I recently disabled a bot I had keeping an eye on links and mentions of the City of Adelaide Clipper Ship, probably better known to Glaswegians as The Carrick, and remembered for its love of sinking at its mooring on the Clyde in the days when it lived at the corner of Clyde Street and Stockwell Street.
While there were odd mentions of the hull’s progress as various aspects of its restoration, and the saga of the various moves around Port Adelaide seeking a permanent home, were reported, these petered out as COVID-19 hit visitor attractions, and then all the media stories seemed to be placed behind a carrier that used a paywall.
During 2022, after one brief spell of activity online, all I began to receive were stories about various sport and football events linked to the name, without even a hint at the ship. As these became increasingly irritating, I had to kill the bot.
A quick manual search online didn’t seem to come up with anything new either, but I didn’t dig too deep, which I may do later when I have more time.
Rather than forget the last links that appeared in 2022, I’ve noted them below (I’m not suggesting these are the only ones, just the ones that came to me without spending ages looking).
Late entry from YouTube, which might be a better place to look now, since the search engine links seem to have become sparse at best.
Now that I don’t have any sort of automated prompt, I’ll probably forget to make the odd search, but I couldn’t take ANOTHER link to a story that someone thought was important about some footballer in Carrick being transferred 😦
To my shame, I’ve never noticed these fine fellow atop Ayr’s Town Hall steeple, having never followed my own advice to ‘Look Up!’ when I’ve been nearby.
Although I may have looked closer at the building when I’ve been close, I think I’ve only ever looked towards the steeple to check the time, as the clocks (unlike many) actually work.
Standing beneath the steeple, I looked up and finally noticed the four torch bearing gryphons on this 225 foot, 5 stage structure.
Gryphon is an alternate version of griffin, and seems to be used in most description I found regarding this installation – the term generally refers to a creature with the body and limbs of a lion, and the head of an eagle, although details may vary.
In this case, the head is a little odd, and looks more like some form of stylised lion’s head, as opposed to an eagle with its beak.
The description only refers to gryphons, with no notes regarding the heads, which appear to be lions rather than eagles, although the body has wings, so they are not simply stylised lions.
The other feature I had been hoping for more detail were the clocks – as can be seen these have both black and white faces, the white face could be glass, and have provided illumination.
Another option, purely a guess in the absence of more details, is that the difference is down to some past repair, when a matching face was not available.
I’d been looking for some fun videos from SciManDan to share the brilliant videos he makes showing the utterly delusional material presented by the unbelievably stupid/ignorant/insulting Flat Earth community.
The reason I want to give his YouTube channel a mention is because, until I started to spend some time watching his presentations, I really had no idea just how ‘serious’ Flat Earthers were, as I’d only come across a few over the years, and they were usually in the mainstream news, providing funny/sad articles. I really hadn’t thought, for even a moment, that they took themselves seriously, or were so organised, or potentially dangerous.
Now, I think they’re as bad as the Perpetual Motion crazies, who I stopped looking at some years ago (not wanting to raise the number of views of their videos), after discovering the value of the various scams they were able to perpetrate on gullible fund-raisers, some able to make off with 7 figure sums before their cons were uncovered, and disappear with the money.
Now that I can view Flat Earth material through SciManDan’s presentations, I can watch without boosting their YouTube view count.
I find it incredible that they can win any followers, or actually believe that anyone believe the utter nonsense they spout.
Worse still, most of them come across as deliberately ignorant (or just stupid), with less understanding of science than a baby or preschool infant. They laugh at, and/or insult those who dismiss their claims, while demanding proof of established science (which they dismiss out of hand as conspiracy), yet never present any actual proof of their Flat Earth claims – just statements and dogma.
If you’ve never come across any of SciManDan’s videos debunking them, then I suggest you try a few, and marvel at his patience, rationality, and ability to respond to their endless taunts by NOT descending to the same sort of insults, mockery, and straw man arguments that they level at him.
To be fair, there are now a number of others taking the time to show these people up, and some have chosen to ‘Fight fire with fire’, and return the insults with similar response in their content, but I think this can quickly fall into the trap of ‘Two wrongs don’t make right’, so I won’t mention or promote them. The Flat Earthers are just becoming too dangerous, as you may come to think if you come across their videos where they use children they have indoctrinated to promote their ideas.
So, on to poor old Ailsa Craig, and how they tried to use one of our famous Scottish landmarks to further their cause, using their usual brand of lies and disinformation.
It’s interesting to note that YouTube now picks up on the term ‘Flat Earth’, and posts an alert regarding its false nature, and links to more information on that aspect.
The Flat Earthers must be somewhat unhappy about this obvious promotion of the great conspiracy against them!
Part of an awayday collection from Ayr, which always has lots of ‘numbers’ to spot.
Maybe I’m just noticing them for the first time, but there seem to more of this type of illegal registration plate around me recently.
The character are usually illegally spaced such that the first or last letter is alone – like a first or last name initial – while the rest are grouped together in an attempt to make them look like a first or last name.
Nice invite for a fine of up to £1,000 if meeting a grumpy traffic cop or similar, or failing an MOT once that little hurdle falls due.
Seen on a 2018 Mazda CX-5, PC05 WAY may belong to… ?
Funny how you don’t realise you haven’t seen something for ages, until you see it.
Found this roadster, apparently quite a good kit car, while wandering around Cathedral Square recently. Haven’t come across anything similar for years, or even a decent classic.
Seemingly not a stranger to the area, when I dug around I managed to find a number of pics of the same car taken in the same area dating back to 2013.
It’s a 1987 Marlin Berlinetta.
Seems they started around 1983, based on the Ford Cortina MK III or MK IV as a donor.
Having hinted at the many mistakes I’ve enjoyed over the past days and weeks, I’m spoilt for choice when thinking of any to mention (and get out of my head).
This one started some weeks ago, when I needed a hose to use at my back door. The reason was down to changes I made earlier in the year, dumping my conventional hose for the type that expands in use, and ‘grows’ to 15 metres under water pressure, but shrinks when not in use, and can be stored in a small bucket. It’s a great replacement for an ordinary hose, which stays the same length when not in use, and has to be rolled up for storage, when it takes up a lot of space. Those on wind-up reels are just overpriced, and too expensive. Also, all such hoses get too hard and stiff in winter, and won’t roll up easily.
The only problem I found with the expanding hose was the fact that it always has to expand to its full length in use – which is a nuisance if you’re only a couple of metres from the tap (it still has to be laid out, so it can expand freely), hence the idea of using a curly hose, which stays short unless pulled on.
At the time, I priced a few, and found one close to what I thought I needed, but didn’t get out, so decided to leave it until I needed it.
I happened to be in Wilko, a shop not in my area, when I noticed such a hose for About £12. This was around the price I had found some weeks earlier, so I picked one up.
Mistake!
I had thought the length was find, given as 7.5 metres, or 21.5 feet – about twice the distance I needed, or so I thought.
What I didn’t know was that the length quoted needed lots of imagination.
In fact, although the hose is indeed 7.5 metres long, that length refers to the length of the hose only when it COMPLETELY uncurled and perfectly straight!
In reality, it will only reach about half of that distance as it can’t be fully uncoiled, and the strain on the connections/ends is already extreme once the halfway extension has been reached.
While Wilko will accept returns, by the time I’d unpacked and tried this thing, it wasn’t fit to return, and I’d ditched the packing as well.
Plan B
Time to go online and have another hunt.
Long story short, I found my local ScrewFix had one similar item in stock and, although it was the same price, was TWICE the length, 15 metres.
Intending to be more careful this time, I collected it, and resolved to check the ACTUAL length before doing anything – it did, in fact, prove to be twice the length of the Wilko item.
Although I wouldn’t have planned things as they turned out, the mistake was not a total loss.
A door gets in the way of this hose from the tap to where it is being used, and the Wilko hose gets me past this unexpected hurdle, with the coupling between the two landing on the edge of the door, and getting around it without catching on the hose coils, and holding it back.
As a bonus, all the parts can be kept indoors in winter, always a good idea with hoses, as water left inside can freeze outside hoses in winter, and ruin a conventional hose if not always fully drained.
While Ayr enjoys the fortunate advantage of having a three letter name, and many residents who take up the option of having an AYR registration on their vehicles (which I resist the compulsion of trying to ‘collect’), I find the number of relatively high value registrations seen there to be intriguing.
I may be wrong, but for its size, the town seems to have a high proportion of such plates on show, maybe more than Glasgow, and London, which has always surprised me by apparently having fewer of such plates on its roads – although it does probably see more that carry huge price tags.
Many ‘escape’, passing me on the road, so no time to catch a pic, but I still manage to find one or two parked, such as 7 JG on this white Jaguar XF from 2016, sadly, another stinky diesel.
I must be missing something regarding the popularity of the stuff nowadays. There’s no disputing the mileage compared to petrol, but this would seem to be negated by the significantly higher pump price. They drive fine, mostly, but I don’t like the way they hit a wall while accelerating, if their rev limit is reached. Switching between diesel and petrol frequently, I’ve been caught out when driving diesel cars, and found a back road overtake suddenly come to stop when I’ve failed a pre-emptive gear change.
My mistake.
As a slight aside…
Isn’t it nice when our legally required reflective white front number plates are paired with a white car 🙂
It’s some years since I came across Glasgow’s Police Museum in Bell Street and, sad to say, despite coming away with quite a haul of pics and info, these have never materialised as a post.
That’s embarrassing 😦
I’m reasonably sure it was open all week when I made that first visit, and this post came about when I happened to be in Bell Street, looked up at the museum’s window, and found it to be in darkness in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week.
Concerned that it may have been a lockdown victim, and been closed and or lost, I made my way to the door.
Thankfully, it still seems to be in business, and I had just landed next to it on one of its closed days. It has been running on what it refers to as ‘Winter Hours’ since 2021.
It really is worth a look, and has details on a number of high profile cases from Glasgow’s past, including that of Peter Manual, a serial killer from the 1950s, who actions might have meant I never saw the light of day. I’m being perfectly serious, his hunting ground was the area I still live in to this day.
NOT to be confused with Strathclyde Police Black Museum
I’m not sure of its correct name, but prior to demolition of the police headquarters building in Pitt Street, there was a museum, often referred to as a ‘Black Museum’ due to the nature of the material it contained.
Although I collected a number of accounts detailing some of the exhibits on display there, such as old paper notes which had apparently been cut in half through their thickness (to yield TWO apparent notes, so long as nobody looked at the blank side), I never managed to make a visit.
The last I heard/read, was an account in the local paper of the day, reporting that the curator had been given something like three weeks to wind the place up and place all the artefacts in storage. I can’t even date that article now, as the link I had is dead.
Perhaps someone knows better.
I did try a few searches on various combinations of Strathclyde Police Black Museum, but nothing useful was returned, with all result either being for the Police Museum described above, or other police museums through the country, or even around the world when I looked further down the list.
A bit sad if it’s really been mothballed and forgotten/ last, especially as I never got to make the trip.
Help?
Needless to say, if you know more/better, there is a handy Comments area below.
I don’t usually suffer failure when diagnosing faults, but last week was an utter disaster.
I’d had an odd problem in recent weeks, as one fuse blew, followed by random triggering of the breaker feeding my boiler ‘house’. I couldn’t do any fault-finding as things were always fine when I restored power.
Thankfully, this became repeatable when the breaker would open shortly after power was applied to the circuit, although it was still not a ‘hard’ fault, taking a variable, but at least short, time before the breaker opened.
For reference, nothing seemed odd when measured.
I set things up so I could be beside the boiler when the power was interrupted, and could hear something arcing just before the breaker operated.
There’s very little to fail – some wiring, a thermostat, and the boiler control valve.
The sound appeared to be coming from the control valve, which has a single solenoid, sealed inside the body – which seemed to explain why I could hear the arcing, but not see anything.
Anticipating a simple fix, I ordered a new control valve, cursed not being able to buy just the solenoid (bolted to the valve body and with a part number), and fitted it.
Seems that was a complete and total ‘Parts Cannon Fail’, and as soon as I applied power – the arcing was STILL present.
Arc mystery
This was bad news, apart from the loss of £130 for a valve I didn’t need, and couldn’t return (having installed/used), I had an obvious arc I couldn’t see, even in the pitch darkness of a closed room.
There was just no evidence to be seen, although I could see all the wiring and parts, and the sound STILL appeared to becoming from the area of the valve.
After a bout of disconnecting wires one at a time, to find out when the arcing sound appeared and disappeared, I eventually tracked down the source.
The arcing was originating inside a connection box mounted BEHIND the boiler, and was being funnelled along the space between the boiler’s casing and the boiler itself, making it appear to come from the control valve mounted on the front.
The freezing cold and damp weather of the past few weeks had resulted in the connection box filling with condensation, which couldn’t escape and eventually worked its way into a cable termination, where two wires exit from the termination very close – usually separated/sealed by a gooey mastic. However, in this case, the moisture had worked its way along the termination and mastic, on the left in the pic below.
I would have been mystified as to the source of the moisture, but for having the process explained previously. It seems that moisture can make its way into such boxes, but not escape in the same way, so builds up over time, until it condenses and causes problems.
The arcing just led to more arcing once it had started, Once I’d removed the box cover, I could see the arcing inside the termination. By the time I was finished, it had managed to erode the wire, and sever the connection.
Worst thing was, this wasn’t even a necessary circuit, and just lead to a light (not even used).
After drying out the interior of the box, and disconnecting the rest of the offending wiring (not needed anyway), everything was fine.
Apart, that is, from the loss of £130 fired from the Parts Cannon 😦
This one’s doubly irritating, as I restored this valve unit some years ago, when it would normally have had to be replaced after one of the control buttons seized completely.
Although it seemed to be a complete failure, I decided to strip it down before getting a new one, and found all that happened was the gunk applied in the factory, to lubricate the button’s actuator shaft, had set solid, locking it in place.
Cleaning this off, and applying new lubricant restored the button’s operation, and it remains perfect to this day.
I suppose the only positive from this waste of money is that I now have a perfect spare on hand, if the new valve ever fails.
I wish I knew the origin of these cat murals (like the Big Heid – still a mystery as to source).
I’ve spotted them in various locations over the years, but always thought they were too simple to justify a post, but that was probably a mistake on my part, and maybe have been too selective, or fussy,
They seem to have boomed in recent months, appearing in more obvious locations than in the past, and becoming more common.
I caught sight of this one along a Glasgow lane recently, while running for a bus, so was just able to grab a quick pic.
An interesting location, as the ‘artist’ must have had something to stand on – that looks like a void beneath the subject. If you haven’t found any of them, there are lists of people who were killed/injured while doing stuff like this.
This one’s difficult to categorise.
I’m reluctant to refer to it as a mural, since it’s so simple, but I’m similarly uncomfortable dropping into the graffiti bin either, having recently decided that I’m no longer going to feature what I refer to as ‘word graffiti’ (such as the dross obscured at bottom right), as so many of these examples are now nothing more than vandalism, causing damage to buildings and property, and having no merit, other than to boost the ego of those daubing their ‘scent’, and marking their territory.
Secret Scotland 