Craig Sawyers

They are all as bad as each other. Our main delivery outfit (part of Royal Mail) is called Parcel Force - AKA Parcel Farce. They crushed an industrial grade wet grinding machine in transit. They returned a parcel to the West Coast of the US because "They failed to deliver it on 3 occasions" without leaving a note each time. I'd have to check my rant letter file to find the other shenanigans they have got up to. And since they are the only outfit that does imports into the UK, they stiff you with the tax and duty - and then shove an extra £8 to £13 on top as a "clearance fee". So I have paid one or two pounds in tax, and an extra £8 clearance. If you add it all up they make an extra revenue of £100m each year from clearance fees. Most of which is pure profit. Bastards one and all.

I have that on CD. Totally agree - a real classic. And superbly recorded.

I couldn't find a thread to post this to, so here's a new thread. So UPS failed to deliver a package yesterday, just before the long Easter weekend - so now I won't get it until Tuesday next week. Bastards. I thought I'd sign up for real time tracking. I'm taken to a page to set up to get this, and find a tick box that says "I confirm that I've been given enough time to read and understand the UPS Technology Agreement" So I thought I'd click the download button to have a look at it. 96 pages. Doing a word count, it is 58,887 words long Which is almost exactly twice the length of the longest Shakespeare play (Hamlet)! That has to be the outer edge of ridiculous, right? How many lawyers does it take to craft a 58,887 word document? Goes without saying that I did not sign up to their "service".....

Indeed. Not only cathedrals. The iconic Cutty Sark in London burned in 2012 during restoration when a vacuum cleaner was left switched on overnight with this result And the Charles Rennie MacIntosh school of art in Glasgow burned down during restoration work in 2014 Then during rebuilding in 2018 it burned down a second time

It is truly shocking. Difficult to take in. In the UK we are very close to Paris, just a fast train journey from London to Gare du Nord in Paris through the Channel Tunnel, and we visit frequently. Haven't visited Notre Dame for many years, because it tends to be a crowded tourist magnet (and quite rightly so). But it is always there - a prominent feature along the bank of the Seine. I was hearing just now on the radio that the English king Henry VI was crowned there in the mid 1400's, and Charles I (the one Oliver Cromwell had beheaded in 1649) was married there. Apparently it was undergoing restoration at the time of the fire. Not saying that is why it burnt, but it sounds plausible. Dreadful.

^This!

Belated one from across the pond!

Because although Rees-Mogg is the chair of this shadowy body, he is a strongly and fundamentally religious (Catholic), to the extent he has burdened his children with multiple religious names. I don't know anyone else that has done that - my wife is a practicing Catholic and she has zero time for a zealot like Rees-Mogg. This is what he sounds like Incidentally, although it is called the European Research Group, its aim is not Research - it is a one-policy group aimed at leaving the European Union with no deal. The use of the name Research qualifies them for grant payments. The whole of British Government is beset with stuff like that. How about the Star Chamber? Medieval set up, abolished in 1641, but revived in a watered down version during Thatcher's premiership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Chamber . Or the Parliamentary Archives, which are the records of mainly the House of Lords back to 1497 (The Commons records were burnt in a fire). 3 million hand written records on vellum, early ones on scrolls, on 5.5 miles of shelving. That corresponds to 16 records a day, 7 days a week for 500 years. And that is just the Lords!

Because he is head of something called the European Research Group (ERG) which are very right wing hard Brexiters in the Conservative party. Their preferred outcome is to leave without a deal, and for the UK to make its own destiny as a completely isolated entity making its own trade deals. Hence my comment about a throwback to the 15th century. There are 20-odd of them, and they have consistently voted against Theresa May's Brexit deal. The precise number of them is not known, because they are exceptionally secretive about their members and even how they work. But they have been accused of being a party within a party. They tried to oust May a few months ago by registering a no-confidence motion with the 1922 committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1922_Committee but was voted down by parliament. The 1922 committee really has teeth. A no-confidence motion registered with the 1922 committee resulted in the ousting of Margaret Thatcher. There is even a Wikipedia entry for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Research_Group Together with the 16 Democratic Unionist party MPs in Northern Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Democratic_Unionist_Party_MPs , who in a coalition with the Conservative party, also vote against May's deal, there is no way she can get a parliamentary majority for her Brexit deal. The Labour Party, the official opposition all vote against of course.

Is your organ as big as this one?

Phew. So not the Twin Towers. Actually Istanbul would figure. We've been there and there are a great number of feral cats living along the shorelines.

The unfortunate thing Grahame is that diagram is so very realistic. Particularly the bit about Jacob Rees-Mogg. For those not familiar with the man, you can tell all you need to know by the names of his children: Peter Theodore Alphege (Peter needs no elaboration. St Alphege was an Anglo-Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury) Mary Anne Charlotte Emma (Mary needs no elaboration. Anne was the mother of Mary) Thomas Wentworth Somerset Dunstan (Thomas as in apostle. St Dunstan was an Anglo-Saxon 10th century Abbott of Glastonbury Abbey. Born in Somerset; geddit?) Anselm Charles Fitzwilliam (St Anselm was an an Archbishop of Canterbury just after the Norman invasion) Alfred Wulfric Leyson Pius (Wulfric from Anglo Saxon Wolf and Rich and Powerful, Pius is a name of several Popes) Sixtus Dominic Boniface Christopher (Sixtus and Boniface the names of several Popes, and St Dominic a 13th Century Monk. St Boniface was an 8th century missionary) I absolutely kid you not. He is a throwback to the 15th Century. And has the politics to suit. Love the cuddling cats - but what dates the picture is the twin towers in the background HOW DO I STOP POSTS FROM MERGING!!!

Happy birthday!

Listerine was initially marketed as a disinfectant floor cleaner. Then as a cure for gonhorrea. And finally - pow - as a mouthwash! But I'd sure like to try the Jack Daniels flavour version! And I certainly wouldn't dip my old man in it

Happy birthday Al! Have a great one.

49 shot dead in Mosque shootings in Christchurch New Zealand. One of the shooters, and Australian ultra-right fucker posted live video. The NZ police arrested four of them. There was also a car bomb that was defused successfully. Christchurch. New Zealand. Nowhere on God's green earth is safe. Fuck. RIP the 49

Well OK, he hanged himself then. But he's just as dead anyway.

I've looked at the auctions from the above. Both sellers have been on eBay for a long time (1998 and 2000) and both have 100% positive feedback. Since Tekscopes only opened in 2001 it is likely that these sellers are not list members All of the more "recent" (ie post about 1970!) scopes have a scan expansion mesh, which makes the traces look oddly defocused as compared with older (tubed/valved) scopes. They had no expansion mesh and had pin sharp traces, but much much lower bandwidth of course. I suspect that he had your scope to bits to replace capacitors etc and forgot to tighten some of the screws, which does not confer great confidence.

If was 7000 series I could certainly give advice. But I have no real knowledge of the 2465A, alas.

Today's news is that he apparently hung himself.

There is a wealth of expertise on Tektronix gear on https://groups.io/g/TekScopes . Join it - you'll like it. Extremely helpful mailing list. You'll get plenty of information regarding triggering performance of a 2465A, and whether it is behaving itself. It is not at all like Head Case - you can just dive straight in with no problems. Well maybe an introduction mail first and then immediately dive in. Craig