Author: Four-eyed English Genius

I wonder……

I wonder how many Gigawatts of electricity were generated yesterday by all the glorious peoples’ windmills during the storm?

The answer, I suspect, is not a lot, as they cannot work in high winds and even if they do, can overload the grid so have to be shut down. Al Gore and Wavy Davy have a lot to answer for!

 

BTW, after all this humbug, Happy Christmas to all our Charioteers! 🙂

The train’s the thing

A month or so ago, I mentioned that Mrs FEEG and I had survived each others’ peculiarities for forty years. In order to celebrate this (s)auspicious occasion, we tried to relive our honeymoon. We went to  Paris for this. Then we went by rickety old electric train from London Charing Cross to Folkestone (An anorak friend of mine says that in the earlier seventies  it would have been a 4-CEP multiple unit),  by hovercraft to Calais, then in a rickety old diesel hauled train to Paris Gare du Nord.
Continue reading “The train’s the thing”

A formulaic poem for the J man

I am mad, it makes me holler
I go purple round the collar
This rage happens when I see politicians
Sounding off like an empty drum
I would love to kick them up the bum!

This takes me back to my days as a research scientist. I can only just about remember Ohm’s law these days and I really do not like present day pollies, as you may have guessed. 🙂

Had a great day

Mrs FEEG and I had a great day yesterday.

First was a visit to Southwark Cathedral, followed by a tasty lunch in Borough Market.

After that, a quick stagger to the Shard and a couple of lift rides to the viewing galleries. The bottom one is enclosed and has lots of computers explaining the views you see, which were great. It was a trifle hazy so we could only see abut 10 miles in each direction, though.  The staff there were also very helpful explaining what you were actually seeing. Then a trip up to the upper gallery, which although safely caged in, is also open to the elements. As it was a hot afternoon, the fresh breezes up there were welcome. It was rather outstanding to look down on a police helicopter flying by!

When we finally dragged ourselves down and had had a coffee, we got on a Northern Line train to Clapham and had a great slab of ribs followed by pecan pie at Bodean’s Smoke House.

All in all, a great day out!!

An (not very) epic pome

One for the comp

Hello, Marvin, this is Earth,
Of intelligence here,
There is a dearth.
Some say here that CO2
Will warm the place
And land us in the poo.

We have guys here
called politicians
Who everyone has learned to fear
They lie and cheat and defraud
They are all a horrible crew
They talk until we all get bored

So if I were you I would
Turn your spaceship round
If  by any chance you could
Unblock your venturi
Fire your rockets and
Go back to Alpha Centauri!

Return of proper scrums

I don’t suppose this will mean much to the followers of the round ball game, or even followers of Rugby League, but in this new season, the Rugby Union laws on scrummaging have changed, basically back to what they were when I was still playing.

I will not go into technical details, but it is great to see props propping again instead of collapsing in a heap every other scrum, hookers hooking the ball again and the ball being put into the scrum straight, and not right into the back row. The only thing still a bit silly is that the ref has to tell the scrum half when to put the ball in. When I were a lad, this was normally done by the hooker and scrum half devising a set of hand (or at least finger) signals to indicate the most advantageous time to put the ball in. There are still many opportunities for skullduggery in the dark depths of the front row, but it is, as it was, more difficult for refs to spot, unless, like one of my mates, who was an ex hooker, whenever he reffed me, he blew the whistle even on the odd occasion when I was not indulging in naughtiness.

Anyway, the first weekend  of the English Rugby Premiership has provided four exciting games so far, with one to come tomorrow. I look forward to the new season.

Photo comp results.

Sorry for the tardiness in assessing the entries in the photo comp

https://charioteers.org/2013/07/10/photo-comp-for-august/

My excuse is that Mrs FEEG and I have been celebrating our Ruby Wedding with the family! Thanks for your entries.

Soutie’s Statues: Certainly wierd and quite impressive

OZ’s two views of sunset: Very interesting effects there, especially #2

Ara’s chandelier:   Quite a strange arrangement

Christopher’s Hiroshima dome. with a weird lighting effect.

All very good and interesting in their diferent ways, but my favourite and this month’s winner is OZ number 2, Reflections of the Sunset. Over to you, my lupine friend.

A question for Mr Mackie

Just finished watching the BBC coverage of the Edinburgh Tattoo. It was as entertaining as it was when Mrs FEEG and I were there in person 10 years ago. Absolutely stunning.

There is still one question that arises from it, though. When you are in Auld Reekie, the atmosphere around Festival time is great except for all the “bagpipe buskers”.

So, my question for Mr Mackie is, “Why is it that bagpipe solos sound like a particularly sadistic version of cat strangulation, whereas a massed pipe and drum band is one of the greatest sounds on Earth?”