The really boring and totally pointless snippets thread V

[PHXPhlyer]

Fox3:

If not for the storm you wouldn't have 16X internet speed!
The proverbial "Silver Lining"?

PP

[TheGreenAnger]

..and I'm back connected.
Only damage to my property from Fiona was to the internet aerial on my roof ridge, which broke off.
My internet comes from a friend a click down the road. He's been busy reconnecting the emergency services till now, and I was his first domestic customer.
I have a new aerial and a connection that is 16x faster than the old one. He's taking the afternoon off now.
I lost power from 2:20am Saturday to 4:30pm Sunday. My area was the first to be reconnected as the wind dropped here first to the limits for the power crews to work in their buckets (80km/h)
I understand about half the Island is still without power.
Saturday supper was prime rib steak and fries, with some Shiraz - As all RAF aircrew will remember: Survival Rule #1 - Any fool can be uncomfortable.

Does Rogers have any part in your internet configuration?

[TheGreenAnger]

In the corner of some foreign field.

Planning to attend this ceremony in Willingale on Sunday,

As a result of long planning and co-operation between the Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust (ABCT) - the world’s first national airfield charity - and various more local elements, three memorials will be unveiled during the weekend of 1/2 October 2022 to commemorate Hornchurch, Willingale and Matching Airfields.

RAF Ongar/Willingale, was a World War Two bomber airfield which opened in June 1943. American Martin B-26 Marauder medium bombers of the 387th Bombardment Group quickly moved in and attacked many tactical targets in occupied Europe until after D-Day. Following the departure of this unit, Chipping Ongar witnessed more mixed American and RAF use until after the end of World War Two, following which civil aviation occurred until 1948. As with Hornchurch much of this airfield has now vanished, though there is still some civil light aircraft use from a small part of the site.

Plenty of ghosts around there, in my fevered imagination anyway. I have often stood on the remains of the huge runway there on a blustery winter's afternoon and thought I heard a lone bomber returning... One can still find the detritus of war being uncovered on what remains of the airfield as it slowly returns to agricultural use

[CharlieOneSix]

TGA - your post mentioning Hornchurch airfield prompted me to look it up on Google Maps. Now a massive housing estate with nothing left of the airfield but a pill box on the south east corner. Thankfully the River Ingrebourne remains untouched so I was able to reference the airfield layout from my 1989 copy of Steve Willis and Barry Holliss's book 'Military Airfields 1939-1945'. Long before the days of Aircrew Selection at Biggin Hill I went to RAF Hornchurch as a keen Air Training Corps cadet when I was 15 in January 1960 to undergo a Pre-Assessment Selection for RAF aircrew - is that path still available I wonder? Sadly I failed the medical due to my eyesight and although I passed everything else I couldn't follow in my father's footsteps and become an RAF pilot, but with the RN having a lower eyesight standard for helicopter pilots the way forward opened up......

[llondel]

I used to live less than a mile from Hornchurch Country Park as a child, we used to go for walks there. Just looking back at that area I see the RAF influence, with Bader Way and Malan Square, as well as the RJ Mitchell Primary School and Airfield Way and others. The Paras used to do balloon jumps in the park and at one point I ran over to try to climb in the basket with them. I was probably only about 5 or six at the time.

[Wodrick]

Viz is ace as it's been windy all day.

1st Africa night of the Winter

[Karearea]

0.0°C and a little frost this morning; sun's up but some kind of high overcast keeping things cool for now.

Came across this article about hurricanes in past centuries in Novia Scotia, and the evidence they leave:

Woodlands shaped by past Hurricanes

[TheGreenAnger]

I used to live less than a mile from Hornchurch Country Park as a child, we used to go for walks there. Just looking back at that area I see the RAF influence, with Bader Way and Malan Square, as well as the RJ Mitchell Primary School and Airfield Way and others. The Paras used to do balloon jumps in the park and at one point I ran over to try to climb in the basket with them. I was probably only about 5 or six at the time.

At least the British had the decency to name something after Malan. In South Africa the right wing Afrikaner, Apartheid loving, English hating bastards, wrote him out of history! Actually it is unfair to blame the Afrikaners solely for that. The English speaking rightwing were, and still are, just as culpable, while hating the Afrikaners just as much.

Sailor Malan was based at Biggin for a time and some years ago (think the 1990's), when I was a younger man I was renewing my IR rating there ( now long gone) and having made an egg of myself on an ILS approach at Stansted with some ex-Boac Skygod examiner, who said nothing throughout my flight, until I rolled out past the old Nissan huts at Biggin (and thought of Malan) and with nothing to lose and expecting an immediate fail, opined "there must be many ghosts here, to which he smiled and said "Malan's spirit, and after that Germans, mostly I hope". He passed me!

Sic transit gloria mundi etc....

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Catch-up post
Limeygal (and others) - thanks for your kind wishes about Fiona. Glad your hurricane went elsewhere. V. pleased about daughter's diagnosis. My sis is now also "recovered". Five years on and they are now treating her like a normal human. Best wishes that yours achieves the same.
TGA - Rogers not involved, I don't think. My man takes his feed off the Eastlink fibre trunk. My link is now 5GHz direct to his home transmitter, instead of 2.4GHz via a secondary transmitter.
PHXPhlyer - not so much a silver lining as a totally free one...and Justin Trudeau is paying for the upgrade. He may not know that yet.. or, indeed, ever

Normal service on the Ukraine war recommences tomorrow, after I've had a chance to catch up.

[TheGreenAnger]

Catch-up post
Limeygal (and others) - thanks for your kind wishes about Fiona. Glad your hurricane went elsewhere. V. pleased about daughter's diagnosis. My sis is now also "recovered". Five years on and they are now treating her like a normal human. Best wishes that yours achieves the same.
TGA - Rogers not involved, I don't think. My man takes his feed off the Eastlink fibre trunk. My link is now 5GHz direct to his home transmitter, instead of 2.4GHz via a secondary transmitter.
PHXPhlyer - not so much a silver lining as a totally free one...and Justin Trudeau is paying for the upgrade. He may not know that yet.. or, indeed, ever

Normal service on the Ukraine war recommences tomorrow, after I've had a chance to catch up.

You have been missed, but not necessarily just for the commentary!

[Karearea]

Should have said earlier, for the first of the month: Rabbits, Rabbits, Rabbits!

[TheGreenAnger]

Should have said earlier, for the first of the month: Rabbits, Rabbits, Rabbits!

Karearea it is still the 30th here, but good luck to you from this side of the earth to you!

Back in the day I would have posted a video of the inimitable Grace Slick singing White Rabbit with Jefferson Airplane. Those who care can go to to requisite thread to see Grace do her thang!

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Ms Slick - first person to say mofo on American television.

..and if that isn't TRABB, what is?

[jimtherev]

Welcome back Fox3.

+1 We woz worried!

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Thank you, but you may save your emotional energy for the more deserving, and indeed the more likely to need it.
Whenever skill and good breeding fail (which is quite often), I find I am an unfailingly lucky b'stard.

[bob2s]

Fox3, good to see you back, it will be good to get the news from Ukraine in your report it like it is, and not have to read nonsense written by some idiot
reporter.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Idiot reporter? Tautology if ever I heard it.
The worst bit of the hurricane was tuning in to CBC radio for 5 minutes, coming from the one local Province with any power. Blessedly, there was no TV at all.
Waste of power.
As much use as a chocolate fireguard.
That really soft chocolate, with a nuclear detonation as the fire.
After 4 days, they got the local weather guy on
"When I was in the military..."
Then proceeds to describe rushing around try to find gas, explaining to his wife over a crackly cell connection how to work the generator.
Failing. Going home to fix it, etc.
Don't know what military he was in.
Toytown Army?
Chocolate Soldiers for the Xmas Tree?
Italian Special Forces?
Russian Guards Regiment?

[OFSO]

Wife's sculpture show success. An interesting crowd on opening day. At least one piece sold on the spot. One chap wants to bring his blind father to feel the pieces. Now that will be marvellous and I think we'll go down to be there for that.
Off to the mountains on Monday, get our lungs clear in the air of the high forests.

[Karearea]

... Off to the mountains on Monday, get our lungs clear in the air of the high forests.

What type of trees up there, OFSO? Deciduous, conifer, other evergreen?

[Ex-Ascot]

We misjudged this. We should have gone away today. Think that the noisy bastards finished work at lunchtime. 3 yrs since they could last celebrate Independence Day. It is bad. Our friend the other side of town who lives by a river beach says that the police are patrolling. It is illegal to make a noise that disturbs other people and also you are not allowed to drink in public.

Rather warm this afternoon.

It is their country after all and they are quite kind in allowing you residence there.

Morning folks, wrong SE. They benefit enormously by having us here and this noise is legal.

Biggles is kicking the tyres Ex-Ascots going off radar for a few days.