[rab] Yes, though I cannot give you brand(s) or model number(s). It does however involve having two (usually small plug pack) power supplies (unless the 'receiver' has one built in) - one for the receiver - that's the one which connects to the landline - and one for the 'phone handset, which is simply a battery charger. I've just had a look at mine, an el-cheapo Panasonic unit, but it does not have the facility though I'm sure that one of my previous units (Uniden?) did, even though I didn't use it.
[rab] I've got a BT Quartet system which I bought about 4 years ago [though mine is only the 'duet' version because I didn't see the need to buy 3 handsets]. The base station with aerial plugs into phone point and power socket down here in my kitchen/officy place and the portable handset sits on its own charger which is plugged in upstairs in one of the bedrooms. The phone itself often gets lost in one of the bedrooms but appears to keep its charge for days without sitting it back on its power plinth. Very handy - it's even effective from my friend's house which is a few doors down the road.
[Chalky] It's more of a 'monet' that I'm after: base station + 1 handset + charger separate from the base station (as the base station has to sit in a place where I don't want to put the phone to charge).
My polo neck became completely detached from my sweater during the course of today. The stitching unravelled and I'm now wearing a crew neck sweater with a rather neat and separate collar. Watch next year's catwalks...
We've had lashing rain and wind this morning and i expect there'll be more, but as I speak, I'm squinting at my PC screen because the sun is hitting it... we've got a window in the maelstrom of meteorological matter right now :o) It's the most light I've seen for about five days.
Someone here once had a go at me for banging on about the weather. Well, thats's Witshire Wisdom for you. :-) Anyway, half an inch of rain measured at Hughes Hall this morning but still a very dry year overall (about 70%) and the grass isn't yet squelchy. Tap your barometers; you won't see them this low very often especially in the south-west.
Also, had our first (and quite possibly last) snow of the year here in Seattle yesterday. I threw a snowball and everything. =D Usually we don't get any until January or February, if at all.
(Juxtapose) Seattle's climate, as far as I can make out, is as close to British as anywhere in the USA, perhaps just a shade warmer. Of course if you're a displaced Brit, as opposed to a Yank, you won't need telling that.
[Rosie] From Boston, originally, never yet hopped the Atlantic (although I would dearly love to). It's nice to know I'd feel right at home over there. =)
(Juxtapose) Seattle looks a deal milder than Boston in the winter, which I'd imagine is also quite windy and raw. The worst thing about the British winter is the light (absence of). If it's cloudy as it usually is then it's pretty well dark by 4 pm, and earlier still in the north.
[Bigsmith] It died and we all moved to other sites. That's the most detail I think we ever really got. Not that there was a coverup or anything (but now I think of it...).
I've just put my flat up in Lincolnshire on the market, and have made an offer on a bungalow up there for my mum to live in. Is it unethical to charge her rent until she sells her house and puts the cash in to pay for it?! This is all sooo exciting... Fog-bound here in Herts. Dead busy here in the office, but all good.
[penelope] What a strange question. If you are merely acting as a go-between (meaning you are financing the transaction until such time as your mother raises her own funds), then yes. Depending on your relationship with your mother the amount 'charged' could be commercial rent or simply enough to cover your costs in bringing the deal to a closure. Should you be a rich and grateful daughter then you could, at your discretion, ignore your expenditure and not mention the subject. I suspect that most of England will be under varying degrees of fog today - the football World Cup draw was finalised last night ... joking ... honest ... joking ... truly, truly.
(Dujon) Widespread fog today in low lying areas but none here up on the Downs. Both Gatwick and Heathrow have had fog all day as you will see from this and this and if you really fancy some cold stuff try this.
How can anyone live in such temperatures? Minus 34°C for heaven's sake! I am aware that some of our North American friends experience such extremes but I cannot, literally cannot, imagine what it must be like. Add to that the nearly three feet of snow they had in the previous twenty four hours, which would hardly warm one's feet, and I'm ever so pleased I'm not living there.
(Dujon) The -34°C is rather mild for Jakutsk in Dec/Jan. The mean is -43°C. There is no wind, or snowfall, but the ground is snow-covered from what fell in Oct/Nov, typically about a foot. The only weather is fog, which can last for a week or more with temperatures down to -51°C, the lowest I've seen in 4 yrs daily monitoring. The short summer is like that of central France and it hardly ever rains. I bet they make the most of it. There is an even colder place, Ojmjakon, where the January mean is -50°C with no weather at all, just brief sunshine while the sun crawls shyly above the horizon for a few hours. Young kids are not allowed out of it goes below -45 because the cold air can damage their lungs. If you were so daft as to put the mouthpiece of a brass instrument to your lips in that degree of cold it would blow more than two semitones flat, the least of your worries, I'd say. Perhaps there's a special short Russian trombone.
What's the science behind that then, Rosie? I would have expected extreme cold weather to reduce the size of the instrument, thus shortening the column of air one needs to vibrate. I would expect this effect to sharpen the instrument.
(Phil) The instrument does get a tiny bit shorter (about 2 mm at -50°C) but the overwhelming effect is the reduction in the speed of sound as the temperature goes down. Since there is a standing wave in the instrument the lower speed causes it to take longer to go down and up the instrument, thus lowering the frequency and therefore the pitch. In effect the instrument becomes longer as far as the standing wave sees it. Of course the player's breath warms it up quite a bit, about halfway beteen ambient and body temperature. Even allowing for this (which I didn't in my original posting), the adjustment is about one inch on the tuning slide for 20 degrees and this is just a bit more than is usually available. So if you're playing outside at 0°C all you could do would be to play "short", as they say. Fortunately I don't do marching bands or Sally Army stuff.
(Darren) That's correct. The whole instrument would be flat and it wouldn't sound wrong but any other instrument accompanying it would have to tune down a bit. Rather difficult with a piano. One way round it would be to have a small bleed of a lighter gas into the air the organ uses. You could use hydrogen, helium, neon, methane, ammonia or hydrogen fluoride. Perhaps I should patent this lunacy.
Wouldn't some of those risk producing the Amazing Exploding Organ? That puts me in mind of the Large Hot Pipe Organ which produces sound by exploding a propane/air mix in its pipes.
(Darren) It's blown itself to pieces and taken the website with it. I drew a blank with your link, alas. Helium would be safe enough and it's much cheaper than it used to be. It would be amusing to use sulphur hexafluoride, totally inert and non-toxic. It would lower the pitch by over an octave. I think I'd better shut up now.
My curiosity is partially because I'm playing carols at the village Christmas tree tomorrow evening with the local brass band. Getting 40 or so of us in tune may be interesting if we get a cold evening.
(Phil) If all the brass is out of tune by the same amount it won't matter. I suspect there will be enough left on the tuning slide to accomodate an average cold evening.
[Darren] I'm currently reviving my interest in playing B-flat cornet, having not really played it for nearly 3 years. [Rosie] That was what I thought. I might have to get a bit of practice in tonight, and give the old horn a good clean.
(Phil) I hope your lip won't have gone. I wouldn't dare go three days without blowing a few raspberrires down my nine-foot tube. Brass is a treadmill; constant practice just to stand still.
[Rosie] I was jolly chuffed with my performance as 2nd Cornet. Good news was that my part had nothing above more than an octave above Middle C, so my lip survived with no problems. They've now gone and asked me to join them on Sunday morning to play at various points around the village, traditionally accompanied by hip-flasks. Mr Phil has given permissions, so it looks like I might end up signing up to join permanently in the New Year.
(Phil) Shouldn't be too bad. One is expected to get that note on the 'bone (not too often) but the worst thing about it is reading it, being all in bass clef. The rule is that if it's in the stratosphere and on a space it's a C, otherwise it's a B (usually Bb). If it's a D the composer/arranger is not a trombone player. These high notes are far better played by trumpets and cornets anyway. Power to your embouchure. :-)
(Darren) Although leger lines are part and parcel of trombone playing (especially 1st and 2nd trombones) I'm very glad they don't go into Tenor Clef which to me would make it unreadable instead of merely difficult. Treble Clef is never used because most 'bonists can't read that either unless like me they're also piano players.
[Raak] It happens often enough for you to realise that you shouldn't get caught out by it, if that makes any sense. Depends on what key you're in, you see...
How do you get rid of the smell of a stink bomb? Some little f*cker put one under my front door mat while I was out shopping tonight. I'd like to rub it all over his best Nikes.
Hope Rosie doesn't mind me quoting this in here [picked up from Limerick Game] .. "(Chalky) Cheers. The busiest thing I am doing at this time of the year is firing off apologetic letters to all those who sent a Christmas card to my late Mum. Oh, the sins of omission." [Rosie] How soon one forgets! This is quite a poignant time for you in some respects, 'though I suspect you will end up doing exactly as you wish, according to your personal bodyclock, and having a rip-roaring time. Have you been deluged by kindly invites so you're 'not on your own at Christmas'?
I've just stirred 2kg of chocolate truffle mix into a glossy, brandy-infused bowlful of indulgence, now it has to cool off to almost-solid in the utility room (luckily it's bloody cold in there) so I can scoop it out with a melon-baller into about 400 truffles. Yum. And I'm still in my pyjamas :o). I think I'll have my mum and a friend coming for xmas. The friend was coming over from France to stay between christmas and new year anyway, but brought forward his trip because of a funeral, so I've insisted he should come here. [Rosie] The point I'm getting around to is, the prospect of having someone new and 'not family' at christmas is lovely. If someone offers you an invitation, accept it. They may need to invite you as much as you feel like accepting it. Sometimes, when you dilute a family, it gets better.