Reply to: test please delete

[ladymuck]

Some delightful racists in the Torygraph comments section are complaining that the BBC put black people in King & Conqueror because apparently there were no black people in Britain in 1066 and therefore the BBC are being woke.

I responded mentioning that black people weren't invented in the 1940's and had been around for quite some time.

They then directly asked if I believed that black people lived in Britain in 1066. This triggered a memory of some archaeological research which revealed black history in Britain being much older than people think. I found a link to an easy-to-read summary of the findings and kindly shared it with them for their education. I have no doubt they will find a reason to debunk this information as fake news or some such but it brought me great joy to share it.

[NickFitz]

Tea has been the braised belly pork in coder thing, with chips

And I've watched the third and final part of Disaster at Sea: The Piper Alpha Story. It's very good; I might dig out my copy of Fire in the Night for a reread

[DoctorStrangelove]

^^^"Reassuringly expensive".

Next stop: Stella Artois. .

The hose on my Miele WM is that braided kind.

Fancy, but I doubt it's any more special than the Wilko one on the el cheapo WM.

Thankfully the waste water pipe was long enough to do the needful doings without the expenditure of more money.

[NickFitz]

I bet the hoses aren't anything special, other than having the brand name printed on them.

I remember trying to get a sofa delivered to the first flat I rented in Kensington. It came in a huge box. I had measured doors etc based on a sofa shape, and not sofa-in-a-box shape and therefore expected it to fit through the various corners that needed to be navigated. Turns out, they were not allowed to remove the sofa from the box in order to get it into the flat so I had to reject delivery. What a load of nonsense that was.

The drain hose doesn't seem like anything you couldn't get from SparesRUs for half the price (though with the discount, I am getting it for half the price). But the expensive one is the water hose, as that's got an impressive stainless steel braided sheath; very fancy

She mentioned that I was lucky I hadn't got one of their models with the advanced Water Protection System™, as the hose is built into said system so a longer one costs more than twice as much as it includes the whole unit, and you also need to get a plumber to install it

[ladymuck]

I bet the hoses aren't anything special, other than having the brand name printed on them.

I remember trying to get a sofa delivered to the first flat I rented in Kensington. It came in a huge box. I had measured doors etc based on a sofa shape, and not sofa-in-a-box shape and therefore expected it to fit through the various corners that needed to be navigated. Turns out, they were not allowed to remove the sofa from the box in order to get it into the flat so I had to reject delivery. What a load of nonsense that was.

[NickFitz]

After listening to hold music for an eternity, I finally got through to the relevant Miele customer service person to see about getting hoses and also a visit from a "technician" - I felt that it might be safer to have a professional deal with things like swapping hoses around. They turned out to be very helpful, and the hoses turned out to be very expensive. But they went off and spoke to their manager, and knocked 50% off!

So new, longer, official, warranty-preserving hoses are on their way, and I'll be contacted shortly by their approved installation company. She explicitly stated that this one was different to the one from earlier today, in that this one "does everything"

Might have clean clothes by the weekend!

[NickFitz]

^^^ Smartarse.

They were repeatedly telling me things they couldn't do! Eventually one of them explained that in days of old, people would ask the delivery teams to do something extra, and then claim stuff had been damaged and so on and demand compensation. So now the company literally won't let them do anything more complicated than turn up, put the thing in, connect it (when possible), and leave

When I suggested taking the cupboard door off to give them an extra bit of space, they started moaning that they didn't have time as they had forty drops to do. I pointed out that it was four screws and I had the required screwdriver right there as I'd thought it might be needed, so they reluctantly stood there for the thirty seconds or so it took to do it

[DoctorStrangelove]

^^^ Smartarse.

[NickFitz]

I have a new washer-dryer!

What I don't have is an installed washer-dryer

Turns out the hoses that come with it are a bit too short, so they weren't able to connect it. But given the palaver that had been involved in just getting it into the place, I accepted this and will sort it out myself

They were OK until it came to disconnecting the old one. "This valve's turned off, but there's still water coming out when I loosen it!" I suggested that maybe the valve was weird and turning it to what seemed to be the "on" position would actually turn it off, but this was dismissed as the ramblings of a mere amateur. Eventually I got under there myself… and turning the valve to what looked like "on" turned it off

So then they did the rest of the disconnection, whereupon they couldn't get it out of the kitchen door. I removed the door from the corner cupboard to give them a few more centimetres, but they still struggled until I pointed out that they should turn it through 90°. Again, this was initially dismissed: "No, it's bigger that way" but once I stated that no, the width was 60cm while the depth was 68cm because of doors and pipes and things, they tried it my way, and it worked, again. So the old one was then easily removed from the flat

Bringing the new one in, we again had them trying to get it through the door the wrong way before I persuaded them to try it my way; they didn't bother arguing this time, just tried it, and it worked, again

So with that now in the way in the kitchen, I have to get the relevant parts and hook it up myself. He did warn me that I'd have to get the genuine Miele parts or it would void the warranty, so now there's all that hassle to go through

Still, at least it arrived this time

[NickFitz]

The delivery guys are on 12 now, with me being 16. Down in a village north-east of Coventry

This meant I was able to make standup, though a couple of minutes late since Teams decided to lock up and then update itself with a new, "improved" version that apparently no longer supports the categories I'd created to organise my sidebar by team and project, but does add some kind of AI gubbins

Anyway, the new team are basically saying I should take my time just reading through stuff, learning about how this app works and so on, and not to get stressed as there's no rush for me to start doing anything productive

[xoggoth]

Arty farty thing soon. Unregistered loony lady emailed me re another meet, so maybe have 3 official loony ladies again.

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Blue sky with occasional wisps. Currently 18 degrees with a high of 25 expected. There may be a shower mid morning. Barometer down to 1007 mBar.

Sunrise 06:05; Sunset 20:00 BST

I was woken around 5 am by animals 'doing it like they do on the Discovery channel' in the garage car park that my bedroom wall is next to.

When the alarm went off, I was very sleepy but awake enough to think, "I have an early meeting", and got up sharpish. I do have an early meeting. Tomorrow. Much coffee now being imbibed.

Yesterday I watched several episodes of Bookish (on alibi, I refuse to use the U& prefix). I like it, very entertaining. I hope there's a second series. Only six episodes, two left for this evening.
EDIT: scripts have been written, a read-through has been done, filming should be sometime next year

[NickFitz]

These delivery guys are a lot faster than last week's! Looks like they could be here within the hour

Shame that will clash with my first standup with my new team since July

[DoctorStrangelove]

^^^ OM.

Morning.

Tuesday.

Damp.

Grey.

Dreary.

Sunless.

Cool in here at 21.2 deg, 22 in the kitchen, 20.5 in the leanto.

1000.5 mBar, 29.54 in Hg, 750.44 Torr, 14.51 psi, (down from 1003 last night), 67% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 11th of February 2020 wattaj, BR14, scruff, DaveB, and LondonManc popped in, WTFH had a decent night's sleep in Memphis with only two more to go, and NF avoided the visit of the then Heir Apparent & his Mrs to that Leicester by putting off the shopping until the morrow, whilst I mentioned that I'd avoided the then Heir Presumptive & his Mrs's visit to that Swansea a few weeks earlier. . NF also mentioned that his mum used to work on the early flu vaccine investigations, thus regularly getting differing varieties of flu all the way through the year.

Brief torrential downpour. .

Freecell score: 95%, running average: 83%.

Walk (towpath, unabbreviated, augmented) walked in the unexpected sunshine. Cool breeze. Less sweaty in Morrisons this morning.

Shopping trip to Morrisons done dusted washed dried sanitised & put away.

Lunch: brunch. Entertainment: Y&Y <click>

Some hunting for a BNC socket to no avail, though I did find one that was in a jig, and I found the grounding washer that should go with it.

Now outside a cup of mediocre but consistent coffee.

I have determined that if the HP 3586C selective level meter still worked it would be ideal for testing the thing I'm working on. Since it probably doesn't, that's a bit of a pity.

Plus it's too goddamn heavy to move from where it is to where I'd want to use it since the "office cum junk room" is no longer capable of being used for engineering purposes.

Looks like the Farnell TM8 meter thing might do the needful doings but it's even longer since that's been turned on than the 3586C.

Beginning to think a lot of this stuff should go.

Well I was dead right there: the TM8 was stuffed: shorted 1000uF reservoir cap. Worked while in pieces: promptly stopped working when reassembled. Deep joy. Not the easiest of things to work on, it must be said. Just as well it was powered through the Big Green Light Box since this worked as intended with the lamp lighting up when the mains short happened. Very pretty when it's lit up. .

Tea: soup etc.

Entertainment: PM.

TM8 duly unstuffed: live wire pinched by metalwork in power supply. Ok now after dismantling followed by remantling & plugging the fecker in again.

"California Suite(1978)" with that Maurice Micklewhite and Maggie Smith. It's not very funny. Also Alan Alda, Jane Fonda, Walter Matthau, Bill Cosby, and Richard Pryor. :.

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

It's a grey day out with some drizzle, though that's supposed to stop soon. Getting cooler too: currently 17°C but peaking at 23°, heading towards highs of a mere 18° by the end of the week. The barometers are down to 994/1002mB

The washer-dryer is currently in north-east Birmingham but they seem to be making good time and are now predicted to arrive a little earlier than planned, possibly around 10:10