What to do in lockdown?

[JohnD]

Many are busy in their garages, or on other projects.   I'm waiting for the postman, for more parts and even then am short of things to do on the car.   Nowt on telly, talked to children on video call.   I'm bored.    How about a card game?   Patience?  Pah!      Daughter has told me about "Cards Against Humanity", sounds fun - and you can play it online!   https://cardsagainsthumanity.com/

I've never played it before, so unless you have, you're as green as I am.       The idea is that there are two packs of cards, the Black and the White.    Black cards are statements, with a word missing.   The Whites are the words that might, just might, be inserted.     A hand of the game runs by first everyone drawing ten Whites.     The Card Tzar (whoever they are) draws a Black and reads out the statement.   Everyone has to play one of their White words and the one who gets the most laughs wins.   Simples!   Full rules at: http://s3.amazonaws.com/cah/CAH_Rules.pdf

OK, if anyone wants to join in, go to https://allbad.cards/game/lazy-octopus-23

I suggest that the progress of the game is posted here too, else it becomes too detatched.

I'm ready, but I need at least one opponent.  See you there?

JOhn

[JohnD]

Perhaps this will tempt you.  Those of us of advanced years   seniority and wisdom will have received a letter, a "vital Update from the Government about Coronavirus".

This is what Cards Against Humanity can do about that:

https://www.unilad.co.uk/viral/government-letter-rinsed-by-cards-against-humanity-fans/?fbclid=IwAR1bCIzPYJADwxQElsuuWVM4KZjdIlS3uvjSHqfSc7gL6jTVeAVXzYudhWI

[PeterC]

No letter here. Must be held in quarantine at Offa's Dyke.

[mattius]

There are some very blue versions of those cards, great fun after you have had a few "sherries"

[thebrookster]

But never to be played with parents, or at least that's the rule in our house!!

[yorkshire_spam]

Cards against humanity are AWESOME! (The game, but also the company that produces it)

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/18/cards-against-humanity-chinese-workforce-holiday-hanukah

https://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/15/us/cards-against-humanity-land-grab-trnd/index.html

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/364894-cards-against-humanity-sends-checks-to-poorest-customers-to

Bloody commies! ;-)

 

[JohnD]

Well, that was a failure!     No one joined the game, and the online website has closed it down.

Can we see a way to play it here?  All download a set of cards?   There are lots in the White set, so unlikley to draw many duplicates.

 

Edited April 28, 2020 by JohnD

[PaulAA]

This is brilliant!

In a moment of unjustified nastiness, it occurred to me that it would make an excellent present for my MiL, who has spent 20 years refusing to learn a single word of English.

[JohnD]

OK, will this work, playing it here?

Below is an Excel file.   Open it and go to the White cards page.   At the bottom of the page you will find a selector that wil choose ten Whites for you, at random.

I'll have it choose a random Black card, and post it here.  From your Whites post the best one, or two in some cases, in response.   OK?

Go!

What never fails to liven up the party?

Cards against Humanity.xlsx

[JohnD]

Here's something completely different!

It's about the original Supermarine Spitfire.    It tells its own extraodinary story;

 

 

[Nick Jones]

Great find John!

Very interesting and nicely done. Enjoyed it.

[yorkshire_spam]

Sorry John, my "What to do in lockdown?" is mostly "work my nuts off WFH to keep my project teams on track" and "care for my wife" not much time for Cards Against Humanity right now. Which is a real shame.

[JohnD]

No probs, Sam!    I'm in the fortunate position (?) of being retired, and being alone, so plenty of time!

My immediate neighbours and I have a WhatsApp group for mutual help, which no one has used just yet, except to arrange Thursday call outs to applaud the NHS.     And I should applaud my local City Council, Lancaster, who rang me up yesterday to find out if I was OK, did I need any help?    I don't know if this is a local initiative, or one done by many Councils but it's good work!   They wouldn't tell me how I was tagged as "vulnerable" except that it was my age, but I'l accept that offer with gratitude.   A watchful State is no bad thing!

I said above that I had never played "Cards against Humanity", so when I made the ?playable? Excel version above, I read the White cards for the first time.     I downloaded them from the 'Net, and first of all, they are very American.    References to US TV and sports stars, and episodes of US history that I had to look up.  EG "The Three-Fifths Compromise". *     I took it upon myself to write UK equivalents.      Then, many are very - metrosexual? - extremely liberal in sexual attitudes, anyway.      I won't repeat those White cards here, but I thought they were just not funny, so I deleted them. and made up some more.   I apologise if anyone thinks I've spoilt the game - it is supposed to be for "Horrible People"!

But if everyone is too busy, so be it!   If you have up to half an hour to watch some more videos, did you know that David Vizard is still active?     I apologise to him, but I assumed he was dead!    He popped up on Facebook recently, seems to be living in the US, maybe California and working on American Muscle Cars.     But his West Country drawl is still there, despite recent severe illness and he offers a series of tuning videos.   His "PowerTec 1" is at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=David+Vizard+Powertec+1

And as many will be aware, Binky Episode 30 (!!) is out this weekend.   Who would have thought that Bad Obsession would resort to turbocharging!?

John

* If anyone here, who is not American, and hasn't looked it up, knows what that was, go to the Top of the Class!   

[Nick Jones]

Not retired........ normally part-time, currently furloughed.  However, my jobs list is nearly endless.  Car stuff, garden stuff, house stuff, even parish council stuff.

Today I have cleaned the solar panels in the rain (softens the bastard lichen!) and the conservatory roof.  In doing this I have looked in places I wish I hadn't looked and now have to add sofit replacement and window frame surround painting to my jobs list.......

Not going to be getting bored any time soon.

[JohnD]

It's been a while.   Here's a little project I've had more than enough time for;

Recently where I live, all the century-old gas pipes have been replaced.     This was major work that involved trenching all my verges, to fit nine inch plastic pipes.   The contractors were diligent about warning us and keeping us informed of the works.   They were followed by the electricity (with no warning or notice at all!) to replace the junction boxes around the estate with manholes.     The boxes are now redundant and the contractors asked me if I wanted mine removed, but it’s part of my garden wall!

I had noticed that others bore a coat of arms and although mine must have had one once - the scar was still there - it had been missing these forty years.    There was one on another box nearby, but although the contractors tried to remove it for me, it broke up.  I then found another with the badge, and my neighbours graciously agreed that I might have it.

My next task was to get into the box, which required some ‘special tools’, and I was able to drill out the original, rusted bolts and retrieve the plaque.  It’s a substantial piece of cast iron, with many coats of peeling paint, and damaged in one corner:

The arms are of the Corporation of Lancaster, the inverse of the City that has the leopard above.     Before Lancaster became a City in 1937, the Lancaster Corporation ran all the municipal services including since 1889, electricity.   This was before the estate I live on was built, but Lancaster installed electric trams and built a power station to run them in 1903, coinciding with the first houses there.   World War One saw the National Projectile Factory built on Caton Road with its own coal fired power station, which the Corporation bought after the war to provide for increasing domestic and industrial demand.   There were several other power stations, supplying Direct and Alternating Current at different voltages, until in the 1920s the Central Electricity Board took over the national supply of electricity and standardised it to 240V AC, over the National Grid.    I’m most grateful to the Lancaster Museum for these historical details.

But until I can visit the Museum’s archives, I can’t know when the house where I live got a mains electricity supply, or when these junction boxes were installed.    Their massive construction in solid cast iron, the wonderful porcelain fuses inside, each more than a foot long, and the proud plaques of the Corporation arms that each originally bore, are thoroughly 19^th century!   My house has modern 240V AC electrical wiring, except for the electric bell system.      On the kitchen wall is a mahogany box, originally no doubt to summon a servant to the door, or any of eight rooms!    Today, the bell system runs off the mains, but via a transformer, so that it was probably installed when the supply was a different voltage or to run off batteries, when there was no electricity in the house.

Stripping off the old paint found the coat of arms to be a finely cast object, so I restored the broken corner and repainted it.   I also painted ‘my’ junction box in the original green colour, and the coat of arms is now installed on the door.     A little bit of local history preserved.

 

 

 

[Escadrille Ecosse]

ery smart. Glad you kept a bit of local history. Would be interesting to find out when the electricity was installed.

Out house was built in 1861 with mains gas and all the plumbing for gas lamps - and bell pulls for the servants. Electricity added at some point later but when we moved in 30 years ago the wiring was the original rubber insulated in lead sheathing. Fell apart as soon as you touched it - terrifying.

Anyway. In Scotland the city mayor is called the Lord Provost and in Glasgow it is traditional going back to the days of gas lighting that the Lord Provost has special street lamps put up outside their house. We have just such a few doors up the road..

 

 

Not a smart as your electricity box. If you have time???

 

[mpbarrett]

very nice worthy of the Repair Shop!

Do you have the keys for the cabinet, cant have too much storage space...

Mike

[JohnD]

Escadrille,

Au contraire!  Tres chic, mon brave!   I'm going Francaise 'cos those lamp posts have a definite Art Noveau influence!

Mike,

The cabinet is closed by two internal rotating lugs.    They are turned by a key with the keyhole covered by lovely brass plugs that need a pin wrench to open them.     I had a pin wrench (very useful for angle grinders etc.) and made a key, from round bar with a flange welded on.    There's little room inside the box, unless the Electricity come along and clear it, as it's FULL of fuses.    Enormous, porcelain fuses two feet long, with the fuse medium a strip of quarter inch thick metal, two inches wide!    The cables are as thick as your forearm!   I am assured that the fuses have been disconnected, but I'm not messing with them, to store anything in that box!

John

Edited June 6, 2020 by JohnD

[Escadrille Ecosse]

Quite wise regards the 'leccy. That sounds like serious fuse business!

[JohnD]

I said I'd take a better picture of the restored coat of arms. 

It's very fine, isn't it?  Real Victorian workmanship!

 

[Escadrille Ecosse]

That's very nice indeed. The people who put it in back whenever would approve!

[JohnD]

Yes!   You're lucky to get a plastic sticker to show pride of ownership - or just ownership - these days, of any piece of public service kit! 

 

[Nick Jones]

That's a nice thing John, and nicely restored 

Whilst sanding and painting the timbers of our entrance porch recently, I was getting closer views than usual of our outside light and it's flaking paint.  I've not previously taken alot of notice of it.  It's there, it's black and it's quite large.  The bulb in it is one of those irritating low energy ones that takes 5 minutes to work up to full brightness, but someone has bodged the fixings that hold the top on so I've not previously been able to work up the energy to deal with it.  But now it's making the place look untidy.....

So I managed to dismount it.  First off I had to disconnect it - which involved unravelling the wiring miracle perpetrated by the PO.  The miracle being that no one has been killed, or even been zapped by it.  I've encountered and dealt with quite a bit of his miracle wiring in the last 6 years, most notably in the garage, which was outstanding awful and utterly lethal.  Mostly it's separated from the actual house wiring by a 13A plug and thus not actually illegal.  This one though (like the garage) actually was.  If you can call a mangy choc-block and some tape a joint......  The spare two pin plug tucked up in the roof beams, it's prongs live whenever the light was on, was a further touch of genius.

Anyhow, first surprise having freed the the beast from it's mooring was the how unexpectedly heavy it is.  Second, having wrestled out the rusty self tappers that hold the top on, is that it appears to be a hand fabrication of some complexity comprising flat plates riveted (real rivets!) together.  Third, it's made of solid brass with the joining strips being copper.  The rivets are copper and the base and spire are machined from solid brass.  It has slip-in glass panes as well, that had gone rather green.  It had no drain in the base and a tide mark shows that it does hold a certain amount of water.  Fortunately the electrics hang in the lid.... not least because it wasn't earthed!

The beast.  Assembled it's about 500mm tall. Weighs about 10kgs.

The paint was flaking, so I started scraping.  It comes off readily enough, but its an awfully knobbly object with lots of corners. I got bored at this point.

It's a bit of a puzzle.  Material costs would have been significant.  Standard of construction is workmanlike, but not artisan.  Maybe bought abroad in some market, though it would have taken some hauling home.  Possibly a DIY construction or even apprentice piece.

Not quite sure what to do with it.  Innocuous enough in satin black, but perhaps a bit OTT in copper/brass and definitely way OTT if polished (not that there is any danger of that happening!).  Perhaps if I just leave it out in the rain it's go greenish and interesting......?

[rogerguzzi]

Hello Nick

                   Or weigh it in ?

Roger

ps Red Vitesse in for MOT tomorrow and by god this car rattles makes Spitty seem like a modern! I think I have done the right thing by changing the Vitesse?

still looks good in the sun

[Nick Jones]

Vitesse convertible..... rattle?! Surely not?!

Not so much a car as an association of parts travelling in close (hopefully!) formation...... So yeah, rattles and squeaks are normal. Mostly from doors and hood frame as there is where most of the movement happens. Lack of the anti-burst catches on a convertible does not help.

IIRC, Alans is an unusually tight/taut example  in spite of the stiffer springing....