This is a very old article.
Just saw on the local news that a local charity is saying the number of Great Danes (that’s a breed of dog, by the way) being abandoned is on the increase.
The dumbed-down BBC presenter chirped:
Join us later to find out why this might be.
I’ll be out. So, I’ll just go with: huge dog, costs a lot to feed, and we’re in a recession.
Well, as I suggested might happen a few months ago, Lord Shearer didn’t make it and Newcastle go down. It was something of a foregone conclusion, really – Newcastle just aren’t good enough, and it isn’t Shearer’s (or Keegan’s) fault.
In the end, football is just a game, but it always makes me smile when I see the faces of the fans in the crowd when relegation is either avoided or confirmed. West Brom were relegated last week, but Middlesborough join Newcastle for one of the last two drop spots. The Sunderland fans were jubilant, seeing both the survival of their own team and the demise of their local enemies. Newcastle fans – big Geordies – were in tears.
At least Arsenal finished with a win against Stoke.
This is obviously a very, very, VERY old article if you’re reading it in 2023.
Back in March – just after Michael Jackson announced his marathon Summer tour – I commented that I couldn’t really see someone as fragile as him managing to complete such a punishing schedule. I mean: 50 years old, 50 dates, not toured in donkey’s years, not a full shilling? Come on!
Well, it’s started already!
One betting company is already giving odds on him cancelling more gigs than he performs. And there is this story which suggests he can’t actually perform that many gigs for contractual reasons. There are already health concerns, and he has been advised not to go ahead with the tour (or at least not all of it: he has 50 nights planned).
But this week, alleged problems with the venue have caused some dates to be postponed.
Fans are spitting feathers! Typical fans of Michael Jackson weren’t apparently at the front of the queue when brains were handed out, and those who sat for hours and hours by the phone in order to get tickets suddenly find themselves being mucked about. This is a particular issue for those fans who live on the other side of the world and who have booked flights and accommodation for the first gigs. Airline companies tend to be a little unforgiving when it comes to changing flights, so these fans are likely to end up out of pocket. And, of course, those who would have been able to boast of seeing Jacko first now won’t be seeing him until well into the proposed schedule (assuming either he or they are able to turn up on those rescheduled dates).
Picked a pupil up for her test this morning and she was very nervous. She hadn’t slept all night, and at one point when she made a small mistake (straightening too early on Parallel Park) she was almost in tears. Her driving was excellent – just the odd part where she was a bit late indicating or didn’t check her mirrors when slowing down.
But she passed with just 2 driver faults. Well done SG.
A couple of weeks ago a new pupil started having lessons with me. The first lesson went fine – she was a good driver, she was happy with me and my teaching, and she booked lessons for the next 2-3 weeks (paid in advance).
Last Monday was her second lesson. I got a text message less than 6 hours before the lesson saying that she had a boiler problem and was waiting for the man to come and fix it, so she couldn’t do a lesson that day. “No problem “, I said. She said she’d be OK for the next booking, on the Wednesday.
On Wednesday I get a text asking me to call her (less than 4 hours before the lesson). She’s still got boiler problems and the man is still due to call to fix it. “No problem “, I said. She said she’d be OK for the next lesson (which was today).
Yesterday I texted her to confirm she was still OK for the lesson. She texted back this morning that she was. So I turn up and there’s no sign of her. I send a text, leave a message on her voicemail, and wait for half an hour (doing some paperwork and making some calls). Still no show. So I send her a text saying I’d waited, and drove off.
An hour later I get a text: “I fell asleep “.
I can smell trouble, so I’m charging for today (I didn’t for the two last week) and she can get another instructor to teach her.
And also yesterday, another pupil had a 2 hour lesson booked. Last week, he’d phoned me in the middle of a lesson with the pupil who had the slot before him that he couldn’t do it because he had a hangover . This was at 5pm, you understand. He booked this 2 hour lesson instead. In previous weeks he had had to stop lessons because of financial problems.
I get to his house yesterday and he doesn’t show. I wait for 15 minutes and then text him to say that we had a lesson. A little later I get a reply saying he “thought it was tomorrow”. He adds “I can do an hour now if you’re still around”.
I wasn’t. And I won’t be again. He, too, can find another instructor.
These two, between them, have cost me well over £200 lost income in under two weeks – and that isn’t taking into account the fact I could have used the slots they had if I’d have known, since other pupils were crying out for lessons.
You get to know after a while, but hanging on to these people for too long is financially very bad. I get rid early on these days.
You have to hand it to The Sun – they do like a bit of hype.
Monkey Lemur Fossil
Take a look at this story about a fossil that’s been uncovered. Here’s the photo The Sun has used.
It’s described as a ‘monkey lemur’.
The thing that struck me first of all is that it has to be the most perfect fossil I have ever seen. You’d be hard pushed to find a skeleton that good inside a live mammal, let alone one which is supposedly 47 million years old. No doubt, in due course, that black outline will be gleefully described as its ‘skin and fur’. And what’s the betting they find a fossilised flea or something in there as well?
It has ‘HOAX’ written all over it.
But let’s not forget the real reason for all this:
Researchers say proof of this transitional species finally confirms Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution…
…Sir David Attenborough declared Darwin “would have been thrilled” to have seen the fossil.
He said it tells us who we are and where we came from.
Yes, once again it is the evolutionists trying to confirm that they have proof for something which is beyond being proven one way or the other… and as I suggested above, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a hoax.
All we need now is Richard Dawkins’ opinion telling us how dumb we all are not to be baptised members of his religion and it’ll be complete.
Well, further to what I said a week or so ago, the Swine Flu situation needs to be resummarised:
I suppose it’s also worth adding:
Still, WHO and others are trying to talk the whole thing up into a bigger thing than it is. And this is in spite of medics telling us it wasn’t as bad as they thought (with one report even saying something like “it [the virus] seems to be not as serious outside Mexico “).
Keep at it, guys. If you throw in some stuff about oil price increases you might start a panic there, so at least you’ll have achieved something.
Well, following on from my previous post on this project, the metal has arrived!
You can find Part #2 of this project here.
I’m just drawing up the plan I need for the component parts at the moment. I also nipped into Makro today and bought a few tools to make the job easier.
Makro stocks a wide range of tools, especially the Fairline range. In the original post Welding Isn’t Easy I mentioned that I’d bought a Fairline arc welder – well, today I also bought a bench grinder . Hard to believe that it only cost £14.99! EDIT: Note that in the finished project I never actually used the grinder.
Looking at the poorly-built original chair I’m using as a template, one of the key weaknesses is the way the seat is attached to the main struts (and that’s apart from the fact that they didn’t weld it on all sides). The two struts are welded on to the plate at an angle of about 40° and although the angle itself isn’t crtitical, the fact that having only two contact points means that repeated standing up and sitting down flexes the 
metal slightly. This eventually leads to fractures along lines of weakness – either the weld or across the strut itself. It’s all about cutting costs to save money as far as the manufacturers are concerned.
What I’m going to do is include a pair of smaller struts projecting almost vertically from the main struts on to the seat plate (these are not on the original – see diagram to the left). This will give four points of contact and create a strong triangular section (which adds strength). Combined with the fact I have chosen 2.5mm thick box section (the original looks to be about half this), it should yield a very strong finished article.
EDIT (20 May 2009): Incidentally, I was playing with various bits of software tonight and I’ve decided that there is no way I am going anywhere near drawing up a proper blueprint. I’d be here until Christmas! My sketches will be made using my existing art packages, which I know how to use properly.
Instead, I’m going to work out the dimensions of each component, produce them, then assemble them as sub-assemblies in stages. I’ve already measured up the existing chair and the most critical part is going to be making sure the spacing between the pairs of struts is correct to allow them to be inserted one inside the other.
EDIT: If you came to this page from a search engine, don’t forget to look for Kneeling Chair Project parts (#1), #2, #3, and #4 (plus a couple of updates) using the site search facility. This project is now complete and there are drawings/blueprints in the other parts.
On the pretest lesson we were running through all the manoeuvres. As we entered a retail park to do the Bay Park exercise, I said:
At the roundabout, turn left (first exit) and follow the road into the car park. We are NOT going into McDonalds – the road curves to the right.
So, we turn left off the roundabout and head straight into McDonalds (which is a left turn, as clearly indicated by the road markings). This was on top of another roundabout a few minutes earlier, where I’d said:
At the roundabout, turn right.
Admittedly, I didn’t say ‘third exit’ – but we end up going back the way we’ve just come!
(Incidentally, last night I was out with a pupil and I asked him to take the next turn on the right. This right turn is from a very wide road into another very wide one, and it heads down a steepish hill around a bend to the left. So, he tries it in 3rd gear, picks up 3rd gear speed on the turn itself, and then – and only then – tries to decide where the road goes and attempts to drive across it and into a small cul-de-sac. And better yet, he puts gas on as he panics. Things like this aren’t that common, but you have to be ready for them at all times!)
Anyway, back to that test. She was extremely nervous. Just about everything on the road was going wrong as we got closer to the test. But in spite of the bad pretest lesson, she passed with 7 driver faults . Well done AS.
Right! A while back I wrote about how welding isn’t easy. Surprisingly, it has been one of the most popular pages – mainly people asking about sticking welding rods, or kneeling chairs.
There is an update to this project here.
I said that come the new year I was going to build a kneeling chair from scratch. One that is bomb-proof. Well, the project has begun, and I’ve ordered the materials from Metals4U (website at www-metals4u-co-uk with those dashes replaced by dots*):
3 metres of 1½” x 14swg mild steel tube for the floor spars
3 metres of 30mm x 30mm x 2.5mm mild steel box section for the main struts
500mm x 500mm x 3mm rolled mild steel plate for the seat mount and spacers
I’m going to draw up the plans (don’t expect a precise blueprint) and post them on here as an on going commentary of the project. I’ll also maybe take some pictures of the intermediate stages and – with any luck – I should end up with a solid metal kneeling chair along the same basic design lines as the one in that picture on the left, but minus the inherent design weaknesses I’ve discovered across three different purchases from online retailers.
To start with I’m going to use the riser and the seat/knee cushions off my existing one (which is falling apart again), but I want to make better/more comfortable cushions at some stage – and that will mean dabbling in woodworking and upholstery!
EDIT: If you came to this page from a search engine, don’t forget to look for Kneeling Chair Project parts (#1), #2, #3, and #4 (plus a couple of updates) using the site search facility. This project is now complete and there are drawing/blueprints in the other parts.
* Note that Metals4U asked me to remove the direct link to their site. As far as I can understand it, as well as getting too big for its boots these days, Google also appears to have outgrown its brain and is penalising companies for links to their websites from “lesser ranked” websites such as this one.