Kit Cat #1

Meantimes boats don't build themselves, do they Gromit? I've decided to build this as a pair of identical pontoons to be connected by the intervening seat or seats and here I've laid out the pair of decks ~ or wings ~ as they'll appear on the watercraft.

We're looking at the underside here and they comprise a picture-frame, based on a quarter-inch laminated backer-board beneath and insulation foam above. The foam will be on the underside and so it does not require a second skin.

This in turn allows for different thicknesses of foam to be applied: here the spars are three-quarter inch (18mm) square, whereas the foam is inch-thick or 25mm. I ran a bead of adhesive around the excess foam except on inside edges, as these will abut the uprights.

There might have been a time I'd have worked on during summer evenings but with advancing age comes retreating ambition. Cambridge philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote how our lives are like a river: a babbling brook at birth, a torrent in youth and middle age, serene expanse like the Mississippi approaching the sea and its demise.

Whatever book I read I can only generally recall one fact, as here. Of Solzhenystin's voluminous tome about the Gulag I can only remember the bit where he goes for a crap. This suggests that reading, as Faust said, is a waste of time.

Ed. He did like blogs though.

Donald Sheppard R.I.P.

A few days back we found ourselves complaining, didn't we, about tailbacks on the M6 when the chances were the motorist or one of three truck drivers fell asleep; it being around 04:00 a.m. But the motorist in question sadly passed away and so we mount a tribute among these pages.

Not three days later the same motorway was closed in both directions for a single lorry (truck arch.) fire that was confined anyway to the hard shoulder. The thinking must be that motorists on either side of the central reservation will be stopping for a gawp and will run into the back of each other, producing a cascade of crashes that would keep us there until at least Christmas.

The answer would ideally be for a select few of us to establish a civilisation on Mars, but absent that then in the interim driving and all else should be done by robots... and as I write, once such just broke the world's 100m sprint record.

But you may wish to bury your loved one among these posts, which will last for all time... or at least 'til Sergey Brin needs one. Available on our merch pages, you can book both an attractive headstone and a funeral oration drafted by AI.

Visiting the deceased is more easily done by laptop and you may refresh your floral tributes for a small subscription that we promise will cost no more than Netflix.

Below is our offering aimed at petrolheads, featuring a lasting 'lamboleum' for the whole family!

Ed. ChatGPT drew it, Miss.

Dimestoppers

Is this your vehicle? Were you proceeding south at the traffic-lights at the entrance to Old Hall Street on Friday 21st August around 11:00 a.m. and were you showered with money?

I pull up at the lights on the inside lane and on the central reservation is a homeless man with a sign that reads something like 'I've no money so give me yours instead'.

Your honour, I stare fixedly ahead pretending to have spotted interesting clouds in the sky, but realising it would be me in a year or two, I reach for a new pound coin ~ the one with with a harder rim than previous ~ and toss it toward the man with a cry of 'Here's a quid mate'.

At this point the vehicle pictured in the CCTV drove up the outside lane and the coin bounced audibly and visibly off the bonnet, ricocheted off the windscreen and given the length provided by an estate, careened off the roof as a parting shot.

I wound the window up, appearing to have spotted an interesting cloud. The coin in question came to rest in the hatched area between the signals, given the impetus provided by the estate.

My feeling is the homeless man, my cries drowned out by traffic, had the impression I had been shouting abuse at him whilst throwing whatever came to hand.

On reflection I view the whole incident as something of a shit-show, but it did keep me amused for the rest of the day and therefore I consider it a pound well spent.

It would though form the basis of an ideal primer for the Oxbridge entrance exam if you would forward this extract during proceedings?

A trucker stopped at the lights spots a homeless man to whom he throws a pound coin. The coin chips a passing vehicle in multiple places and the vagrant feels he was subject to verbal abuse. Liverpool City Council disposes of the belongings of its homeless on a daily basis, in an effort to ethnically-cleanse its city-centre.

Who is to blame: the trucker, the vagrant, the council, the motorist or the trucker's parents? How would Seneca feel if his chariot were struck by a flying denari?

50 marks

Smiley Myrus

My doctor warned me not to watch videos of this kind before bed-time, but I wonder if you like me are trying to figure out whether a wind-machine might have been used in the making?

I'm thinking that yes, on that day in Malibu ladies and gentlemen of the jury, it had to be used in the absence of Nature coming up with the goods.

Exhibit A: flowers waving around in the foreground with no back-up from the rear

Exhibit B: spliced footage from the same shoot, the wind dropped to a dead calm

Exhibit C: a dog who's ears aren't flapping in the wind... for it's been turned off

I have contacted Miley to check, and to offer a chance to meet me over a pint of ale and bag of pork scratchings at a pub of her choosing next time she's in Manchester. Or at least a badge.

The Eyes Have It

The last four CEOs at Boeing provided themselves enumeration to the tune of a half billion dollars whilst the company's losses mounted, but as that's the MO in business during the period of decline in the West, it's hardly a surprise and likely what Rome was doing prior the 'goths turning up at the gates of Rome.

But put on the spot by one Senator Hawley, at the point at which he is asked about that (see the Netflix doc, #2 in the UK currently), the pupils dilate in a fight or flight response.

One thing about flying airliners is that once the departure's been dealt with and the autopilot's plugged in the options are (or were) to review the papers, eat your fried breakfast or talk shit with the co-pilot. And ideally all at once.

But flying with a Turkish co-pilot ~ who admittedly would be more likely to view the events of 9/11 from a Muslim perspective ~ he was of the opinion that it had been a deliberate act orchestrated from within the USA.

I suggested that if he watched the president's reaction to the news whilst listening to a class of school-kids, you can see that same response... and it can't be faked because it springs from a part of the brain that reacts before we're aware of it. Hitting a low bridge once at 40 m.p.h. I asked myself who was screaming like a Neanderthal; before realising it must be me because no one else was there.

Now many years on, the thinking amongst the people who think paedophiles spring from Pizza Huts is that the president would not have known because he would not have been involved. And the scary thing is, that looks like it might even be true.

What do you think? Could the Earth be flat, or our Moon really made of cheese? Let me know in the comments below... you sad bastards.

Ed. The following reconstruction may have been digitally altered.

bide a wEE

Prior that thatched woman with the hair, utilities used to be straightforward whether it were gas, electricity, telephones, water or what were known as the 'rates' or local council tax. Now they are uniformily expensive, fairly shit (literally in the case of the water utilities), in your face on TV all of the time and not least requiring that regular churn at the expiry of the contract.

In an effort to deter me from leaving one they practically doubled in price on expiry, EE has let me know what I'll be missing... as pictured below.

This is like, were Suzuki to hear I was considering a change of car, describing those benefits I'd be missing as (a) wheels on each corner and (b) one inside for pointing it in whichever direction I should choose.

And isn't that Meghan Markle who's sorry to see me go? They do use Kevin Bacon at every turn, whose forthcoming slasher movie can be seen at theatres near you or by livestream hereabouts if ever he appears at my door.

Ed. That's not going to happen Colin, is it, unless he falls from space?

Tekever Takeover

We've seen how heavy-lift drones are doing the heavy-lifting on the front line, but in addition to that there is the reconnaissance that allows for bombs to be dropped on targets like SAM anti-aircraft equipment at a greater comparative cost.

You'd like to think that after the Spitfire and Mosquito the UK could do this itself but instead they have turned to a Portuguese firm, which itself has funded the supply of such drones to the tune of $250 million.

Did you know however that they are manufactured under licence hereabouts before they are returned to Portugal, re-assembled and signed off prior to being driven to the front line in a low-tech Ford Transit van?

By such means the UK government has pledged £1 billion in the effort to shift some 150,000 of such drones over there in the coming twelve months. If that sounds like a lot, bear in mind the Ukraine alone deploys upto 10,000 per day.

If there is one thing war gears up more than any other, it's production lines.

These aircraft are snapped together like Airfix, something Boeing hoped to cut costs with at a non-union plant using anyone who could wield a spanner. Sections were, if you watch the Netflix doc, an inch out: okay for trousers but less so for airliners.