yen_powell

My brother volunteered as a marshal at the vaccination centre near Ipswich. All the marshals got a vaccination one evening because they had stuff left over that would have to be destroyed otherwise. maybe being nice does occasionally have benefits.

My replacement bolt was waiting for me when I got home from work yesterday. I also had my second half of a pallet strapped to the back of my bike. The two half pallets together make it a doddle to ride the bike straight on to my ramp without worrying about falling over sideways if my feet miss the edge. I can still push it up if I ever had a dead engine bike to work on, but that can take a few attempts and was always a bit worrying as you nearly made it fully on only to have to cope with it going back down the ramp before trying again. They also made putting it on the centre stand much easier. So bike is ready at a comfy height, I have my replacement bolt, it'll be tea and music time later on today then a ride about to make sure nothing is going to drop off!

I'll let you know, I have something coming from Poland. 3D printed handguard extenders.

I think I had a loan to buy a bike from them once.

Just had an email from across the pond apologising and offering to Fedex a replacement bolt today. I can't argue with the speed of response seeing as I only emailed on Saturday afternoon.

It was my name not his company name, memory playing tricks, but it was 30 years ago. Sorry about the shine on the paper.

Only on ones like that which have elevations rather than plan views. My Petticoat Lane market cross section drawing of a trapped road gulley has about 15 coat hangers wedged in it, because that is what the traders do with them rather than take them home, I think i may have put some hyperdermics in there as well, as the drug users get rid of them that way. When we were still drawing by hand on tracing paper I had a punk rocker with a mohawk walking across the road with a large stereo on his shoulder. I also did a proper non technical drawing to show my proposals for a market square many many years ago which got put on the front of a leaflet. It had the nutty lollypop lady in it who was always drunk and stopped traffic on days there was no school cos she liked doing it and also my then girlfriend's dad's skip lorry with their jack russell hanging out the window and his company name on the side of the skip. I have a few leaflets as souvenirs in a drawer somewhere so I might be able to take a photo of that one.

You can usually identify one of my work drawings by the turd I always place in it somewhere, it is my signature. Below is one of my drawings followed by a zoom in to each side. I have a turd block, that is to say it was drawn years ago and sits in a library of my stuff and is inserted into any drawing I work on.

https://www.duncancampbell.org/menu/journalism/newstatesman/newstatesman-1980/a christmas party for the moles.pdf There ya go

There's a secret tunnel that starts in Bethnal Green Road. It used to be in the middle of a traffic island, but the footway was built out around it. It is now between these cycle hire racks https://goo.gl/maps/ecoRLjTFC2dzDvc38 It runs to Whitehall amongst other places, a big network. Big enough for a car to drive along if you could get it down there in the first place. A journalist got down there and took pictures in the 70s and wrote an article about them. When I find the link I will post it. They placed gates along it after he did that to stop it happening again. I and a colleague had the lid up whilst doing a survey in the 90s and underneath is another lid with a huge padlock and a phone number with a warning notice. We rang it and had to make an appointment for them to come and open it. I misssed it, my colleague went down though, said there were communication cables bathed in oil to keep them cool, something like that anyway.

No, never had a camera with me, I wasn't meant to be going, got dragged along at the last minute. It was weird. At the bottom of this deep giant cylindrical hole was a tube tunnel going away for ever in one direction (to the west) but only going for 10 metres in the opposite direction. Up top hundreds of pre-formed quarter circles to line the tunnel were laid out in the order to be used. There was railway track laid, but this was for construction traffic, it would all be ripped up for the permanent way to be laid near the end of works. There was a huge gantry across the top of the open hole with cranes and things hanging off it and every time it was going to move a siren would go off, as I said earlier, like a scene at the end of a James Bond film in the villain's lair. They did say if I came back for a second visit I could travel on one of the construction trains, but it would mean not getting back for about 5 hours as you have to leave at the same point you entered.

https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/units/344/gloucestershire-regiment https://soldiersofglos.com/announcement/invasion-liberation/

I've matured, these days I would send someone else. Of course, nowadays I wouldn't be allowed down, no confined spaces certificate. Just remembered, I went down the Crossrail working shaft at Blackwall a few years back. An excavation so big and deep it was like a James Bond villain's lair. Another chance to carry an oxygen mask and bottle I wouldn't know how to use and with a metal token around my neck taken from a peg board so they know how many people are down there and that they have all come back at the end of the shift. Apparently they thought they had lost someone once, but he had gone home from the Whitechapel Station end of the tunnelling and forgotten to let them know.

Imagine half squatting down with your hands pressed against the ceiling for balance, the water was about half an inch below my small but perfectly formed arse. I was advised that if I got cramp I was just to sit down in the slop. 'Will my waterproof suit keep it on the outside?' I asked. 'No, but the cramp will ease', they answered.

I searched for pictures to give a better idea. This is one being built, possibly a little larger than the one I went through. Water and err.... slurry was about 8 brick courses up from the bottom. Notice the upside down egg shape. That makes them self cleaning because the water flows more quickly and keeps the err sludge from settling too easily.

I think I will, thank you for the link. I normally press the bolts together and the threads fit together, locking into each other.

I was a trainee in the Main Drainage team for 6 months. I am a bit claustrophobic and I asked to go down one to try and convince myself it was just a passing phase. Not a problem they said, I went to our supply depot and was issued with a yellow rubber immersion suit, super long white socks and thigh length rubber waders (when we still had such things, nowadays you have to find your own stuff and order it yourself). I'll bet the thought of me in that lot is getting you all going. Actually at the manhole I was given a hard hat with head lamp and a belt with a battery pack which gets in the way all the time. They didn't want the suit or waders back for some reason after I came back up and was hosed down to remove the clinging turds?

Not down there. I once walked the Victorian sewer that runs under The Highway in Wapping. It was small so that you had to waddle along with your hands against the sides so you didn't fall into the grim contents. You have to waddle through water, wall to wall turds and toilet paper. The stench when they opened up the manhole covers to vent the sewer is appalling. I was told that my nose would switch off when I got down there and they were correct, quite amazing.

I thought I would fit my Altrider bash plate today. I had everything set up. Attempted to give myself a hernia moving the bike ramp more to the centre of the garage to give more room around the front of the bike and then on attempt number 5 managed to get the XT onto it with a shorter run up than usual. Had the music on, a cup of tea, really good paper instructions and I'd watched the installation video which is most excellent. I was all set. Firstly. off came the plastic excuse for a bash plate, then the two alloy brackets that it mounts to, all going well, tea only halfway down, bagged the bits and labelled them. Then the next task was to remove the two allen bolts holding the side stand bracket on. I started hopefully with a ratchet and and allen bit socket. Hmmmm, that seems a bit tight. Switched to a 3/8 breaker bar. More hmmmmming, the breaker bar was starting to curve a little and a small vein was showing on my forehead I reckon. The I got out that impact driver, the really cheap one I got in my teens, at a market probably. Much kerbangingin time to the music but nothing is moving. Time for the next stage, Roxette by Dr Feelgood came on just as I plugged in my B&Q electric paint stripper and gave one of the bolts a going over for about 30 seconds, back in with the impact driver and club hammer, nothing. Then a full minute of heat gun and tried again, it started to move thank god. A minute on the other one and that started to move. At one point I though the bike would rotate the opposite way if I put any more force into my hammer. Removed the two bolts and bagged them when they were cool. Side stand now only supported by the electrical connection, so I found something for it lay on and switched sides to the exhaust hanger bolts that needed to come out. Tea now drunk, Nightboat to Cairo by Madness is playing, love that song. A 10mm bolt about 4 inches long and a smaller 8mm bolt came out with no arguments. Time to start fitting the first bash plate bracket bolts in their place. I found the two replacement bolts which are slightly longer to allow for the thickness of the brackets. The larger one goes in and I start to turn it, but it doesn't feel right. I always put bolts in by hand so as not to wreck a thread and it wouldn't even start. I took it back out and compared it to the Yamaha original. I'm no thread expert and I have middle aged eyes these days but the pitch looked closer together on the original bolt. Bad picture below, the grubby one is obviously the original bolt. I found a nut that would run down the Altrider bolt, it wouldn't go near the Yamaha one. Anyway, out came the plastic bags and I refitted everything. I've emailed the manufacturer for advice. Worst case scenario, I buy my own bolt, but I could have wrecked the thread on the bike if I'd gone in gung ho with a ratchet.

Braintree

I had a colleague who claimed that he was inside the concrete walls of a flyover in Barking when they were due to fill it full of wet pour concrete without realising he was there. He obviously made it out alive though. This is him https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoxton_Tom_McCourt definitely one of life's characters, first person I sat next to at the council, I never understood one word in 10 most of the time. Years later when he had risen through the ranks his P.A.s struggled when he dictated letters and when they brought out MS Office that could type what you said it failed miserably. I used to have to collect/put back traffic counting machines from a basement room with a steel door about 18 inches thick. I was paranoid about the door accidentally shutting on a Friday afternoon and being stuck there all weekend.

You've got to give yourself room to work. I'll see if we have the original drawings scanned anywhere, they are a work of art, back in the days when draftsmen took pride in their work or maybe just paid by the line. I've got a print but it's the size of a desk top, the original is drawn on linen.

Up the road from me is a place called Furneaux Pelham. Never known how that is pronounced. Do you say the X (Furnex) or say it like a French person would which I am only assuming is Furno.