paintybeard

Hazelnut chocolate cheesecake finished and cooling ready for tomorrow. Now, how do I duplicate that swirl effect when painting?

No, the Aluminium foil will not go over the joint until it goes into the oven on Christmas morning. Very bad luck, TGP. Fingers crossed for all your circle.

"The Admirals" by Walter Borneman. Rather old-fashioned and tame. Nothing except platitudes about their private lives, hastily glosses over their mistakes. I shall finish it, but will not be keeping it

I would never, ever try meths.

I feel that the parents should be wearing black leather and looking smug.

40th. Anniversary of the Penlee Lifeboat tragedy https://twitter.com/RNLI/status/1472507734738321413?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet My station, along with many others have darkened lights for 1 hour.

Local Christmas Market this Sunday, fingers crossed We shall sell a decent amount.

It is useful for keeping up with my Lifeboat events, but like most other things, I expect I would adapt if it disappeared.

I can think of 16 in my lifetime.

Terribly late, but I hope you had a wonderful day.

Thank you all. There was no partying, but steak and kidney pudding was consumed.

Perhaps an obscure reference to Charles Dickens: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."

Turned down the chance to buy shares in Games Workshop when they were first issued. Still it's better to be happy than rich, isn't it?.. ISN'T IT?... ISN'T IT?

Just the atom bomb, the theory for Hydrogen fusion isn't fully worked out until the late 1940's Yes, there is a combine commando and Norwegian resistance raid February 1943. (Operation Gunnarside). This does a lot of damage but does not destroy all of the stored heavy water. The Germans try to move this to Germany and the Norwegians sabotage the ferry it is loaded onto. This pretty much stops the export of heavy water. It doesn't stop all German atomic research but it slows it down. I think that the film you are thinking of is "The Heroes of Telemark". For a non-fiction treatment try "Operation Gunnerside Reconsidered" by Nigel West It is, let's say... Rabelasian...

I just don't agree with your assessment of German atomic progress. One of the first steps in the development of any bomb is testing a nuclear pile. Fermi did this in June 1942. Doppel did not manage this for the Germans before early 1945. Add this to disinterest by the Armed forces, ideological objections to the science and the conscription of so many required technicians into the wehrmacht and the German weapons programme was never likely to achieve much. I would refer you to "Hitler's Scientists" by John Cornwell (2013) for a balanced and detailed treatment of the subject.

Not that recent, but I'm still thanking my lucky stars that I chose to retire in February 2020. Travel and quarantine around the world ha made sea-faring a nightmare profession since then.

As you say, we are in counter-factual territory, so this is all entirely speculative. So a few more of my counter arguments: 1) Before Pearl Harbour USN is already in a shooting war with the Kreigsmaine. Sooner or later the loss of American ships and lives is going to trigger a war. I don't see the isolationists being able to stop this. 2) The Russians stop The Germans at the gates of Moscow before any significant Anglo-American help arrives. After that the Germans are stuck in a 2-front war. It will last longer and be even bloodier without US help, but I can't see the Germans achieving anything better than a very painful stalemate. 3) The German Heavy Water plant is destroyed by the indigenous Norwegian Resistance movement. This is still likely to happen even without outside help. Also I'd like to hear your references to the Germans being close to having the atom bomb. They lacked anything on the scale of Manhattan Project and most of their physicists (and Hitler) denigrated the "Jewish science" that would lead the required research. And even if they had got the Bomb, the emasculated Luftwaffe had almost no chance of delivering anywhere. Another pivotal point that I prefer: Winston Churchill steps out into to cross Fifth Avenue in 1932, looks the wrong way and gets hit by a taxi, hospitalised for a month. If this had been slightly more serious Churchill could easily have died. In that case a British compromise peace is much more likely after the Fall of France, Hitler avoids a 2-front War and we are in an entirely new ball-game.

Nearly opening the wrong valve on a ship and dropping umpty tons of fuel into Tokyo harbour. I still feel physically sick when I think about it.

All good points and we are probably splitting hairs but... By "pivotal moment" I take that to mean one singular event that makes a noticeable change to the whole world, and I just don't think that Pearl Harbour qualifies as that. A world war was already in progress for 2 years. (More if you include Japanese aggression in China.) So PH was just the final taking of sides. As I've stated earlier, USA was already the worlds No.1 industrial power and had been so since before WWI. It was inevitable that she would eventually become a major military power, WW2 merely forced the pace. Let's not forget that it is Hitler who declares war on USA, not the other way around.

Politely, I think not. America was already "Top Nation" in terms of productivity and potential. Japan was a second rate nation that only got as far as she did because she had been under-estimated and ignored. (As FDR sensibly recognised; Germany was the bigger threat.) Pivotal moments? Bolshevik revolution or Cockcroft and Watson splitting the atom are better candidates. But yes, deepest respect to all who fought and made sacrifices to defeat those tyrannies.

Blindly choosing a career after making an enormous foul up of all my school exams. Turning out to be surprisingly good at the choice I had hastily made.

Very happy with both. Perhaps dawn wins out as it PROBABLY means that I get to enjoy at least one more day. Seen both from the air, in fact I once saw 2 sunsets in a row, with no sunrise in between. (Going westward on Concorde.) Saw "the Green Flash" during one spectacular sunset in the Caribbean.

Quite frequently. Seen some spectacular thunderstorms whilst doing so as well.

Only if you use the weird American system of date notation. Ninja'd by Sumbloke, teach me to read a whole thread before replying.

Where do I begin? Swinging the lamp: Was stuck behind Hurricane Katarina for 2 days off Yucatan, a few days before it got to Florida, even a 250.000 ton tanker could not move against that. Been in big ones of Capes of Good hope and Horn, nasty ones in Sea of Japan and Japan, but probably the worst was the sudden onslaught of a Mistral in the Mediterranean. Lost the Main Engine and went beam on in Force 10 on that one.