SteveO

Sorry you can't be there Bern. We'll all miss you.

I was fortunate enough to have one of the first plastic Lego sets in the UK, sent over as a Christmas present by relatives in Europe. There were no design-specific components, such as we have today, just bricks, base plates and windows, with a few trees and some very European looking road signs. The roofs of buildings were either flat, or constructed by ever decreasing layers of rectangular bricks, giving them a stepped appearance. The set served me well from around the age of 4, then was passed down to my brother and eventually his children. The early bricks were made from an acetate-type plastic, which warped if you got them too hot, but I don't believe that the modern ones suffer in the same way. I also had Meccano, which I used to play with until my fingers bled from tightening the nuts. I would mechanise my models with a clockwork motor, an old wind-up gramophone mechanism or a Mamod steam engine depending on what they were and eventually acquired a phenomenal six-speed electric motor, which made all the others redundant. I believe that both these toys in their original form are an essential part of growing up and encourage construction skills, problem-solving, innovation and imagination in a way that modern toys do not. Even Lego seems to have gone down this route, with the introduction of kits of highly specific components, where the builder is supposed to merely follow a set of instructions rather than imagine, invent and build a model of their own.

Life must go on and, as I won last Friday, I will be QM on Friday 19th October, Topics will be: Food & drink Little people Norfolk n' good Half time break A river runs through it Advertising slogans General mayhem We will start at around 8.30pm. All are welcome. Hope you can join us. You can join us by following the link : http://www.nbnquiz.co.uk/chat/?logout=true Enter your user name but do not enter a password. Cheers Steve 

Blatant BBC tokenism if you ask me. Bring back William Hartnell.

And these were the notes that were supposed to be "impossible to forge" !!!!!!!!!!!!

To say nothing of the Payment Card Industry standard for protecting your credit card data.

I almost got suckered into this one as well but my Yorkshire genes kicked in when I saw the price they were charging. I thought the government was supposed to be doing something about sites that offer the same services as GOV.UK sites, but which charge a commission for their totally unnecessary services. Obviously not!.

I tried a bottle of Ghost Ship non-alcoholic beer yesterday and enjoyed it very much. As I don't really like sweet fizzy soft drinks and quickly get bored of water, this stuff is a perfect substitute for alcohol on my "nights off"

After a close-fought battle, Bern was the winner with 11 points, Tigerhawk second on 10 and with NikO and FairTmiddlin tying for 3rd place on 8. Bern will be in the chair next Friday, so hopefully we will see lots of you then.

I had the misfortune of having to drive to Norfolk from Yorkshire last weekend via the A17/A47. The journey was a 5 hour grind, mainly due to congestion on the Southbound A1 around Doncaster. The A17, with few opportunities for overtaking, gave a chill foretaste of a future life when the "driverless" car is king. Have to say though, that from the North, the NDR seems to cut quite a lot of time off the journey to Horning. The design of those roundabout approaches and lane layouts, however, leaves much to be desired.

Don't forget folks, I will be running a quiz tomorrow (Friday 28th September). Topics are: Planes and boats and trains Norfolk n' good Food and drink Half time break for T's and P's Science and nature Connections Odds and ends We will start at around 8.30pm. All are welcome. You can join us by following the link : http://www.nbnquiz.co.uk/chat/?logout=true Enter your user name but do not enter a password. Cheers Steve

I won this evening's excellent quiz so am in the chair for the next one. Unfortunately, I won't be around next Friday (21st) so plan to run my quiz on Friday 28th September. Of course, if anyone wishes to have a dabble as QM next Friday, please feel free. Cheers Steve

Aaaargh I forgot about Red Dwarf.

Wot no gnomes? We'll be there anyway.

To me it looks like some kind of hybrid between maybe a Rudd and a bream. I agree that the mouth is quite Rudd-like but the overall body shape is more like that of a bream.

Congratulations! You can't have too many grandchildren and nothing beats a BBQ in defiance of the elements.

Love St Raphael. More restaurants than you could shake a stick at, lovely beaches, interesting hinterland. Only slightly jealous here. Enjoy!

Sorry I had to drop off prematurely last night. The battery on my iPad ran out of volts. One of the many reasons why I prefer to use the laptop.

We use a straightforward cafetiere of the French Press kind . It is cheap, simple and works very well. Most decent supermarkets sell them, so readily available. Just remember to let the boiling water cool a bit before you pour it over the ground coffee. Otherwise you will miss out on the flavour "high notes" of your chosen blend, which tend to break down if the water is too hot.

Tried to get in using my trusty Android phone only to find that the site doesn't like Android.

And the winner, and next week's QM, is Tigerhawk. Now I'm off back to the staff room for a fag and a couple of glasses of the hard stuff to steady my nerves.

18mm of rain last night and a pleasant 23 degrees C this morning. Our lawn, which assumed the texture of shredded wheat (brown and crunchy) looks to be greening up already.

Mother and father of all thunderstorms going on here at the moment. Cooling things down a bit, but increasing the humidity. All doors and windows open to try and get some cool air into the house.

Bump!

I for one am really enjoying the warm and, thus far. predictable weather. It is great to be able to plan outings, BBQs and get-togethers with confidence and get on with the outdoor jobs that need doing in the dry. Too hot for boating though at the moment, but we have had some lovely days on the beach at Winterton, where temperatures have been a few degrees cooler and there is usually a breeze. What with official warnings that we should stay out the sun between the hours of 11am and 3pm, melting tar on roads, warped track on the railways and ever increasing threats of water shortage, only the Brits could turn the first decent summer for many years into a national disaster. Finally, at risk of incurring the ire of the Mods who might be concerned that this would upset any any climate change scientists or broadcasters who happen to be looking in I am disappointed that the BBC has seized on the current weather situation to pump up the volume on so-called global warming. Interestingly, after the last few years of so-so summers, which were supposed to herald decades of wet, humid and overcast summer weather, the Beeb, aided and abetted by various climate change "authorities" , is now puffing that we will be seeing an increasing trend towards hot, dry summers instead, based on some very questionable science. If a single data point can change the model from warm and wet to hot and dry, it can't be much of a model methinks. Anyway, rant over. It now looks as though it is going to rain at the weekend.