Hi Kev

Its not just the number of trawlers that matter (if only it were that simple!).

It’s the size of the boats, vs how many days they are allowed to put to sea, the annual quota they are allowed to catch of each species, and other interference from the beauracrats that need to be taken into account as well as the number of registered boats.

Current EU policy sees fishermen in Hastings (not far from my neck of the woods) etc having to discard fish they catch t as an unavoidable by-product of trying to catch other (permitted) species simply because they get fined for exceeding their quota if they land them. I believe common-sense and public pressure is now, at last, starting to see efforts to relax some of the more stupid rules.

I agree that without careful management we were (are?) close to over-fishing some species to the point of collapse, but as ever it seems UK plc follow EU rules and regs closely, while other EU member states seem to find ways round (or blatantly ignore) the rules, and non-EU members seem free to hoover up fish species willy-nilly simply because they operate outside EU-states’ territorial waters.

As for Japanese killing whales for “research purposes”, I cannot see how that is still justified. As mentioned earlier in the thread, they must know everything about the species they catch by now, so why do ‘the powers that be’ continue to approve charade. Everyone knows the real purpose of the “research catch” is to generate saleable whale meat, pretending that meat is a bi-product of legitimate research is a joke these days.

Paul F

– Perhaps I’ll give the Fish ‘n chips a miss tonight….

Thje sad fact is that in order to gain lottery funding, the building it’s self had to be landmark and architecturally dsitinctive. Comapre the initial design for Cosford with what was eventually built.

There is also, within commisioning bodies, a tendency to seek kudos for the building as well – witness the Glasgow Riverside Museum for another example of a building where they would have been better served with a bog shed, but the politicians and directors preen themselves over having a building designed by an interantionally renowned artist.

Indeed, and that’s the root of the problem, the building itself often takes precedence over whatever it is required to protect/exhibit, especially when an architect (or Politician/ Museum Director etc) wants to leave his/her mark for posterity (or vanity?) 😡

Why not build a simple clear-span Duxford-style superhangar, and spend the cash saved on the structure itself on some ground-breaking displays inside? I doubt many people go to Cosford to look at the Cold-War building per se, I imagine most go to see what is inside it, as they do at Duxford.

One thing that does concern me with hanging the exhibits in what is essentially a vertical layout rather than a traditional “single storey” horizontal layout is the fire risk. Should fire break out, a vertically set display space may well act like a chimney and serve to encourage the conflagration by leading to a very strong “flue” effect – fine if its only fibreglass replicas hanging there, but not a risk I’d want to see taken with “genuine” last-example airframes – however effective the fire control/containment/ extinguishing system may be claimed to be.

Also, a vertical column of suspended airframes will make rearrangement and cleaning/refurbishment of airframes a major problem – even though the Duxford American Air Force Museum was designed to facilitate airframe movement, the current costs of dissassembling/reassembling the glazed facade is proving unacceptable, so airframes are being shoehorned out after dis-assembly. The proposed designs for Hendon seem to suggest that once in, and airframe is destined to be entombed forever…

If the aim of the new building is to remind people of the BofB/Blitz period, and Duxford Superhangar is felt to be unattractive or irrelevant why not “reconstruct” something that looks like a typical WW2 vintage RAF airfield hangar (or two). As has been said, the old T2 hangars (or a modern facsimile) would be relatively simple and cheap to build, and effective at housing aircraft. Internally galleries and mezzanine floors etc could be provided to break up the “shed” feeling.

Maybe use a few waving “blitz searchlight beams” to provide a night-time “focus”.

Paul F

Ditto, we have connected our old VHS/DVD player combo to our new digibox/DVD/Blue Ray player/burner and now its just a case of finding the time to burn the VHS tapes onto the digi hard drive, and then download them onto DVD or Blue Ray. I have done one so far and the technology works fine.

I suspect a few will get transferred and then the rest will have to wait until I retire – by which time BlueRay and DVD will probably be “out of date” technology too 🙁

Paul F

Hoping to avoid Moggy’s pencil……

I love the comment by the makers that it “fills a gap” in the market ……:D

I’ll get my coat…….

Based on my experience in the medicinal arena… I wonder how the clinical trials mentioned confirmed it restored the girls’ “self confidence”. Bit difficult to measure that on in a quantitative manner… and the (reported) marketing spin seems to vary between suggesting there is a mainly phsycological effect and a mainly physical effect (thought the two may well be linked).

Not sure how topically applied (i.e. applied externally to the muscle) gold dust would affect muscle tone, aloe vera does impart moisture and so helps “plump” external skin, though not sure it would work in quite the same way used internally.

As for the cultural background, my own limited experience is that India is definitely struggling to resolve its older traditional patriarchal values with the fact that women are starting to take on more empowered and empowering roles as they aspire to the western lifestyle.

Even among the better educated menfolk I often spotted a conflict of values – they (grudgingy?) respect educated/professional women, but often still treat less-educated women as “goods and chattels”. As the article says, no doubt the upwardly mobile professional, city dwellers, tend towards a modern “western” lifestyle, while the country dwellers are more traditional.

Will the product sell in India? – probably. Would it sell here in UK? …. who knows. Does anyone in the west care about the sexual history of their prospective partner to the extent that they would worry if they used such a product anymore?

…. i have to say that digital SLR lens’ focal lengths are different to the old manual SLR cameras that came before. So although it was a 300mm in fact it was comparable to a 400 (ish) mm lens of old. So my new Canon 70 – 250mm lens is more than suitable for what I need. And it has built in stabilizer so cuts out (or down) any camera shake. AND it wasn’t as expensive as I thought it was going to be. Got it from Argos. Check them out.

😀

Tony.

Hi Tony,

Its not the lens “length” that is different it is the camera sensor, on the “smaller” Canon DSLRs (anything from the EOS1000D up to and including the EOS 7D body IIRC) the digital sensor “crops” the image as compared to a 35mm negative body fitted with same focal length lens. The crop factor is approx 1.4x, so a 70 – 250mm zoom (as it would be known in 35mm film days) effectively becomes a 98 – 350mm lens on your EOS 600D.

This is useful ‘benefit’ when the camera/lens is used for airshows etc, though it does mean that even a 35mm wide(r) angle lens acts like a 50mm did in “old money” which can be bloomin’ frustrating in cramped spaces – to get a 35mm lens effect as you would have got on a film SLR you need a ca. 25mm lens on the EOS 600D body. Hope this makes sense?

I have the sister Canon 70 – 300mm IS lens (used for around five years on my old EOS 350D body and more recently a 40D body), I agree they give good results for the money they cost. I would recommend against using them at maximum zoom, as the images tend to go a little soft, I find it better to zoom out a little, and then crop the image on the PC later, seems to give a sharper end result. Canons IS Image stabilisation system really does work too, definitely allows me to shoot two shutter speeds lower than without it – though it does tend to use up battery charge quickly make sure you have a spare battery handy.

Also, as was mentioned in the thread earlier, try to set the camera so that it stops the zoom lens down to maybe F11 or more if you are using it at it’s longer zoom lengths, this helps keep images sharper too.

Paul F

Anyone else spotted the weird propellor arrangement in Steve’s photo…. maybe its just a poor copy of the original image, but it looks like the four blades are split, two on each section of the contra rotating “hub” but in a very “assymetrical” arrangement.

Or if its not a contra-prop then two blades appear to be closer to the tip of the spinner, and two closer to the back plate….?

Anyone care to confirm this is an optical (or photo-induced) illusion?

Otherwise the propellor(s) would be very unbalanced on the shaft 😮

Much greener to simply take glass to tap, methinks

Indeed, quite so Mr C – but drinking tap water is not so in line with being “upwardly mobile”., or “on (the green) trend” is it 😉

Don’t forget these are often the same people who trade in perfectly sound cars that are only a few years old simply to buy a “greener” model, that pumps out a trace less CO2, without realising that producing a new car from scratch causes more CO2 to be produced than most existing cars will ever pump out in the remainder of their lifetime. The fact that the new greener model has a newer index plate number is purely coincidental….:rolleyes:

Or they drive “eco friendly” electric (or semi-electric cars), forgetting that the majority of electricity they use to re-charge them comes from dirty old fossil fuel powered genertaing stations, or from those even nastier nuclear power stations…

Still, nice to know they really understand the “green” issues, and that they are doing their bit to save the planet :rolleyes:

In the meantime us Luddites will continue to drink tap water from re-usable containers (glasses), and drive round in our seven/eight/nine year old cars that pump out C)2 like its going out of fashion…..

And perish the thought if we even dare to heretically suggest that climate change may well be in part (or worse still largely) down to natural phenomena.