Member postings for Mike

Talking of giant insects, about 30 years ago, while climbing a wooden fence while out fishing, I dislodged a giant chrysalis. As I couldn't return it to the spot where it had attached itself, I dropped it in my pocket and left it in a cardboard box in the workshop when I got home. A few days later I found a beautiful privet hawk moth perched on the window sill. It had a wing span of over four inches, and a banded, pink and black body. I left the window open in the hope that it would fly away, and next day it had gone. I still hope it survived, because we were experiencing a long, cold spring.

I had trouble with Flash Player on W10/Edge. Turned out my security software was blocking it. Sorry I can't give details- I'm a bit of a computer idiot these days!

I ran a five-inch 4-jaw on my Super 7 for years without problems. But it was a shallow, threaded-body chuck, and therefore light in weight and with not much overhang.

If you want a new, relatively low-powered motor, i've found it is cheaper to buy a cheap Chinese-made small drill press than a motor alone. You often get a no-volt switch into the bargain, plus a chuck and a pair of bearings.

Unfortunately we have thrown Thursday's local daily newspaper away, so I can't quote this exactly, but one columnist mentioned that there were NATO exercises off the Hebrides last week. It seems there were two crows, flying along and minding their own business, then there was a tremendous noise and a passing Tornado, engines on re-heat, left them tumbling in its wake. Once safely on the ground, one crow said to the other "Wow, that bird was going some, wasn't he?" His mate replied "Well, so would you if you had two bum-holes, and both were on fire..........."

If old men should not be driving, then give us public transport systems that work, rather than the shambles we have today. OK, I could get a free bus pass, but the damn things never go where I want to go at the times I want to travel. And as for trains, whenever I buy a ticket I feel I feel I have bought a major shareholding in the railway company. So it's no, I don't want to drive at the age of 77, but I have to, and I always strive to drive responsibly.

Neil, it seems that these people have no greater sense of responsibility than the slime they are defending.

Is Silly Old Duffer speaking with tongue in cheek, or not? Personally, I'm totally fed up with soft sentences for drunk drivers, speeders, child molesters, and other parasites. And as for those who make excuses for them, I can do without bleeding-heart liberals in my life.

David's reply is interesting, because although I have had arguments with motor insurers, in the last 25 years I have never had any grumbles with my house insurers. A few years back my wife and I returned from holiday to find that a cracked pipe in the loft had caused around £4,000 of damage. Phoned the insurance company, and a very helpful guy promised to get an assessor to call on me as soon as possible. "By the way", he said, "exactly where is this village in which you live?" When I told him, he said that his nearest assessor was well over 100 miles away. "I'm not sending him on a journey like that - just get it fixed and send me the bill", he said. They paid up promptly. That's just one advantage of living in the wilds of Scotland!

Maybe the non-profitability of motor insurance is due to the number of people making untruthful claims. A female colleague was unofficially advised by a policeman who attended the scene of a minor accident in which she was involved to make a claim against the other driver because "whiplash is always worth at least £3,000." This despite the fact that the damage to both vehicles was so minor it was not worth claiming for repairs. 

Edited By Mike on 01/05/2018 17:56:42

Sounds as if insurance companies will soon be as unhelpful and obstructive as high street banks............

Going back to water injection in engines, I can remember in the 1950s there was one diesel tractor which had water injection. In the 1960s, Boeing 707s with Pratt & Whitney engines used water injection to boost thrust on take-off. I remember being told by one so-called "expert" that it was abandoned because it shortened engine life. I can remember having a Vauxhall which always ran better on foggy days, in just the situation when the extra performance was impossible to use..

I like your picture, John, but what have you Canadians done to the weather? A pal emailed me from Toronto a few days ago and said they were in the middle of an ice storm so severe that he and his neighbours were looking out candles and flashlights in case the ice brought the electricity supply lines down. Hope you keep this weather on your side of the Atlantic - it's Spring here in Scotland!

Hi John Gibbs. It's a "close" in Scotland, although a friend of mine in County Durham lives in a "wynd". But back home in Lincolnshire there was a passage called Skinner's Jitty. I've also known the term "vennel" used in the North of England and south-western Scotland.

Neil, is it possible that Michael W might have invented a perpetual motion machine as well?

I have postal subscriptions to three magazines, and all of them come wrapped in plastic. Why not use A4 brown paper envelopes?

Old-fashioned gun makers case-hardened with animal bone charcoal. They put in bits of leather and other substances to produce colour-hardening - a random pattern largely made up of blues and browns.

Brian, I've three years to go to equal your score. I await the DWP letter with bated breath!

I should have known this: my favourite drain for fishing in Lincolnshire was the Vernatts, named after the Dutch engineer who built it. And the division of Lincolnshire in which I lived was Holland County. So thanks for the reminder, Neil.

Hi Peter,

I can't find any model engineering clubs in Inverness, Moray or the nearer parts of Aberdeenshire, and I have lived in Moray (the part we still prefer to call Banffshire) for more than 20 years. Sorry to sound negative. There is a club in Aberdeen (https://aberdeenmodellers.co.uk). but that's 78 miles from Forres. There are a few model railway clubs, but I guess that's not what you are looking for.

As a Lincolnshire lad (a Yellowbelly" I got caught out over the two definitions of the word "dyke" when I first visited Scotland in the early 1950s, so thanks to Gordon for pointing out that "dyke" means boundary. In the house where I first stayed in Scotland I was told that there was a thing called a "lade" at the end of the garden. I was a bit disappointed to discover it was just a mill stream. Later, in the early 1960s, when I spent a couple of years wandering about in the bush in Rhodesia and Mozambique, I was told that, if Africans didn't understand my English, to try English with a Scots accent. This was a widely-held belief among Europeans. I never had to put it to the test, but it shows just how far in the world Scots influence has spread.

Edited By Mike on 18/04/2018 15:53:46