yen_powell

40th GPO rally near Milton Keynes. Phil the Spill, the infamous bike rally photographer was there, I was convinced it couldn't be him cos he lives in Scotland now, but I asked and it bloody was. I'm sure he was shorter than me at previous rallies, but he's a few inches taller now, so either porridge builds you up or I'm shrinking!

Bike rally this afternoon/weekend.

A man who can do an oil change in a clean white t-shirt and pale jeans without getting any on himself. We are not worthy. I can't even drink a cup of tea in a white t-shirt without a bib.

There'll be a German somewhere who would probably pay top dollar.

It was Snape Maltings yes, I stopped to put a jumper on, the temperature had dropped suddenly. I'm going to google what a sole board is now.

Where do all the people go that used to live in these places, cities, abroad, died of plague?

Oh that is soooo good!

I was asked to do a 3D drawing of a street a few years ago by the woman in charge of us at the time. I reminded her that although she promised to refund me my money if I paid for it and did a course in my own time back in 2004, she had gone back on her word when I asked for the repayment. I said seeing as I had paid for the course and done it in my own time she would have to pay me as a consultant if she wanted it done. She changed her mind.

It's outdated now, they have devices that pick up a point, tell you how high it is and you code it so it can be converted into an AutoCAD drawing, the measuring staff is replaced by a stick with a prism on top. I still use the old fashioned method myself on small jobs if required. All I need is a 'boy' with a bit of sense to hold the measuring staff vertically in the right place. You'd be amazed at how difficult some youngsters find that. They slouch, or lean in a particular direction or start looking at their phone instead of paying attention. I pay outside companies to do the big surveys now. We had our own in house bloke, but he either never had anyone to help him (minimum 2 man job), his batteries would pack up, or he wouldn't go out in the rain. He now works for me as a CAD draughtsman instead until he retires.

That was about 25 years ago not today. I had sandwiches today, I learnt my lesson.

I took a picture of a front door just off the beach because I noticed they were ready for a flood. The Martello tower was surprise, I never saw that last time I was there.

NOW, this is a benchmark on one end of the Moot Hall. Used when measuring levels/surveying. The Ordnance Survey used to place them on public buildings, bridges, retaining walls, police stations, anywhere they thought was unlikely to change. I put a 50p in it for some of the pictures, that is how we used to use them. You extend your measuring staff and place the foot of it on the sticking out coin. The height of the bench mark will be shown on the large scale OS plan, or you can get it from a reference book. Your telescope is set up on a tripod somewhere close by and it is carefully levelled using the two bubbles and two adjusters. Because it is level now, wherever you look the cross hairs will point at stuff at the same height above sea level. By reading the number on the measuring staff and adding it to the benchmark height you get the height of your telescope. Now where ever you put the staff on the ground, you look through the telescope and read the measurement where the cross hairs are, to the nearest millimetre. Subtract the height of the telescope from the reading on the staff and you have the ground level. The last picture is a sign in a built in seat at the other end of the Moot Hall.

The Moot Hall. If you absolutely need to have a moot, then this is the place to have one. You can moot away and no one will think badly of you, as long as you clean up after yourself. Model boating lake according to the map and looks like one man is about to have a go. He'd be better of just having a moot instead. B

I haven't been here since my son was small. All I recall is that the fish and chip shop was famous for its quality and we had been told to try it if we ever went there. Unfortunately the rest of East Anglia also wanted some. The queue was hundreds of yards long, it actually crossed side streets. Once we had queued for 45 minutes, I was all for giving up, but my other half insisted that we keep going. Eventually we got inside and bought our fish and chips. I'll give them their due, they had customers stretching to the next county but they had not put their prices up or taken on extra staff, they just got on with it like they were unpopular. Once we had our hard won food we walked through the alley to the beach to eat them. That was when I discovered that people would come up to you and offer to buy them off you for double the normal cost rather then join the queue. I refused a few offers and scoffed the lot.

No one wanted to go with him?

You know I'm wearing the 'pants' under those jeans don't you.......

I'm going somewhere, probably tomorrow, depends what time I get up.

If it's a draw then a tie breaker would be who can produce the best mange photo.

They'll eat anything round there, curry sauce hides a multitude of sins.

Before my time, but you always hear people talking about the old animal market, I gather it got shut down due to all the cruelty. Google throws this up, it doesn't sound pleasant, boot polish top cover up sores etc. https://www.eastendreview.co.uk/2014/06/09/club-row-market/

https://spitalfieldslife.com/2022/09/29/the-return-of-sue-hadley/ I will try and see if I can find the staircase in the first picture, it'll have a security lock on the door nowadays, but there are a few tricks to getting past vthos I know from years of carrying out letter drops. A name is mentioned in the text, Angela Burdett Coutts, she seems to have been a one lady charity phenomenon, there are so many things connected with her all over the borough. Coutts is the royal family's personal bank. I don't think they do cash machines though.

No chance, they are both bad.

My ID card failed to work this morning. Unfortunately I found this out when already half way down the ramp to the underground car park. Result, one motorcycle blocking everyone's way in till someone took pity on me and let me in with their card. The reason?? Some twat decided that anyone with an ID picture taken more than 10 years ago needed a new one. Be nice if they had mentioned it first though before I put a 1/3 of a ton downhill with no reverse gear available. Anyway, I now have a picture of an old man on my new card, replacing the previous one which was taken circa 1997, so probably a bit over due!