Have you noticed the recent penchant for car manufacturers to paint their cars in Farrow and Ball colours?
National Trust colours seem most prevalent - Elephant's Breath and Mouseback. I shouldn't ber surprised to see French Grey cars shortly.
When collecting a car in Newport I spotted this scooter emporium.
They specialise in restoring vintage scooters and scooters were a passion of mine as a teenager.
At school, in Anglesey, I bought a Vespa for 30 quid off a fellow pupil who lived locally in Beaumaris, stashing it in the woods behind the dorm, intending to ride it home to Southport at the end of term. My parents called at the school at the start of the summer holidays and were horrified to hear me tell them this. It was a hideously long journey (there was no motorway along the north coast of Wales in those days). It took some 4.5 hours, with my parents' hearts in their mouths.
I eventually graduated to a Lambretta SX 225, purchased from my best friend, who's father happened to own the scooter sales and repair yard in Southport, where a gang of us used to spend our Saturday mornings. It was a real beaut, in Arctic White and English Electric Blue and, being the property of the garage owner's son, was easily the best Lambretta in Southport.
I still love them.
Had occasion to visit our local Morgan and Lotus dealer and spotted this little beauty.
Is it just me, or does it look like it's powered by a twin, Briggs & Stratton 15HP setup? What's under that grille on the bonnet certainly looks like that, and I know a thing or two about lawnmowers.
What a palaver trying to get this bloody trailer weighed, but I got there in the end.
The farmer who has a weighbridge has been slapped with a council order such that he can only use it for agricultural purposes, caused by a neighbour complaining about something, so he couldn't help. I sent him a photo of the trailer and asked if he could guess the weight.
I then managed to find a coal depot in Badminton, about 4 miles away, that has a weighbridge and charges £6 per item. I had to get the trailer there yesterday, as the Badminton Horse Trials start today and last till Sunday, meaning the roads around here will be an utter nightmare.
Anyway, I dragged No.2 Son from his bed to provide some additional ,muscle to get the trailer out of the top car park and duly set off for Badminton just after they opened.
It weighed in at exactly 700kg which, with my braked towing capacity of 1800kg, gives me the ability to tow it and an average saloon car, such as a Hyundai i20. The Triumph GT6, at 850kg, is easily within my limit, especially when half the panels aren't even on the car and will be stowed inside my Ford Galaxy.
If I need to carry anything heavier than an i20, then the spare wheel would have to go, along with one of the two axles. Of course, I could always use a car with a greater braked towing capacity, such as one of those Taliban trucks.
I got a reply from the farmer with his guess, which was between 600 and 800kg - he was spot on. I told him he didn't really need a weighbridge with his ability to guess weights.
Happy days - but, needless to say, Hay is not impressed. She was hoping for it to be too heavy and me having to flip it.
I'll just leave this here as an homage to Ronnie Barker.
I saw them in a hardware shop in Porlock the weekend before last and was tickled.
I had a use for hose, or O's this week. My SpecSavers specs are impossible to bend to fit round my ears. I've taken them to a couple of opticians, but they gave up. I even tried myself with a heat gun, but ended up taking off the ends of the arms on my spare pair.
I resorted to some plastic, slide hook on thingies that are designed to hold them on, but even these don't work properly because they are too loose and the slightest bit of skin grease renders them useless.
I decided to use tiny O rings from my Lidl O ring set, and they work perfectly at keeping the hooks in place. They don't move at all from dawn to dusk. Thanks, Ronnie, for the inspiration.
A quick update on the car trailer; I've found a local farmer who has a weighbridge and am in contact with him. Hopefully I'll have the trailer weighed within the week.
Thought I'd have a go at making sugar-free jerky for my keto snacks.
Used the air fryer and it is delicious, despite looking like cat shit.
Part freeze some skirt steak (cheap cut - I used half a kilo) on order to make it easier to slice, then cut it across the gain (so it isn't too chewy) in quarter inch slices. Make sure you remove any fat or membrane from the skirt steak first.
Place in a plastic bag with a rub made from salt, pepper, smoked paprika, cumin, onion powder, garlic powder and a slight splosh of Ketjap Manis (Indonesian sweet soy from Waitrose - the only carb contribution and my own twist) to provide some moisture. A splash of Worcestershire Sauce is OK too. Massage the bag to spread the rub over the meat and allow to marinade in the fridge for a couple of hours.
Lay on the air fryer racks, ensuring the pieces of meat are separated and don't touch. For the oven, place on greaseproof.
Dehydrate at 100 degrees C for a couple of hours, or until you reach the desired consistency.
You can play around with the rub and come up with whatever taste suits you best. I liked it so much that I made another kilo in the oven.
Once I'd done one side and it had shrunk a bit, I finished it off in the air fryer, as it's more efficient and doesn't leave the bits stewing in their own juice, which extends the drying time.
I have the rub all ready in vast quantities and can make it very quickly now.
Yum, yum!
What with the date for the collection of the Triumph GT6 project fast approaching, I thought I'd buy a car trailer. However, I bought what I thought was a good bargain before doing adequate research.
It's 6.2m long (including the tow section) and 2.4m wide - roughly the same size as our motorhome.
This is the brake system on it.
As you can see, it has a ratchet brake and a piston damper, the purpose of which is to slow what's being towed when the car's brakes are applied, using a mechanical linkage that applies the trailer/caravan brakes.
I did put a jockey wheel on it and bought some suitable car straps.
Looking at the coupling, it would seem that the damping piston goes right through the housing and hits the brake handle with a large hex nut (see in the photo below) in such a manner than it can apply the brake when slowed by the towing vehicle but, given the brake is on a ratchet, I can't figure out how it releases itself when ratcheted up and the coupling once more takes the strain.
The logical solution would be to simply tie the ratchet section to the main lever when on the move, but that seems a tad Heath-Robinson and not the manner is which it works on caravans.
The whole braking system needs taking apart and reassembling with a liberal application of grease. The grease nipple on the coupling looks as if it hasn't seen grease in decades. I looked up the coupling and it's a Bradley D60 Spring Damped Cast Coupling and they are apparently still sold for £198, but this one merely requires a grease gun.
The advertising blurb states; "Bradley Cast coupling for trailers with standard brakes 3000kg spring damped overrun coupling with 50mm Ball Head. Not for new road going trailer build within the EEC. Can be fitted as a direct replacement spare for a similar coupling within the EEC and on new trailers in most other countries."
Whether I proceed with the renovation or not depends on the weight of the trailer, but there's no weight plate evident on it. My Ford Galaxy has a maximum braked towing weight of 1,800kg and, with the average weight of a car being 1,000kg, it can't be more than 800kg to enable me to be legal on the road with it. The average car is limited to 750kg towing weight when the trailer has no brakes.
The local quarry has a weighbridge where caravan owners take their caravans to be weighed. I will take it there and then decide whether to renovate or flip, but only once I've removed a lot of the flooring wood, which is excessively heavy, and not required at all along the centreline.
I've already exposed the centre planking, which shows the brake cables.
Again, a liberal application of grease and then a check on the brake drums and shoes.
It's not worth taking risks with towing weights, as the police love nothing better than to flag down people with excessive towing weights and prosecute, so I have discovered online, and it's likely to result in the loss of one's licence.
I'm certain that there are owners of old caravans that are not even aware that their caravans are braked and, consequently, never inspect them. I only became aware of them through checking this thing out and found them on the old caravan we have as overflow accommodation in the top car park.
The top car park is starting to look a bit full (the smaller trailer isn't in the picture - it's at 4 o'clock). The caravan is going just as soon as I can clean it up a bit with the jet spray, but I feel like replacing its spot in the car park with an old, Fergusson tractor.
Myself, Hay, No.1 Son and No.2 Son (who is back from university for a week) manhandled the live edge ash slab table top into the living room so it can thoroughly acclimatise and dry before I perform any further surgery on it later in the year.
We placed it on an old table with some blocks of 4x2 under each leg to help spread the weight.
As it stands, it will seat 10, but it really does need 50cm taking off it and making into an 8 seater, which is about the maximum we usually have at Christmas. Hay, however, is liking the current length of 2.5m. Also the ends need routering into a pleasing shape. What I like about it is the fact that it is unique and there's no other table top exactly the same.
I visited the local forge on Friday to see if they could make a suitable base that resembled a foreshortened tree trunk with spreading roots and spreading branches, like the example below.
However, they though it beyond their capability in terms of the design. They did say, however, that providing I could could come up with a series of flat, interlocking templates made from MFD, or something similar, they would be prepared to give it a go.
What I might do is approach the company that makes the tables in the above image and ask if they supply the bases separately. Given the thinness of the table in the image above, I would probably require two bases to adequately support the length and weight of the ash slab. The branches of the 'tree' would need to be welded to a suitable steel spreader to even out the weight.
I can't wait to oil the wood to see the grain spring out, but that will be much later in the year. At least the garage is now clear for the Triumph GT6 project.
I've been following the political philosopher, Vlad Vexler, on YouTube. He has a very interesting channel where he discusses geopolitical events with a particular focus on the Russo-Ukrainian War and Vladimir Putin.
As a Russian who lives in the UK, and a political philosopher, Vexler has enormous insights. He holds regular question and answer sessions where he answers, to the best of his ability, questions from his YouTube subscribers. Well worth a listen.
One incidental thing I learned from Vlad is that it's wrong to call Vladimir Putin Vlad. Vlad is apparently short for Vladislav, not Vladimir, and is of Romanian origin. In Russian, shortened and endeared versions of the name are Volodya (and variants with diminutive suffixes: Volod'ka, Volodyen'ka, etc.), Vova (and diminutives: Vovka, Vovochka, etc.), Vovchik, Vovan.
I had occasion to visit Ely earlier in the week, a place I've never been to before, and managed to catch a glimpse of Ely Cathedral.
While pondering the history of the area, it struck me that many of England's folk heroes were rather Woke, especially the main one associated with the Isle of Ely - Hereward the Woke.
Wake, Woke - it's just a matter of participles.
Robin Hood is another example, who believed in taxing the rich to help the poor. OK, his method of taxation was somewhat extreme, but he is nonetheless lauded as a folk hero.
I'd like someone, anyone, to ask Rishi Sunak how the hell he's going to halve inflation by the end of the year. By that, I mean what policy will he enact that will have a direct effect on inflation?
The current round of inflation is not caused by the classical 'too much money floating around in the economy' - quite the reverse, there ain't enough money around for many to buy the essentials that have gone up in price. The cause of this is primarily the Ukraine War.
It is causing restrictions on the supply side - too little of the imported commodities that we rely on for food, essentially commodity grains and especially wheat. This filters through to animal feeds, leading to meat prices rising.
Fuel prices are also having an effect. Power is now more expensive, which feeds through to all areas of manufacturing.
Ukraine is a large exporter of fertilizers, the price of which has also sky-rocketed.
I can't see how Sunak has any ability whatsoever to affect world gas, oil or commodity prices. Giving public sector workers high pay rises neutralises the effect of inflation, but feeds natural inflation caused by wage spirals, so his hands are tied.
The Bank of England putting up interest rates, which is a knee-jerk reaction, won't have any effect on the aforementioned oil, gas and commodity prices, as they are global prices outside of domestic control, so what they hell they're playing at is a mystery to economists. They will only further feed inflation by also making borrowing more expensive and decreasing domestic economic activity.
Then there's the elephant in the room - Brexit. Brexit drag and bureaucracy is simply making a bad situation even worse for us in the UK, as compared to America and comparable economies in Europe.
So, again, what the hell is Sunak's plan to halve inflation, other than sitting back and waiting for it to happen naturally?
Even halving inflation doesn't get rid of it - it merely means prices will still rise, but less swiftly. The Retail Consortium says it expects prices to come down - when have prices ever come down after inflation? No one, anywhere, has ever said; "Oh, I'm making too much money - I'd better reduce my prices." Yes, there's a possibility someone may break ranks to gain market share, but it would be short-lived, as everyone would then pile in to retain market share, with profits going down throughout the sector, so there would be no incentive.
Why are pyjamas primarily of the striped variety?
They replaced the plain white nightshirt in the 19th century, being a fashion import from the Subcontinent, but stripes?
I suppose the stripes are somewhat similar to the stripes on men's shirts, but if that was their intent, then the bottoms should be black or navy blue to resemble trousers.
Yes, tartan seems to have taken over more recently, but then why tartan?
Stripes were prison uniform and I wonder if some enterprising prison uniform manufacturer in Victorian Britain saw an opening in the market by making all men look like convicts at night.
As for staples - why do some newspaper publishers use staples in their newspapers? Not only is it a waste of money, but it adds unnecessary metal to the paper recycling. Some, like the Observer, use staples in the main section but not in the sports section - probably to aid throwing the sport section away immediately, like I do.
I much prefer using the sports section of the Observer for lighting the fire, as the pages are easy to extract and crumple up, whereas the main section requires a fight with the staples, which tears the paper into small bits.
Made an embellishment to the garage front:
Found the oars in our local 2nd hand emporium for £25, which is rather cheap. They add a nautical content, reflecting my marine background, to the country style stag's head.
Just the ramp and roll-up front to come. Hope to collect the Triumph GT6 during the 1st week of May.
It's white, actually, but the local geese are laying again.
One goose egg is the equivalent in volume of between 3 and 4 hen's eggs, but much more nutritious because the yolk makes up more of the volume.
We usually get hen eggs and duck eggs from a local farmer. Duck eggs are between 1.5 and 2 times the volumetric size of a hen's egg. Once again, the yolk makes up a greater proportion of the volume than a hen egg, but not as large as the goose egg.
Overheard on the way to Porlock:
Hay: "Look, a hairdresser's shop called Gingerman."
Chairman: "That'll limit the customer base - only ginger men. I suppose Harry would be welcome."
The golliwog issue has come to the fore, yet again. You'd think this had died a death, but no, the far right and the racists want to play again and trumpet that they're not racist while clutching a racist caricature. They need to read the history of the Golliwog.
It's interesting to note that Robertson's, of jam fame, didn't drop the golliwog in 2002 because of its racist overtones, but because the younger generation didn't relate to it. Only those of a certain age still retained an affection of the Robinson's golly and Robinson's wanted to update their product.
It's a little known fact that, ironically, the Nazis banned golliwogs in 1934 because they thought them inappropriate for Aryan children. Now the far right want them all over the place and it's the progressives that want them banned.
The landlady of the pub in Essex defended the presence of golliwogs on display in her pub thus.
Yes, I suppose it is convenient - if attending a Britain First rally.
The idea of grown people playing with dolls is quite amusing, actually.
It seems that Putin has made a grave mistake. Not the glaringly obvious one of a total lack of tactics or strategy in regard to his 'invasion' of Ukraine, but the fact he's had to appoint deeply corrupt people into positions of power as governors of the regions of the Russian Federation.
These oligarchs are increasingly having troops devolved to them, who openly say their prime allegiance is to their regional boss, not the Kremlin. Putin has turned the country into a quasi-feudal state, raising what could be very powerful warlords in areas well away from direct Kremlin control.
You have the Chechen chap, who is clearly mad as a hatter, along with the Wagner Group of mercenaries, as the two prime examples. They are becoming increasingly disillusioned with Putin and, I'm sure, see the opportunity to carve out princely states owing allegiance to no-one but themselves, especially as the Army proper has proven itself to be a paper tiger.
As the Ukraine War continues with stalemate after stalemate, they will see Putin's authority waning, leaving them as the prime threat to the centre. The powerful, regional barons of feudal Britain could make or break kings - and did, several times. Similarly, the greatest threats to the Roman Empire came from generals who commanded the regions and got above their stations.
What the West needs to prepare for is how this increasingly likely scenario of Russian Balkanisation is going to be handled.
I suffer from something I call beard creep, and I suspect all men who trim their beards under their chins also suffer from the same condition.
Beard creep is when you trim the beard hair under your chin, which is close shaven anyway (as in stubble length), along the neck and, slowly but surely, the position if the trim point creeps down along the neck such that two or three weeks later, you wonder why the hell your beard is halfway down your throat, whereas you initially trimmed it be be just under your chin.
It's not the hair from the original trim length growing, as that's kept deliberately short with a zuzzer. It's the actual trim line that creeps.
I can't figure out why it happens.
Some 6 weeks ago I saw a testa di moro, an Italian vase design originally based on a Moorish head.
Enamoured with them, I asked my sister-in-law, Michelle (Hay's sister), who is a ceramicist, whether I could commission her to do one.
Here's her project after the first firing. She still has to colour and fire it again, but it's unique (not being a mass produced item) and has given her a new direction and vigour.
As you can see in the video, she's working on another and has done some preparatory drawings for more. I'd particularly like a Medusa one.
Since late last year I've been suffering from increasing pain from osteoarthritis in my knees, which is rather debilitating when Hay and I go coastal walking that involves steep climbs.
However, in order to get back into my summer plumage, I've been engaged with a mild keto diet for the last couple of weeks and the pain in my knees has almost completely disappeared.
A keto diet isn't much of a problem for me, as I love meat, cheese, eggs, etc. Bread, potatoes, pasta and rice - being the carbohydrates you have to leave off the menu - are easy for me to leave aside. Biscuits and desserts are a different matter, but not insurmountable.
There is limited evidence to suggest that while a keto diet has numerous benefits in terms of losing weight, reducing the risk of diabetes and improving prophylaxis against cancers, it can also reduce inflammatory responses in the body, and osteoarthritis is an inflammatory response. The knee pain does tend to return when I transgress and consume a bit of carbs.
I took my courage in my hands yesterday and made crosscuts in the bottom of the ash slab to destress it. They were half the depth of the slab, which was the most I dared go, at 5cm intervals and 8cm from the edges. My battery powered circular saw wasn't up to the job, but the 110V Makita 235mm circular saw cut through the ash like it was butter.
I ended up with a bucket of sawdust, which Hay's sister salvaged for her raku pottery firing.
The warp has reduced from 3.5cm to 2.5cm on its own, but the slab is now far more pliable. With No.1 Son standing on one end and me on the other, it will bend level flat with ease.
I now need to find something for it to rest on in the living room, like a couple of small dining tables, so it can acclimatise to the house before doing any further work. A few more saw cuts my yet be required - either making the exiting ones deeper, a few longitudinal cuts or, better still, some diagonal cuts at right angles to the warp line.
I'm still not sure what to do with the quirky defects in the wood.
The orthodox treatment is to fill with body filler mixed with black oxide and rub it flat. However, I like the defects as they are. I could simply fill them with clear or translucent red or blue resin. I could even sink a couple of LEDs into the resin and poke the wiring out through the bottom, attaching a small battery pack to the underside of the table to illuminate the resin, but that may look a bit kitsch in our house. Filling them with something, however, is a necessity, as they can have a tendency to be a focus for splits.
I managed to burn out the 2nd hand belt sander I bought for £15 (I was putting too much pressure on it), but found that my orbital sander, fitted with the cut belt from the belt sander, performed better. The belts are near indestructible and don't clog, unlike normal rolls of orbital sander paper.
At least the garage can be cleared shortly for the Triumph GT6 project.
I also picked up a router from someone in Yate who, as it happens, is a carpenter and has made his own table, although from planks of wood and nowhere near as rustic as mine. He went for the river of resin look.
Major milestone yesterday - no log burner required. Summer, or at least spring, is here. Let's hope it stays that way.
Trump is going on about the court cases against him being a witch hunt, echoing the screeches of Johnson supporters over his misleading of Parliament and kangaroo courts. Claims are being made that the cases are politically motivated. Well, in a manner they are, but not in the manner the plaintiffs mean. They're motivated by democracy itself.
When politicians attempt to circumvent or demolish the checks and balances that are in place to make them accountable, that's an attack on the very foundation of democracy. Those in positions of power who believe that the normal rules by which democracy operates are not applicable to them have to be neutralised at the earliest available opportunity, by whatever means, else they open the dark doors to totalitarianism.
Checks and balances are put in place in a democracy to prevent any one branch or individual from gaining too much power and becoming tyrannical. The concept of checks and balances is based on the idea that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The weights and water made a slight difference to the ash slab, but nowhere near the amount of destressing I was after, so I think I'm going to have to perform relief cuts in the slab on the underside in the hope it relieves a bit more of the twist.
The gurus recommend cutting half way through the depth, widthways, with 50mm gaps along the length, not going closer than 80mm to any edges. This allegedly stabilises the slab. Even if the result is only minimal, it won't necessarily be off-putting - it adds to the quirkiness and it's not as if I'm going to be playing crown green bowls on it. I think I will only take the cuts to 1/3rd of the depth though.
Spent the best part of yesterday sanding the top side with the belt sander and 60 grit.
Been looking at various options for table legs.
What I want is a setup that doesn't increase stresses within the slab. Legs that are independent at each end need to be fixed into the slab, invariably with screws. This can introduce rigidity which can split the slab if it moves with humidity and temperature.
Far better is a subframe that goes end-to-end and allows the slab to be simply placed on it, with the slab's weight keeping it in place. Any movement within the slab is thereby facilitated by friction.
I'm thinking of getting a couple of cheap, small tables on which to put the slab in the house for the summer, allowing it to thoroughly dry before committing to any further manipulation or chopping 50cm off it to get the required size.
An idea I've had is to commission a local forge to make a frame, designing it such that the twist is compensated for, it it's still there at the end of 3 or 4 months. We have a forge in Almondsbury that I've used previously for a commission, but they're not cheap.
I particularly like the legs that look like a tree bole at the point the branches start to spread. A competent blacksmith could fabricate something like this, with the branches attached to a cradle on which the slab sits.
