(As usual, click to embiggen.)
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Going Undergound.
This week, and last week, I've been busy with a bit of building maintenance. We have a building, under which was rumoured to be a basement full of water. The only person who could recall having been in there was the company chairman. Apparently, in the late 1950s there were all manner of educational and hobby clubs among the company employees, and he, then in his twenties, was a member of the Archery Club. They used to practise indoors in winter in the basement.
The building was erected in the 1920s, with a water-filled reservoir beneath it which supplied fire-fighting water, and boiler cooling water, this was fed from springs on site, and also from a sixteen-inch iron pipe running from a deep-well pump at the other mill, a quarter of a mile away.
When, in the late nineteen-thirties, war in europe was expected, the reservoir was drained, tanked with asphalt, a nine-inch thick, heavily reinforced concrete slab poured above it, and it was turned into an air-raid shelter, with steps at both ends, steel blast doors, and an escape tunnel to an open area nearby. There were toilets, a kitchen, bunk-beds, a first aid station... We have all the plans in the archives.
In the late nineteen fifties, however, there were plans to install a steam-turbine power-station on site. This would generate electricity for both mills, and reduce the costs of running all the post-war electricall powered machines. So the clean-water reservoir was needed again. The stairs were taken out, the rainwater diverter pipes smashed, the drain closed, and the basement allowed to fill to a depth of about 7'6". The access hatches were concreted over.
When the turbine, known as "Eleanor" was taken out of service in the early eighties, the basement was forgotten.
Now, with the ground-floor untenanted, we decided that a structural inspection was due. I had to find the hatch, Which proved not to be easy. The measurement indicated on the plan was bogus. But after a fair bit of jackhammering we found a steel hinge, and from there, managed to cut a hole, finding the original steel ladder.
A cheap sump pump was lowered into the water, and I checked the rate of level drop. It took two days to get to within wading depth of the ladder section, then, surprise, a doorway. And three steps down. Gak. Thigh deep water. No ghost so far. Nor skeletons, or pirate treasure-chests.
The old stairway, now filled with rubble is at the far end.
Down the pump went again, for another day, I calculated that the cheap pump, of the sort you might buy to run a waterfall in a pond, had shifted over 480 tonnes of water.
Down in the bottom layer, however, there was a lot of black ooze, and the pump kept clogging, so we ended up with a big tanker, and three men, using it as a giant wet-vac. Yesterday, we shifted 4,500 gallons of black goop.
Next step was to get the structural steelwork guy in to assess the corrosion. He said it was all okay, scale off the loose stuff, wire-brush, paint with bitumen, and check every five years.
Oh, and prise out the rotten shuttering wood. It won't be me doing it. we'll contract it out, I suspect two men, maybe two weeks, in the dungeons. Then we'll let it fill again..
What fun I have.
Friday, 5 February 2010
Beneath a Kiln.
Page 6
Factory Building Studies, Sites and Foundations, HMSO, 1960
Factory Building Studies, Sites and Foundations, HMSO, 1960
To understand this, you really need to know a little about how brick kilns operate. I could bore you for hours on the subject of kilns, and at least a couple of those hours might be on the history of bricks. I realise that out there in the world there are people who don't know and don't care what a brick's made from, or how, or the differences beween clot-bricks and extruded or pressed one, kibbled vs.wire-cut...
The kiln in question would almost certainly have beem a Hoffman kiln. The Hoffman kiln operates a series of chambers, and fires constantly. As one chamber is firing, its hot is passed through other chambers, preheating and drying the bricks, when it reaches temperature, the adjacent chamber's fires are lit, and air supplied to their fire passes through the just-fired chamber. The process was more efficient than the intermittent kilns previously used. Some Hoffmans fired for fifty years and more, continuously, hence the ground heating effect.
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Monkey Business.
Gary Rith has been hanging wit' the monkees recently. His new partner in crime is a sock monkey called Georges Le Soq.
Little does he know that there's a monkey in my kitchen cabinet. He's a famous monkey, in show-biz, you know, but it all got a bit much for him, he had a rather unfortunate.... What? oh. sorry, Munkey, I won't go into detail, I promise, nothing about the screaming....
So, anyway, he packed a small bag, left the metropolis and travelled north, where he rents living space in the kitchen cabinet.. What's that, Munkey? squalid? what do you mean, squalid? Oh. Well. I did clean the kitchen in July. It's not due for a while. Well I'm busy. NO! tapping at a keyboard IS real activity, Munkey, look, go make us a cup of tea, eh?
In Munkey's earlier career, he became famous, with his pal, Al, advertising a digital television service which rather famously went dramatically defunct even before it was launched. Monkey went missing for some time, the stress of being associated with such a hugely failed launch was too much for him.
However, he returned, and he and Al teamed up again, working on a tea advertising portfolio.things seemed to be going well for them.
And the story behind the story...
Until the restaurant debacle.. and the start of the screaming...
So, a month or two back, I heard a knock on the door, and a wet monkey muttered, "I've come about the room"
"What room?" I said.
"The room you advertised in the 'Gazette' ".
"I didn't advertise a room"
At this, the monkey started to cry, brandishing handfuls of paper money "I can pay, I don't need much space, really, I... I... I've got nowhere else to go..." At this he started sobbing. Huge, gulping sobs, and I, cruel though I am, thought again. I put my foot back on the floor, that foot that was poised to launch the wet knitted monkey far out into the street, and for a moment, my heart softened. I snatched the suitcase full of money, "That'll do as a deposit!", and I showed him to his room.
We get on alright. I'm tired of bananas. He cooks a good chili.
Ever Clicked Something by Mistake?
-And lost an age's worth of thoughts down the plug-hole?
It happens to me all the time. Some of you may have noticed that I seem to do more writing, when I have a comment to make on somebody's blog, than I do in writing my own blog. I used to lose blog posts too, an hour or two's worth of writing, uploading pics, rewriting, and then Pfssttt! gone.
When that happens, I'm often too demoralised to continue, I think, well, I'll return to that tomorrow. But I don't because my creativity, my indignation, whatever it may have been, has been burned out in that first write.
Which brings me to the point of this post. I use Firefox as my browser. I was installing the plug-ins and add-ons that I find indispensable and I found one that's just brilliant, the cat's pyjamas, the bee's knees, the dog's b..... er, well. it's very good. No more losing the contents of a comment form, Like when you hit the button to post the comment, and.. it doesn't, it's not posted, but it's gone from the comment form. This gadget saves everything you type into a comment-box, and should you hit "back", or delete, or go by accident to a different page, returning to a white, empty comment box, a couple of mouse-clicks will restore your typing, bring the dead comment back to life. (it saves on your own computer, not on the web, and will encrypt your musings and password protect them should you be using a shared computer).
That's why it's called Lazarus. No blogger, or blogsurfer, should be without it. Especially the clumsy ones, like me.
Lazarus...http://lazarus.interclue.com/
It happens to me all the time. Some of you may have noticed that I seem to do more writing, when I have a comment to make on somebody's blog, than I do in writing my own blog. I used to lose blog posts too, an hour or two's worth of writing, uploading pics, rewriting, and then Pfssttt! gone.
When that happens, I'm often too demoralised to continue, I think, well, I'll return to that tomorrow. But I don't because my creativity, my indignation, whatever it may have been, has been burned out in that first write.
Which brings me to the point of this post. I use Firefox as my browser. I was installing the plug-ins and add-ons that I find indispensable and I found one that's just brilliant, the cat's pyjamas, the bee's knees, the dog's b..... er, well. it's very good. No more losing the contents of a comment form, Like when you hit the button to post the comment, and.. it doesn't, it's not posted, but it's gone from the comment form. This gadget saves everything you type into a comment-box, and should you hit "back", or delete, or go by accident to a different page, returning to a white, empty comment box, a couple of mouse-clicks will restore your typing, bring the dead comment back to life. (it saves on your own computer, not on the web, and will encrypt your musings and password protect them should you be using a shared computer).
That's why it's called Lazarus. No blogger, or blogsurfer, should be without it. Especially the clumsy ones, like me.
Lazarus...http://lazarus.interclue.com/
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
The Blog Archipelago, Revisited.
Reading, today, the words of Jim Gottuso whose blog is one year old, on this day, I was musing about blogs and bloggers, how Jim and others have become friends, though distant, and never met in real life... Well, I've met a couple! Matt Grimmitt and Tiggy they're both bloggers and makers, Matt is making great slipware, he's tremendously enthusiastic about the traditions of country pottery, of the old skills, you know, when you're an enthusiast and you meet someone just as crazy... just like me, Matt picks pottery sherds out of the mud of the fields, and can feel the hand of the potter, figure out the grips and pulls that made that shape. Tig makes soaps, and grows and sells plants, her soaps are swirls of colour and scents, beautifully presented and packaged, somehow the arts complement each other, plants, pots, soaps, and somehow I met these guys via the blogs.
I was going to write a post about my view of the world of blogs, but then, I remembered I already did. Back in January '07, I was at home, for five weeks, told I MUST not go to work, do anything strenuous, get stressed, after the hospital gave me a drug without doing the required test first. My blood pressure went far beyond the red line on the dial, well into the danger zone. I said "Well how bad is it, what's it mean in real terms? And the consultant said "I wouldn't take a bet on whether you'll get home intact".
So five weeks. Don't go out walking or driving.. just lounge about and do nothing, read. So I did. I read blogs, travelled the innerspace of the internet, and met new people, one very special one in particular.
I wrote this. I'm unapologetic about reposting it, because back then I seemed to turn out better shaped wordery than I do now.
"An Archipelago: That's what we are, tiny islands adrift in the great ocean of the web's wide world.
Although I'm new to the business of bloggery, I'm not new to blogs. I've been wandering, watching, reading, enthralled, for a longer time than I remember.
Long ago, I ditched my television, because there were just too many channels not worth watching.
There were some good things too, but generally I don't miss it.
I find the written word has better pictures, anyway.
I sail alone upon this imaginary ocean, I could be like Captain Joshua Slocum, the first man to sail, single handed around the earth. -In a boat he built for himself, felling the trees, forging the fittings.
I sail, making landfall at enticing islands, I stay, linger, read, sample the produce, make a new friend, perhaps, and then I row back out to my sturdy ship, hoist the anchor, set the sail.
Sometimes, at an island, I find recommendations for other islands to visit, and I mark my chart accordingly, at other times I'll sail beneath the stars, listening for surf. One day I might find your island. I'll admire your grass hut, try that hammock by the beach, read your words.
Perhaps I'll swim to my boat for ink and a quill, on your beach I'll peel a strip from the paperbark tree and write my little message. Perhaps I'll still be in the lagoon when you return, and we'll chat, become friends before the tide draws me away.
Along the way, I consign my scribbles to the waves, tight-corked in bobbing bottles. Who knows where they will find landfall, who knows what waifs or beachcombers will open and read.
In the night, my ship comes oft to my own island, or maybe my island follows. I sit at my own driftwood fire, writing my thoughts, for anyone and nobody to read. I pin them to the side of my hut, and, hearing the call of the whales, return to the sea.
When I come again to my island, I remark, with glee, your footprints in the sand. I hope you found fruit and food aplenty, refilled your casks with sweet water, rested in the hammock, sampled the wine, picked through my book-case, I hope the lamps were lit, and you left refreshed.
Perhaps you read my words, and found the pens and paper, on the table, and perhaps you left your thoughts, pinned there. Maybe you scratched graffiti on my wall. Or took a trinket. Maybe you just moved a chessman, and smiled.
I'm not sure why I am voyaging, except for the idea that there's always something to be discovered beyond the next horizon.
How about you? What calls you to the keyboard? to the little glowing box, the window into these myriad worlds? Do tell, I really really do want to know.
I'm not sure why I am here, but on my travels I've met some good friends. People who I'll never touch, but friends all the same, I've been shown new music, art, poetry, and I've read things that make me laugh, things that make tears spring in my eyes. Just as if I were truly travelling.
John Donne wrote:
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
We bloggers are not the islands, we inhabit them; also we roam, befriending some, shunning others. We are travellers in the web, interlinked, interwoven, in designs more complex than we can grasp. We can come together, on one beach, and party as a group of friends, or retire to our own island, solitary, perhaps, but never alone, for out there, we can see the twinkling lights of each other's fires, the glows of the lamps beneath which we all write."
I was going to write a post about my view of the world of blogs, but then, I remembered I already did. Back in January '07, I was at home, for five weeks, told I MUST not go to work, do anything strenuous, get stressed, after the hospital gave me a drug without doing the required test first. My blood pressure went far beyond the red line on the dial, well into the danger zone. I said "Well how bad is it, what's it mean in real terms? And the consultant said "I wouldn't take a bet on whether you'll get home intact".
So five weeks. Don't go out walking or driving.. just lounge about and do nothing, read. So I did. I read blogs, travelled the innerspace of the internet, and met new people, one very special one in particular.
I wrote this. I'm unapologetic about reposting it, because back then I seemed to turn out better shaped wordery than I do now.
"An Archipelago: That's what we are, tiny islands adrift in the great ocean of the web's wide world.
Although I'm new to the business of bloggery, I'm not new to blogs. I've been wandering, watching, reading, enthralled, for a longer time than I remember.
Long ago, I ditched my television, because there were just too many channels not worth watching.
There were some good things too, but generally I don't miss it.
I find the written word has better pictures, anyway.
I sail alone upon this imaginary ocean, I could be like Captain Joshua Slocum, the first man to sail, single handed around the earth. -In a boat he built for himself, felling the trees, forging the fittings.
I sail, making landfall at enticing islands, I stay, linger, read, sample the produce, make a new friend, perhaps, and then I row back out to my sturdy ship, hoist the anchor, set the sail.
Sometimes, at an island, I find recommendations for other islands to visit, and I mark my chart accordingly, at other times I'll sail beneath the stars, listening for surf. One day I might find your island. I'll admire your grass hut, try that hammock by the beach, read your words.
Perhaps I'll swim to my boat for ink and a quill, on your beach I'll peel a strip from the paperbark tree and write my little message. Perhaps I'll still be in the lagoon when you return, and we'll chat, become friends before the tide draws me away.
Along the way, I consign my scribbles to the waves, tight-corked in bobbing bottles. Who knows where they will find landfall, who knows what waifs or beachcombers will open and read.
In the night, my ship comes oft to my own island, or maybe my island follows. I sit at my own driftwood fire, writing my thoughts, for anyone and nobody to read. I pin them to the side of my hut, and, hearing the call of the whales, return to the sea.
When I come again to my island, I remark, with glee, your footprints in the sand. I hope you found fruit and food aplenty, refilled your casks with sweet water, rested in the hammock, sampled the wine, picked through my book-case, I hope the lamps were lit, and you left refreshed.
Perhaps you read my words, and found the pens and paper, on the table, and perhaps you left your thoughts, pinned there. Maybe you scratched graffiti on my wall. Or took a trinket. Maybe you just moved a chessman, and smiled.
I'm not sure why I am voyaging, except for the idea that there's always something to be discovered beyond the next horizon.
How about you? What calls you to the keyboard? to the little glowing box, the window into these myriad worlds? Do tell, I really really do want to know.
I'm not sure why I am here, but on my travels I've met some good friends. People who I'll never touch, but friends all the same, I've been shown new music, art, poetry, and I've read things that make me laugh, things that make tears spring in my eyes. Just as if I were truly travelling.
John Donne wrote:
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
We bloggers are not the islands, we inhabit them; also we roam, befriending some, shunning others. We are travellers in the web, interlinked, interwoven, in designs more complex than we can grasp. We can come together, on one beach, and party as a group of friends, or retire to our own island, solitary, perhaps, but never alone, for out there, we can see the twinkling lights of each other's fires, the glows of the lamps beneath which we all write."
Monday, 1 February 2010
Ring, Ring...
Mr Soubriquet does not wear jewellery. No rings, nowhere.
But he's intrigued by this:
Grit in the Gears might be a problem, but if he owned this he'd always have a toy to fidget with. Actually though, he has a few criticisms, despite the fact that he loves it.
Kinekt Design's Gear Ring designed by Glen Liberman
(via Boing Boing)
The stainless-steel is a nasty harsh, cold substance. Alas, gold and silver are too soft and malleable for this sort of mechanism. The squared edges could do with radiusing too. The makers describe it as having six precision gears. I'd quibble, and say a precision gear-maker would perhaps call those semi-precision. A little bit of dirt, goo, or grit might be a big problem. The model in the videos has hairy fingers. I winced at the thought, even though my fingers are not hairy, and no, I do not shave them, nor do I have them waxed.
A hundred and sixty five dollars? I can think of toys I'd have more fun with for that money.
(a thing about me none of you know... I was fined at college for damage to the floor of my room. I was stripping-down a Laycock-De Normanville overdrive out of an MGB, and I had to drive a bearing off the mainshaft, and I, er, forgot to put a sacrificial bit of wood between it and the floor.. It was a lovely thing, an epicyclic gearbox. In later years I had one in a Volvo 240. Oh how I love gears.)
But he's intrigued by this:
Grit in the Gears might be a problem, but if he owned this he'd always have a toy to fidget with. Actually though, he has a few criticisms, despite the fact that he loves it.
Kinekt Design's Gear Ring designed by Glen Liberman
(via Boing Boing)
The stainless-steel is a nasty harsh, cold substance. Alas, gold and silver are too soft and malleable for this sort of mechanism. The squared edges could do with radiusing too. The makers describe it as having six precision gears. I'd quibble, and say a precision gear-maker would perhaps call those semi-precision. A little bit of dirt, goo, or grit might be a big problem. The model in the videos has hairy fingers. I winced at the thought, even though my fingers are not hairy, and no, I do not shave them, nor do I have them waxed.
A hundred and sixty five dollars? I can think of toys I'd have more fun with for that money.
(a thing about me none of you know... I was fined at college for damage to the floor of my room. I was stripping-down a Laycock-De Normanville overdrive out of an MGB, and I had to drive a bearing off the mainshaft, and I, er, forgot to put a sacrificial bit of wood between it and the floor.. It was a lovely thing, an epicyclic gearbox. In later years I had one in a Volvo 240. Oh how I love gears.)
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