Brexit, for once some facts.

[oldgroaner]

Technical drawing, I can do, but paints? Too technical for me... It's a whole other world of things to know.

I have always held onto the notion that Art and Engineering are one and the same, and while it is true that one can train to be a competent engineer without artistic talent, the Greatest of Artists have historically been among the most imaginative and creative engineers.
In the meantime the rest of us balls things up in our usual casual manner.
Dear Father used to encourage me with "Nothing is foolproof to the talented fool"
Words he first used to describe himself, the occasion being one Christmas Day in my early teens where he had bought me a No 1 Mamod Steam engine and large Mechano set, and I built a three foot high windmill with sails that could be revolved by turning a crank in the base..
Father had the brilliant idea of installing the Steam engine next the windmill and linking them together.
Came the time for the first trial and as the meths burner heated the water father decided he needed the loo and left the room, mother was in the kitchen doing Christmas Dinner so I set it going, it went slowly at first till I adjusted the pulley to tightened the slipping belt then faster and faster before there was a rather odd rattling and clanging and one of the revolving sails flew off and neatly cleared all of Dear Mother's ornaments and a vase of flowers off the mantlepiece over the fire.
Mother came storming in to see me on the floor trying to disconnect the Steam engine from the shuddering wreck of the windmill which had the now unblanced three sails causing it to march across the lino till it crashed into the fireplace and can to a stop.
Mother went into a rather spectacular display of disapproval and when she came down of the ceiling Father admitted it was his idea and that was when he first made the remark "Nothing is foolproof to a talented fool"
Sat there amid the wreckage I knew then that the thing I wanted to do when grown up was to be an engineer.
Nothing else could offer the same thrill and sense of achievement.

Just had a brilliant idea!
If I could get hold of a Mamod No1 and connect it to the Raizer Chair the resulting performance improvement could well discourage my better half from falling out of bed.
(After I get her down off the ceiling light fitting of course!)

 

[oldgroaner]

meanwhile on Brexit Island the Independent ran this
"
Government asks German residents to drive lorries even if they never have before

Exclusive: German driving licences issued before 1999 include entitlement to drive a small to medium-sized truck of up to 7.5 tonnes

It's all getting silly

And then there was this too
"
Mark Deakin@MarkJDeakin
·Replying to

@brexit_sham

HMRC also sent a letter to a friend of ours who claims disability for severe epilepsy to see if she'd be interested in driving. I wish I was joking.'

 

[Zlatan]

Remember to duck as the Lancasters pass overhead.
Whenever I have visited Lady Bower I see that in my imagination, perhaps I shall paint it.
Great view of a great place, though it looks rather low!

It is very low but filling up today.. Was a massive amount going in...
Yep, I was once very lucky, 20 years or so ago was pedaling around and quite high (by Lockerbrook farm) and a Lancaster rumbled along lake well below me.. He was having a practice run for following week.. Turned up unannounced.
Think it's my favourite place... Anywhere.. Stunning.. And generally quiet....

 

[Zlatan]

OG... You are a gifted artist... Well done matey..

 

[flecc]

meanwhile on Brexit Island the Independent ran this
"
Government asks German residents to drive lorries even if they never have before

Exclusive: German driving licences issued before 1999 include entitlement to drive a small to medium-sized truck of up to 7.5 tonnes

No different from Britain until relatively recently. Despite all my heavy truck and transporter experience, when the HGV regulations were first introduced I didn't get a full HGV licence automatically because I was no longer employed as an HGV driver, being in management.

But a car licence from then still covers 7.5 ton trucks so I was able to keep my hand in by doing the odd relief driving. It was only when I reached 80 years old that this entitlement was removed if I didn't take a C1 driving test.

And you might be astonished by the range of heavy vehicles that one can use for limited driving on the road with just a car licence. On the link below scroll down a little to the heading:

Exempted large goods vehicles

and read the list of heavy vehicles you and I can drive right now to some extent on the roads on our car licences.
.

 

[Zlatan]

No different from Britain until relatively recently. Despite all my heavy truck and transporter experience, when the HGV regulations were first introduced I didn't get a full HGV licence automatically because I was no longer employed as an HGV driver, being in management.

But a car licence from then still covers 7.5 ton trucks so I was able to keep my hand in by doing the odd relief driving. It was only when I reached 80 years old that this entitlement was removed if I didn't take a C1 driving test.

And you might be astonished by the range of heavy vehicles that one can use for limited driving on the road with just a car licence. On the link below scroll down a little to the heading:

Exempted large goods vehicles

and read the list of heavy vehicles you and I can drive right now to some extent on the roads on our car licences.
.

I, d once hired a long wheel base transit van to fetch a Westfield kit.. Turned out the Transit had blown head gasket or something so was unavailable.. Said I could take lorry for same price... A flat bed 7.5 tonnes. (non artic)... Rolled up in Kingswinford they thought I, d come for 5 kits.. Westfield looked proper toy like in bits on back..
"What you brought that for?" in brummy accents... Made it home, no drama..

 

[oldgroaner]

OG... You are a gifted artist... Well done matey..

Thank you!
I'm not even a pretty face you know.

 

[Zlatan]

Thank you!
I'm not even a pretty face you know.

Me neither...

 

[Craiggor 2]

meanwhile on Brexit Island the Independent ran this
"
Government asks German residents to drive lorries even if they never have before

Exclusive: German driving licences issued before 1999 include entitlement to drive a small to medium-sized truck of up to 7.5 tonnes

It's all getting silly

And then there was this too
"
Mark Deakin@MarkJDeakin
·Replying to

@brexit_sham

HMRC also sent a letter to a friend of ours who claims disability for severe epilepsy to see if she'd be interested in driving. I wish I was joking.'

All pre 1997 UK car licences have the 7.5t entitlement. This is how lots of HGV drivers got into the industry. Now you have to pay for a test for a job you might not like. Last month the government decided to give the B+E trailer licence back to people who passed a car test after 97 to free up spaces for H.G.V tests.I don't understand why they don't give them the 7.5t entitlement, what's more dangerous 3.5t towing 3.5t or a 7.5t lorry.

 

[flecc]

I'm not even a pretty face you know.

Never mind, you can still be strikingly handsome.

If someone doesn't agree you're handsome, you hit them.
.

 

[Danidl]

I have two main Hobbies that keep me amused 24/7 one is painting in water based oils on framed canvasses
This is an example
View attachment 44224

My other Hobby is a variation on trying to keep awake to see Santa. My Dear wife has a sneaky habit of sliding out of bed onto the floor immediately l close my eyes.
But I have bought a secret weapon to foil her plan
View attachment 44225
A chair that is assembled under her and erects lifting her to a standing position
Operated by a crank you will note.
I took delivery on the 5th of August this year and now I have been able to achieve an erection no less that 17 times, including once early this morning.
It must have saved quite a bit for the NHS on Ambulance Fall teams callouts.
(And now I have superceded the crank with my Battery Drill.)

Oh!. The crank is a gear .. not a person!

 

[wheeler]

They won't win back any Scottish votes.

FTFY

 

[wheeler]

Remember to duck as the Lancasters pass overhead.
Whenever I have visited Lady Bower I see that in my imagination, perhaps I shall paint it.
Great view of a great place, though it looks rather low!

I didn't realise Lady Bower was a place That gives a different meaning to Zlatan's post.

 

[oldgroaner]

He can't stop himself:

Boris Johnson hands peerage and ministerial job to banker who gave party £147,500

Opposition parties condemn decision as ‘rampant cronyism’

Financier Malcolm Offord, who has gifted £147,500 to the Conservative Party, has been appointed as a junior minister at the Scotland Office.

Must spend his evenings scanning the biggest donors and deciding what job he can give them.

What makes this worse is that he stood for election to get the position and failed!

 

[guerney]

Do think some have to be careful with retirement. Think we all fall into 2 groups, either we live to work or we work to live.
I, ve always been the latter.
When I was leaving full time paid employment some work colleagues asked"but what will you do with your time? "
They were the live to work types.
My leisure mates were all jealous. All work to live types.
I, ve built things, some at profit, some at loss., from cars, windsurf boards, sea scooters, ebikes, motor bikes, to rocking horses. I,ve fitted barges and boats out... And ran 2 businesses...(one in France)... Renovated an old house in Filey... And sailed on almost every windy day(worked until F4?) and ebiked on sunny calm days. So for me retirement was wrong word. It was leaving the comfort blanket of a known monthly income. Should have done it at 25...not 52...
Enjoyed last 15 years more than any in real work.
Alex Fergusson made a great comment when asked if he was retiring...
"I, m too old to retire"... Its true. Some people are.

Would Universal Basic Income give more people a similar (but scaled back, because it won't be much of an income) "Live to work" experience?

Is doing up boats to sell lucrative? People I know have reported surprising markups for old horseboxes, when outfitted as catering boxes, but that was pre-pandemic. Old aluminium jetstreams imported from France to renovate and sell? They fetch very good prices, do old jetstreams. I also know several people who profit 60k+ a year selling lightly improved (usually ex-fleet) cars, originally bought from the likes of Arnold Clark, but they're always moaning about lack of storage space - white cabriolets sell like hot cakes in the summer, so I'm told. Small engined runabouts shift fast (ie quick sales). Flipping renovated houses is likely to be good way to go for the foreseeable future, although costs for some materials have increased by about 40%, so I'm told.

 

[guerney]

What makes this worse is that he stood for election to get the position and failed!

"By hook or by crook! That mediocre low paid civil service post will be mine! MINE! Muwahahaha! MUWAHAHAHAHAHA!"... there had to be some angle to this, and I was struggling to see what it was... So it's revenge for rejection by voters? Positioning for receiving backhanders? And a view to a knighthood somewhere along the line, tenuously justified with something like "For outstanding services rendered, and delivered with class, verve and distinction, to common trouserless Scottish people knee deep in bogs".

 

[guerney]

Yes, I remember seimg some of your excellent paintings before. That was my older brother's interest during retirement and as a member of an art club holding exhibitions his started selling. Good for a while, eventually commissions for certain paintings and their deadlines became a bit of a burden and started to stress him, so beware of going down that route.
.

Delivery of creative work to a schedule marrs the output - many (normally good) writers with a five book deal over "n" years end up getting drivel published, even the good ones. I don't think you can engineer artistic inspiration, but maybe one can... I've never been able to, and trying to do so to a schedule seems like a recipe for extreme stress. Hope your brother didn't sacrifice an ear!

I see more and more venue walls hand painted with various scenes these days. I'm envious of painters. The only way I could do that is by printing out a vast image in small sections, sticking them on walls to tracing over, or by projecting an image as a guide, and even then it'd look awful and I'd have to give the unfortunate customers a partial refund.

 

[guerney]

View attachment 44230

Lady Bower this morning. First ride for a while... Great.

Is that before or after her arm rose up to fling you Excalibur?

 

[guerney]

When I retired I vowed never to work for money again if at all possible and I have stuck to that. I never finish a painting, and unless they are being gifted to someone, never sign them either.
What is the point?
Jokingly I suggested to my Younger daughter that when I die, she rips the canvases off the frame and stuffs them round me in my coffin.
Rothchild famously remarked "If I can't take it with me I won't go!"
My cunning plan is to take it with me.

Someone I knew was buried in a biodegradable cardboard box, which was painted by people he knew - everyone was invited (over a few days) to paint, write or scrawl something (his wife stressed that he wasn't in the box while they were doing this). Forest burial in Wales somewhere...

 

[guerney]

I have always held onto the notion that Art and Engineering are one and the same, and while it is true that one can train to be a competent engineer without artistic talent, the Greatest of Artists have historically been among the most imaginative and creative engineers.
In the meantime the rest of us balls things up in our usual casual manner.
Dear Father used to encourage me with "Nothing is foolproof to the talented fool"
Words he first used to describe himself, the occasion being one Christmas Day in my early teens where he had bought me a No 1 Mamod Steam engine and large Mechano set, and I built a three foot high windmill with sails that could be revolved by turning a crank in the base..
Father had the brilliant idea of installing the Steam engine next the windmill and linking them together.
Came the time for the first trial and as the meths burner heated the water father decided he needed the loo and left the room, mother was in the kitchen doing Christmas Dinner so I set it going, it went slowly at first till I adjusted the pulley to tightened the slipping belt then faster and faster before there was a rather odd rattling and clanging and one of the revolving sails flew off and neatly cleared all of Dear Mother's ornaments and a vase of flowers off the mantlepiece over the fire.
Mother came storming in to see me on the floor trying to disconnect the Steam engine from the shuddering wreck of the windmill which had the now unblanced three sails causing it to march across the lino till it crashed into the fireplace and can to a stop.
Mother went into a rather spectacular display of disapproval and when she came down of the ceiling Father admitted it was his idea and that was when he first made the remark "Nothing is foolproof to a talented fool"
Sat there amid the wreckage I knew then that the thing I wanted to do when grown up was to be an engineer.
Nothing else could offer the same thrill and sense of achievement.

Just had a brilliant idea!
If I could get hold of a Mamod No1 and connect it to the Raizer Chair the resulting performance improvement could well discourage my better half from falling out of bed.
(After I get her down off the ceiling light fitting of course!)

That was a joy to read! You should definitely write your memoirs (if you haven't/aren't already).