Craig Sawyers

Happy birthday on the big six-oh! Have a totally spiffing day....

Sudden cardiac arrest is a complete bitch - it can take a fit looking individual out in short order with no warning. Happened to the Principal Investigator, George Fraser, for the space mission I was involved with. Slim, fit, almost a non-drinker. Killed him at home aged 58. Almost ten years ago https://le.ac.uk/bepicolombo/meet-the-team/professor-george-fraser RIP Lisa Marie. Like George, far far too early.

The problem I faced when making my bench (the classic Klausz design) was - you need a bench to build a bench. A real chicken and egg thing. Had to get a free engineer's bench to build the bench on. Built the top out of quarter sawn beech with a sapele underframe. Absolutely solid, zero racking no matter what I'm doing. Mind you, your workshop is much much bigger than my converted garage - seriously jealous!

How do you guys keep weight off? Everything looks absolutely delicious, but I know for a certain fact that I would end up barrel shaped if I put those dishes away frequently!

Bloody hell. Block! He did a section on Top Gear a few years ago, showing what you could do with one of his more outrageous cars. But to go from a snowmobile accident is in the same ironical class as Yuri Gagarin dying in a plane crash (aged 34). RIP Ken Block. Driving legend.

Happy belated!

Belated because it is Boxing Day here - but a truly Happy and peaceful Christmas to all.

Happy Birthday Marc - hope it is an awesome day!

Happy birthday your Dustyness!

It's an ONSemi part. I really don't know what has happened with ONsemi. They bought Fairchild and Sanyo, and have obsoleted most of the really useful audio parts. Anything remaining has ended up on ridiculous lead times. We're well beyond the Covid excuse, and I'm left with bungling corporate incompetence as the only explanation remaining

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/oct/11/angela-lansbury-the-smart-scene-stealing-grande-dame-of-our-screens-for-75-years Last full stage role was in 2014 at the age of 88, although she continued with voice acting until 2018.

Or a portmanteaux version - discordello 🤡

I was Project Manager for an instrument on board this bad boy https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/BepiColombo The Mercury Imaging X-ray Spectrometer (MIXS). Due to get into Mercury polar orbit in 2025 after a 7 year journey. So far two flybys of Venus and two of the overall 6 flybys of Mercury as it brakes on its way in.

Also not real, but again I wish it was Kind of in a similar vein. In the Chaplin silent movie The Gold Rush, he eats his shoe. That was in fact liquorice. Apparently sourced from a UK company who made the stuff, and made the shoes that Chaplin ate. Enough of them for several takes.

Must be the middle of the night where you are, Tice?

Oh my word - they look completely awesome!

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest won a whole raft of Oscars, including one for Louise Fletcher as best actress.

RIP Hilary Mantel, author of the Wolf Hall trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, and his slow fall from grace with Henry VIII to execution at the stake (in Oxford). She was age 70, and died suddenly. One of the very few people to have won two Booker prizes. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-63005841