The Lemon Fool

It's an Austin Maxi clutch pedal, c 1975

Part of a heavy-duty zip

A couple of things add to the difficulty:

There is no indication of how big it is;
Depending upon how you look at it, it can look convex, concave, or with a slight "W" shape.


Julian F. G. W.

Looks like the end of a tap to me, with the out of focus plug chain in the background.

bungeejumper wrote:Or is it the send key on Donald Trump's Twitter feed?

This was the closest - time for the answer ...

It's the `N' key on my keyboard, the `N' having worn off, presumably because I've typed the word `No' so many times!

Clitheroekid wrote:

bungeejumper wrote:Or is it the send key on Donald Trump's Twitter feed?

This was the closest - time for the answer ...

It's the `N' key on my keyboard, the `N' having worn off, presumably because I've typed the word `No' so many times!

In our computer teaching lab (many years ago) some student joker switched the M and N keytops on a number of PC keyboards. We never apprehended the miscreant. But you could make use of his services - and wear out the M. It would also put more resolution into your replies - in a mellow mood you may have decided to start with "Maybe", but your keyboard would start you off on the "No".

Some wonderfully comic photos here, although I'm not quite sure what the monkeys in Borneo were up to !

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2020/sep/11/comedy-wildlife-photography-awards-2020-finalists-in-pictures

This is a village on the Outskirts of Maidenhead. The village is home to a number of restaurants such as Heston's The Fat Duck and The Waterside Inn (owned by the Roux Brothers) as well as some famous and notorious personalities.



I call the picture "50 shades of Bray"

Snorvey wrote:A Spitfire soars over our local hospital....

I suppose the era of the spitfire was when the RAF had better things to do than to bomb hospitals.

UncleEbenezer wrote:

Snorvey wrote:A Spitfire soars over our local hospital....

I suppose the era of the spitfire was when the RAF had better things to do than to bomb hospitals.

When do you think the RAF bombed hospitals, except inadvertently?

I consider your comment to be a grave calumny and an attack on our gallant aviators.

Indeed, vastly improved avionics and target location have improved beyond recognition since the days of Oboe and Pathfinders.

TJH

tjh290633 wrote:When do you think the RAF bombed hospitals, except inadvertently?

I consider your comment to be a grave calumny and an attack on our gallant aviators.

Indeed, vastly improved avionics and target location have improved beyond recognition since the days of Oboe and Pathfinders.

TJH

I think the RAF bombed very few targets deliberately oin the early days of the Second World War. I may not have the figure exactly right but they did bomb damage assessment after raids and found that less than 5% of bombs dropped landed within 5 miles of the target. As I said I can't remember the exact figures but they aren't far out. It's quite likely we bombed a lot of hospitals quite inadvertently.

We did get much better later in the war using carpet bombing. (I'm not sure better is a phrase we should use in this context in modern times)

You are talking about the concept of "Area bombing", which was aimed at destroying everything in a given area. I have a feeling that was one of Tedder's ideas.

The normal theory was that the bomb aimer released his load in a "stick", so that the bombs fell in a line. That required him to identify his target in the dark, probably while his pilot was having to maintain straight and level flight in a clear sky, with searchlights and anti-aircraft fire to put him off.

There were various methods used to identify targets, like the intersecting radio beams of Oboe and later the use of H2S radar displays, which meant that cloud cover could be overcome, but the navigator's dead reckoning was the last resort, and subject to many errors, not least correcting for wind drift.

Now we have seen examples of pinpoint attacks, with far greater accuracy.

TJH

Snorvey wrote:A Spitfire soars over our local hospital....

Later - It also passed over my fishing loch. I say fishing loosely - I didn't actually catch any fish. Maybe the Spitfire scared them.

tjh290633 wrote:You are talking about the concept of "Area bombing", which was aimed at destroying everything in a given area. I have a feeling that was one of Tedder's ideas.

The normal theory was that the bomb aimer released his load in a "stick", so that the bombs fell in a line. That required him to identify his target in the dark, probably while his pilot was having to maintain straight and level flight in a clear sky, with searchlights and anti-aircraft fire to put him off.

There were various methods used to identify targets, like the intersecting radio beams of Oboe and later the use of H2S radar displays, which meant that cloud cover could be overcome, but the navigator's dead reckoning was the last resort, and subject to many errors, not least correcting for wind drift.

Now we have seen examples of pinpoint attacks, with far greater accuracy.

TJH

In the early days they were actually trying to hit individual targets, a factory or transport facility. It was the totally inaccurate bombing that led to the later policy of carpet bombing.

Snorvey wrote:I would have preferred a full chat low overflight with superchargers shrieking....

https://youtu.be/3EcCYA68m_w

.....but no. Sadly not. A lazy loop and a wing waggle as it disappeared off to Inverness. <sigh>

In the early 90's my wife and I lived at a little hamlet in Lincolnshire very close to RAF Coningsby where the Battle of Britain Flight was based. They flew over our cottage very regularly. We would see the Spitfies, Hurricanes and Lancaster bomber set off for airshows and return. We also saw the many test flights they carried out.

We lived there for 4 years and never tired of seeing them fly over. After we left we didn't see them for a few years until we started going to Eastbourne Airshow. I had a small yacht at the time, one particular year we went to the airshow in the boat and moored in the marina on the outskirts of the town. At the end of the weekend we set off back to Brighton in the yacht mid afternoon to catch the tide. We were sailing across Eastbourne Bay as the Battle of Britain Flight started their display. They made several very low passes directly over us and the Lancaster opened it's bomb bay doors directly over us. It was a memory to cherish . Almost as if we had been given our own private air display.

scotia wrote:

Snorvey wrote:Maybe the Spitfire scared them.

It certainly scared Alain de Cadenet!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iOoiEbtf2w

It was a beautiful day in Central Scotland (Friday 19th September), so we set off to have a short ramble near Dunkeld - on part of the longer walk (much of which we used to walk in our younger days) as described in https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/perthshire/lochie-ordie.shtml.
We sat peacefully beside the Mill Dam, and enjoyed the view



On the way back down the track we came across a slow worm warming itself in the sun, but our shadow disturbed it, and it slithered off into the grass, and became invisible.



Although they are reported as being common in Scotland, I think this is only the second one that I have come across

Correction - the preceding note should say Friday 18th September. I hope its also a beautiful day on Saturday 19th September

I've posted a few foals before. Today I have snaps of adult ponies. They were taken in the fading light of evening, and sadly the colours in the photos aren't quite as striking as these two were in real life.

First one: startling long blond mane, contrasting with fairly typical body colouring:


The second one just has a dominant body colour that is simply too pink/terracotta/siena to look natural:

And yet another correction - the reference should be
https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/perthshire/loch-ordie.shtml and not lochie-ordie
(as I'm sure most of you would have guessed)
Maybe I'm not at my brightest at 1am