to...er...sex with me otherwise I’ll sex you up with a few bullets!

Gotta go. Child is waiting in the briefing room.

[Ibbie]

Morning from A dry but cloudy Southampton.Also quite a wind blowing.
Plenty of those floating hotel resorts in port.

[OFSO]

Wife asked me to fix the chuck on her German mini angle grinder and on her ghastly made-in-Mexico Dremel. Working on the south terrace in sun just about tolerable. In front yard to the north so cold that after five minutes can't feel fingers.

When I think about all the aircrew shot down in WW-2 who made their way in inadequate clothing over the Pyranees in winter....brave guys.

[Wodrick]

Morning all,
Bright and sunny with a high haze, calm.

There be snow on them thar hills, nice shot *OFSO*
Our turn will come later, much later one hopes.

Wx station is working chatting to it's console accross the room.
Shop that provides mounting kits was closed yesterday.
Just about to go bracket hunting.

A band of rain approaches it's just passing Gib

[handsfree]

In for a warm up from pruning my apple tree. Pruning all done; all I have to do now
is chop up the prunings to fit in the bins. There be a cold wind frozzling the fingers as
I cut. The three other fruit trees will have to wait until the bins have been emptied
before I attack them.

[larsssnowpharter]

One is trying to be patient. Over the last couple of evenings, Señora Larss and the Sproglettes have put up the Christmas tree, decorated it as well as hanging other 'seasonal stuff' around the living area.

Got a black mark for saying, "FFS it's not even bloody December yet."

[ricardian]

With the floods in the UK just read an article produced on the depth of water various 4x4s can negotiate. It isn't much. Our Land Cruiser has a snorkel. For a quick river crossing we can go through about a metre. The problem is knowing the depth in the middle. We have been through some pretty deep water in the bush but with guides driving, who know the depth.

In my 12 years RAF service I spent two years with 604 Forwards Air Control Section (604 FACS) attached to 24 (Air Portable) Brigade. One memorable event was an assault landing on the beach near Faraid Head in the far north west of Scotland. We sailed up in an LSL (Sir Percival or Sir Lancelot, I forget which) which had a huge Mexeflote (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexeflote) hung vertically from the side. On arrival at the site the Mexeflote was released and the two huge diesel outboard motors were craned into position on it. The Mexeflote was driven around to the rear of the LSL and the vehicles & trailers were loaded onto it. Fortunately the sea was almost flat calm, even so the Brigade Major was very displeased to watch his Land Rover & trailer gracefully slide off the Mexeflote into about 30 feet of water. Undeterred we pressed on until the Mexeflote grounded in about 8 or 9 feet of water. The vehicles (a mixture of 3 tonners & Land Rovers) were driven off into 8 or 9 feet of water but panic ye not, British ingenuity triumphed because the vehicles had spent several weeks being "water-proofed" with a variety of plasticine-like substances and the addition of a snorkel for air intake & exhaust fume release. The drivers wore mask & snorkel while the driver's mate sat on the canvas tilt of vehicle with his boots on the driver's shoulders, kicking to indicate which way the driver should turn the wheel. Amazingly all seemed to work quite well and most of the vehicles survived the salt water immersion.
How this would work in a heavy swell or under fire was never mentioned

[Ex-Ascot]

One is trying to be patient. Over the last couple of evenings, Señora Larss and the Sproglettes have put up the Christmas tree, decorated it as well as hanging other 'seasonal stuff' around the living area.

Got a black mark for saying, "FFS it's not even bloody December yet."

When we lived in the Cotswolds, about a week before Christmas, we would go into the woods and collect holly, mistletoe, pine cones etc and arrange them on the mantelpiece, roof beams and wide window sills. The walls were three feet thick. That was it. Since 1999 we have done nothing.

I was about to announce that Mrs Ex-Ascot was being very brave sitting in the outside safari bathroom in the bath in another thunderstorm. She has just retreated. In this case I will give her the Légion d'honneur

Edit, good story Ricardian.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Nothing Xmassy appears till after Remembrance Day here. Since all the pretty lights look good in the cold clear air with the snow on the ground, plus it is a lot easier to hang lights to metal gutters when it's -1 not -15, we tend to get outdoor displays starting in the next week or so. A lot go up at Advent. Many people then take down the Santas, etc on Twelfth Night, but the lights will often be there till Candlemas/Imbolc.

[OFSO]

Oh the shame of it. Yesterday I put up a string of Led's on the terrace, bought (or rather stole*) for Christmas but look nice now. So early ! Quite disgraceful. Then made a bracket to hold their solar charger on the side of the sun awning mounting. Almost (but not quite) a perfect fit.

* Fitting subject for a rant, really. Cost €5. Waited at cash desk five minutes, nobody there. Put lamps back, went and had a coffee. Ten minutes later, back to shop, picked them up, back to checkout. Nobody there. Waited five minutes. No one in sight. Nobody to ask. Nobody interested in money in my hand. Looked round the shop, Marie Celeste. So thought bugger it, if you don't want my money.....

[Pontius Navigator]

When I think about all the aircrew shot down in WW-2 who made their way in inadequate clothing over the Pyranees in winter....brave guys.

Our History Society had a presentation by someone that had studied the escape lines. He had first hand stories and also photos. Taking photos was a huge security risk but they did it. Some showed lines of men in wartime escapees street clothes in a long line scaling the snow capped Pyrenees.

Resolute as well as brave.

[OFSO]

There's a excellent book on the subject. Mrs OFSO has it somewhere....

[4mastacker]

Listening to the local radio, it seems I just missed out on a juicy murder trial when I was on jury service. I got a run-of-the-mill "committing an assault whilst pissed/drugged up" trial. Scrote will be having his Xmas dinner in one of Aunty Betty's hotels.

[llondel]

We have our Christmas lights up on the front of the house. However, that's because I never took them down after last year. They haven't yet been turned on this season.

[jimtherev]

.....When were you at Benson? I was there Jan 83 for three years.

Did you ever come across an hon chaplain to Queen's Flight, Revd Bernard Railton-Bax? A disgraceful old rogue and (some would say inevitably) a mentor of mine. In his dotage used to get about on a 50cc moped; he, being 5'6" tall and about the same round the waist, looked like a floppy round black blob with a couple of spindly wheels sticking out underneath. (Never seen out without a cassock, he was of that generation.)
I'm proud to have his portable communion set, which he bequeathed to me... I'd had it for a couple of years before I noticed it is engraved A (crown) M.

Oh well, HM probably hasn't noticed.

[Woody]

One is trying to be patient. Over the last couple of evenings, Señora Larss and the Sproglettes have put up the Christmas tree, decorated it as well as hanging other 'seasonal stuff' around the living area.

Got a black mark for saying, "FFS it's not even bloody December yet."

For every Christmas Tree put up in November, an elf dies

[OFSO]

Ah yes, the frog hills. At 9000' occasionally see snow in July or August on Mt Canigou. Wife requested a trip out today so will be eating wild boar at a restaurant high in the Pyrenees founded by Franco's body guard. They used to have a very large signed photo of them with him, hanging in the restaurant. When democracy arrived in Spain the photo was moved into the kitchens. The joke used to be that when Franco's regime was restored, it would be moved back onto the waiting nail in the restaurant. So any day now, then. In fact may already be there after last week's elections.