Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary

[RED-DOG]

Maths teacher always told me to remember the word pointless, always points to the lesser. Worked for me lol

Tighty's explanation / Guy's explanation < dik9's explanation.

[mondatoo]

Have you read Gypsy Boy on the run by Micky Walsh, a follow up to Gypsy boy but a different book I take it ?

Bump incase u missed it 

I did miss it.

Yes mond, it is a follow up. I haven't read it yet so I can't comment.


I'm currently reading Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town by Paul Theroux.


I'm familier with Louis, but I didn't know there was a 3rd Theroux brother.

As a family we, (The McCready siblings) were always taught to look after each other, and I in turn have tried to pass that on to my children. Successfully it seems, they're very close. (which is reassuring for me because I wont always be there for them).

Not so the Theroux's apparently.


Paul Theroux , the Anglophile American travel writer and novelist has been the target of a stinging critical attack by his older brother and fellow author, Alexander, who describes his sibling as "small, surly and spiteful.'' 

I'll probably buy it but I take ages to read a book so will let you know what it's like circa March or summit.

Lots of family's, brother's especially imo, don't get on, sad but just the way it is. I don't really have that much in common with my brother but we are still really close and would snap take a bullet for him, although the size of him probably best I just let him handle it, doubt it would do him much harm.

[Geo the Sarge]

Ah, Hessian

fantastic word and a fabric widely used by the military through the years for uniforms, sandbags, camouflage and various other uses.

Did you know the word comes from soldiers of an old Germanic Regiment - the Hessians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hessian_%28soldiers%29

Geo

Something new learned every day! Nope, never heard that before.

We used to use hession for so many different things, because it's cheap, & adaptable. Best of all - here's a memory - when it was "fresh" it had a most wonderful aroma. I think even butchers used it, to wrap carcasses, though that was of a much "finer" grade.

Oh the aroma of fresh Hessian, yeah and once it aged and deterioated or got wet it smelt rank.

Mostly used now by snipers in creating their "Ghillie Suits" and traditionally never washed as it helps them blend in to the aroma of the surroundings as well as the background.

Click to see full-size image.

When we were weighing non-ferrous metals in at the scrap yard, we never used one hessian bag where we could use two.

Hessian is heavy, especially if you wet it. Half a hundredweight of copper wire split between two wet hessian bags would increase in value by enough to buy you a beef dinner with a side dish of stew and a hot pudding at Josie's cafe in Rotherham.

Had an early night last night and just catching up.

Would you believe that I absolutely knew that you would put up a story just like this. As I was perusing stuff on Hessian I was thinking to myself that you would have used just such an advantage back then.

Geo

[david3103]

Custard explodes too. I can't post links from the phone but Bird's custard factory in Banbury had an explosion in the early 80s. Not funny, it killed two men.

[rex008]

Moving powder around is a very well considered problem in the chemical industry due to the explosive potential of a lot of powders. A lot of powder is moved by blowing it through pipes, often/usually with pure nitrogen rather than air to remove the explosive potential. There is a fairly big industry built around producing machines to do this in the most economical way possible (ie fastest flow rates with the smallest nitrogen loss, as it's fairly expensive).

I feel a bit dirty writing about this in the cultured diary though. Sorry.

[tikay]

Moving powder around is a very well considered problem in the chemical industry due to the explosive potential of a lot of powders. A lot of powder is moved by blowing it through pipes, often/usually with pure nitrogen rather than air to remove the explosive potential. There is a fairly big industry built around producing machines to do this in the most economical way possible (ie fastest flow rates with the smallest nitrogen loss, as it's fairly expensive).

I feel a bit dirty writing about this in the cultured diary though. Sorry.

Rex, ultra high-quality stuff about pumping powder & the like is always welcome on the thinking man's diary. Which is next door.

[RED-DOG]

Moving powder around is a very well considered problem in the chemical industry due to the explosive potential of a lot of powders. A lot of powder is moved by blowing it through pipes, often/usually with pure nitrogen rather than air to remove the explosive potential. There is a fairly big industry built around producing machines to do this in the most economical way possible (ie fastest flow rates with the smallest nitrogen loss, as it's fairly expensive).

I feel a bit dirty writing about this in the cultured diary though. Sorry.

Rex, ultra high-quality stuff about pumping powder & the like is always welcome on the thinking man's diary. Which is next door.

Take no notice rex, he's just jealous. This is exactly the place for technical input.
Don't go next door, its all bad beats and spam.

[david3103]

Moving powder around is a very well considered problem in the chemical industry due to the explosive potential of a lot of powders. A lot of powder is moved by blowing it through pipes, often/usually with pure nitrogen rather than air to remove the explosive potential. There is a fairly big industry built around producing machines to do this in the most economical way possible (ie fastest flow rates with the smallest nitrogen loss, as it's fairly expensive).

I feel a bit dirty writing about this in the cultured diary though. Sorry.

Yet, despite the hazard, cement tanker drivers aren't required to hold an ADR Certificate. The official licence to carry dangerous loads.

[tikay]

Moving powder around is a very well considered problem in the chemical industry due to the explosive potential of a lot of powders. A lot of powder is moved by blowing it through pipes, often/usually with pure nitrogen rather than air to remove the explosive potential. There is a fairly big industry built around producing machines to do this in the most economical way possible (ie fastest flow rates with the smallest nitrogen loss, as it's fairly expensive).

I feel a bit dirty writing about this in the cultured diary though. Sorry.

Yet, despite the hazard, cement tanker drivers aren't required to hold an ADR Certificate. The official licence to carry dangerous loads.

Come on guys, that stuff is wasted here, take it next door.  Cement tankers, ADR Certs, dangerous loads, this is meat & drink to me. Instead, I've got Greeky talking about - wait for it - poker.

[RED-DOG]

Moving powder around is a very well considered problem in the chemical industry due to the explosive potential of a lot of powders. A lot of powder is moved by blowing it through pipes, often/usually with pure nitrogen rather than air to remove the explosive potential. There is a fairly big industry built around producing machines to do this in the most economical way possible (ie fastest flow rates with the smallest nitrogen loss, as it's fairly expensive).

I feel a bit dirty writing about this in the cultured diary though. Sorry.

Yet, despite the hazard, cement tanker drivers aren't required to hold an ADR Certificate. The official licence to carry dangerous loads.

I'm beginning to understand why they move powders around in tankers and pipes now though. Not because it behaves like a liquid, but because they can keep the air out.

I wonder what you have to learn to get an ARD certificate? There must be more to it than "If owt goes wrong, run like buggery".

[RED-DOG]

I was hoping that Tony would shed some light on the issue of overloading railway trucks.

There have been lots of occasions where I have been guilty of overloading lorries. When I was buying scrap metal, or engines for export, tarmac, turf etc.

I can't tell you how many police patrol cars I've passed with the cheeks of my arse squeezed so tightly together you couldn't get a fag-paper between them.

[tikay]

LOL you guys don't half think about some totally random shit 

Just saying, like.

[tikay]

I was hoping that Tony would shed some light on the issue of overloading railway trucks.

There have been lots of occasions where I have been guilty of overloading lorries. When I was buying scrap metal, or engines for export, tarmac, turf etc.

I can't tell you how many police patrol cars I've passed with the cheeks of my arsenic squeezed so tightly together you couldn't get a fag-paper between them.

Very rare these days, non-existent, I'd say.

Even back in the day, it was very rare. It was the Guards job on the old "mixed-freight" trains to note the weight of each & every wagon, before setting off, & they were pretty fussy about the weight not being too much - as much for financial reasons as anything else.

Most of the rail freight back then was coal, for which the charge was per ton, so the more weight, the more the Railway got paid, but Railway Guards have always been - still are I would hazard a guess - stroppy & independent little buggers, with ideas above their station. They liked to think they were a class above the footplatemen. Pfft.

It has always been the case, too, that the footplatemen (drivers & firemen) were in a different union to the Guards. Most of the guys on the footplate were ASLEF....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASLEF

Wheras the Guards & white-collar workers, traditionally, were NUR......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Union_of_Railwaymen

[RED-DOG]

LOL you guys don't half think about some totally random shit 

Just saying, like.

Haha!  Where did that quote come from?

Woodsey is one of the good guys, and fairly handy himself in the random stakes.

[RED-DOG]

I was hoping that Tony would shed some light on the issue of overloading railway trucks.

There have been lots of occasions where I have been guilty of overloading lorries. When I was buying scrap metal, or engines for export, tarmac, turf etc.

I can't tell you how many police patrol cars I've passed with the cheeks of my arsenic squeezed so tightly together you couldn't get a fag-paper between them.

Very rare these days, non-existent, I'd say.

Even back in the day, it was very rare. It was the Guards job on the old "mixed-freight" trains to note the weight of each & every wagon, before setting off, & they were pretty fussy about the weight not being too much - as much for financial reasons as anything else.

Most of the rail freight back then was coal, for which the charge was per ton, so the more weight, the more the Railway got paid, but Railway Guards have always been - still are I would hazard a guess - stroppy & independent little buggers, with ideas above their station. They liked to think they were a class above the footplatemen. Pfft.

LOL. I love those old rivalries. You used to see them everywhere, and probably still do in proper professions.


No. What I mean is, I wouldn't have thought it possible to fit enough coal into a railway truck to overload it.