When did the United Kingdom start going wrong?

[Gus Potter]

1 minute ago, Onoff said:

 

Ground being nearest to ground, makes perfect sense...saves the electricity falling out of the bottom of the plug too. 

 

?

Never thought of that but on Build hub every day is a scool day! Will go and read the leccy meter now. If I turn that upside down will I save energy?

[Gus Potter]

3 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Me to, at least the electrons have a closer path to the heart.

My Dad also told me to always touch something with your right hand first even if you think it is isolated. Mind you if it's a pylon then it's just a question of which side of you is rare, the middle well done and the rest a dusting of fine ash?

 

Do they teach this still to sparks..

 

When did the United Kingdom start going wrong?

 

When we started to loose our common sense.

[Onoff]

Back on thread.....always pretty depressing standing on the IoW amid the remnants of the High Down Test Site...standing in Concorde at Duxford etc. 

 

[SteamyTea]

7 minutes ago, Gus Potter said:

Will go and read the leccy meter now. If I turn that upside down will I save energy

Depends on the numbers.

 

88888 makes no difference

But 9999 does

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, Onoff said:

always pretty depressing standing on the IoW

Yes I get the same feeling if I have to spend more than an hour passing though Devon.

[SteamyTea]

I think I know when "When did the United Kingdom start going wrong"

Was 1975, when I moved here.

[Gus Potter]

3 minutes ago, Onoff said:

Back on thread.....always pretty depressing standing on the IoW amid the remnants of the High Down Test Site...standing in Concorde at Duxford etc. 

 

Yes, not been there Onoff but worked on the redevelopment of the Westcott site at Aylesbury. Was mitigated by the fact that the building was for a formula racing company so was able to design Architecturally / Structurally to fit with modern technology, slick, fine lightweight look.. did it in cold formed steel with lots of small bolts so the building reflected the look of the racing cars and porsches. great fun. I'll give them a plug.. TopCats Racing, just checked they are still in business! . Always at the back of my mind was the history of the site.. British invention... the best!

 

Westcott was used as an air field for the Blenhiem Bombers in the war, then was adapted to develop the rocket fuels when the UK was developing our own nuclear deterrent. I really got into the site investigation uncovering the history of the site, they were pumping some funny stuff into the drinking water aquifer!

 

 

[Onoff]

29 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Yes I get the same feeling if I have to spend more than an hour passing though Devon.

 

I absolutely love the place and in all weathers. I'd happily live there. 

[epsilonGreedy]

6 hours ago, billt said:

Quite a few people are red/green colour blind which gives rise to an obvious safety issue.

 

 

It must have been the earliest example of priority being given to a disadvantaged minority with a net burden placed on the majority.

 

Consider an inept DIYer wiring a plug in 1970. Hmm the red wire must be the dangerous wire so it should be safer to put that near the fuse. Ok next wire, my dad told me the big long pin is the earth, green leaves grow out of the earth so obviously the green wire grows out of the big earth pin.

 

In 2021 the same inept DIYer will think. The mud colour wire must go into the earth pin because any other colour convention would be absurd, inherently confusing and unsafe. Electricity makes blue sparks which can be painful so best put that blue wire near the fuse and that twirly coloured wire reminds me of an icecream lolly so clearly the old cold used up electricity flows out opposite the fuse but oh, blue is the colour of cold things so maybe I should swap the sun coloured wire into the hot dangerous position near the fuse.

[Onoff]

14 minutes ago, Gus Potter said:

Yes, not been there Onoff

 

Great imho for a middle aged / older couple's break if your thing is scenery, walking, pub lunches and erm pub lunches. 

 

I worked at Rothmans in Aylesbury. Being a non smoker I still had to get the ridiculous quantity of fags you were allowed for mates. 

[Onoff]

Repeated from a thread a while back but there's a story goes around I first heard at college about the outgoing head of the IET I think it was.  Every year he'd give a blinding speech full of anecdotes and laughs and every year it was different. Before he began he'd unfold what appeared to be the same piece of crumpled paper year after year then launch into it. Upon his retirement somebody asked how he gave such cracking speeches every year and what was on the bit of paper to which he replied "All you need to remember is red wire live, black wire neutral!"

[Gus Potter]

7 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

It must have been the earliest example of priority being given to a disadvantaged minority with a net burden placed on the majority.

 

Consider an inept DIYer wiring a plug in 1970. Hmm the red wire must be the dangerous wire so it should be safer to put that near the fuse. Ok next wire, my dad told me the big long pin is the earth, green leaves grow out of the earth so obviously the green wire grows out of the big earth pin.

 

In 2021 the same inept DIYer will think. The mud colour wire must go into the earth pin because any other colour convention would be absurd, inherently confusing and unsafe. Electricity makes blue sparks which can be painful so best put that blue wire near the fuse and that twirly coloured wire reminds me of an icecream lolly so clearly the old cold used up electricity flows out opposite the fuse but oh, blue is the colour of cold things so maybe I should swap the sun coloured wire into the hot dangerous position near the fuse.

Fantasic.. you've nailed it... traffic lights are show red for a reason.

[dnb]

1 hour ago, Onoff said:

Back on thread.....always pretty depressing standing on the IoW amid the remnants of the High Down Test Site...standing in Concorde at Duxford etc. 

 

We still make radars on the Isle of Wight. But I agree about the concorde factory site in Farnborough. 

[Onoff]

Or was it when we sold our Harriers to the US for a pittance?

 

The majority in perfect working order along with masses of spares. The bonus was they had been maintained to far higher levels than those of the USMC which at one time had a bit of a dismal record with the Harrier. Our ground crew training and maintenance regimes were far better and it showed ultimately in lower fault/accident rates.

 

A lad I know was an artificer working on them one day and crating them up the next. He was absolutely gutted.

 

Now languishing in the States being cannibalised for spares (the jets not him). 

Edited October 7, 2021 by Onoff

[SteamyTea]

8 hours ago, Onoff said:

I worked at Rothmans in Aylesbury

I used to look at your office when I was lecturing from the tower block.

 

[Makeitstop]

21 hours ago, markc said:

After WW2

and a massive leap in the wrong direction when the internet gave idiots a voice

 

I like this answer a lot.

[Pocster]

15 hours ago, ProDave said:

A colour blindness test was part of the medical before I could start my apprenticeship.

I did a colour blindness test . It said to fill in the form with a black pen . I failed before I had even written my name .

Edited October 7, 2021 by pocster

[Pocster]

14 hours ago, Gus Potter said:

My Dad also told me to always touch something with your right hand first even if you think it is isolated

You have to be very careful with that rule 

Edited October 7, 2021 by pocster

[Pocster]

14 minutes ago, Makeitstop said:

 

I like this answer a lot.

But some of us are products of the internet. 

[Brickie]

…. when Murdoch got his hands on The Sun. 

[SteamyTea]

12 minutes ago, Brickie said:

…. when Murdoch got his hands on The Sun. 

When did the pictures on Page 3 change.

[dnb]

On careful consideration it was probably when TSR2 did not go onto production.

Edited October 7, 2021 by dnb

[pdf27]

About 400,000 years ago!

[markc]

4 hours ago, pocster said:

But some of us are products of the internet. 

I am really trying to think of a Pocster-esk answer to this ?

[Pocster]

Just now, markc said:

I am really trying to think of a Pocster-esk answer to this ?

You can't because you are not me. Without the internet I wouldn't exist.