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scuba diving with a chap that lost both legs plying on the railway
Was his name Bob?
Exactly! If they had told us you COULD lose your legs we may have listened, but by telling us that as soon as your foot touches there track you lose the leg once we found out it was a lie we just didn’t believe it at all
Of course as an adult I realise that’s stupid but at the time I was a kid and the adults were the ones being stupid by trying to scare a bunch of kids with stupid lies
Bit like the way media/governments treat people lately really, not specifically the heat thing but in general
was no doubt saved from drowning in a flooded quarry by a terrifying figure carrying a scythe…..
Not everyone was this week 🙁
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-62225540
Local to me.
Exactly! If they had told us you COULD lose your legs we may have listened, but by telling us that as soon as your foot touches there track you lose the leg once we found out it was a lie we just didn’t believe it at all
kind of depends on which track. the line next to my school was electrified and you definitely didn't want provide an earth path for that one..
You do realise that you have proved comprehensively wrong don’t you?
No, I speculated that the weather forecast may have been wrong, which it often is. In this case it was spot on. I'll take that my guess was inaccurate
about a mile from me there were two wild fires out of control which caused extensive damage to the natural habitat.
There are wildfires pretty much every single summer
The patronising melts were correct and you were wrong. HTH
The stay indoors with sheets over the windows or you'll surely die wasn't quite the case though, was it?
Was his name Bob?
😂
That was a joke right?
orecast may have been wrong, which it often is
Surprisingly, it's a lot more accurate than most people give credit. About 9/10 days by rigorous analysis.
A measure of our progress is that 92.5% of the Met Office’s next day temperature forecasts are accurate within 2 degree C and 92% of the Met Office’s next day wind speed forecasts are correct within 5 knots.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/what/accuracy-and-trust/how-accurate-are-our-public-forecasts
I'd say the warning system worked precisely as it should have. The vulnerable were forewarned, the challenge to public transport recognised and damage limited. Sadly this week people have still drowned getting into trouble in water.
Having spent a full summer at 40C, this felt little different, with the exception of limited aircon. But then I am not my father-in-law (80's, stroke and disabled).
There was a chap on telly who had lost an arm and a leg whilst playing on railway tracks as a kid.
Friend is a Paramedic (Hazardous response team) and has to retrieve the bodies after railway accidents. Apparently there are a lot of bits eg head with a bit of spinal cord attached, one hip with half a leg, shin over there, foot in a tree. All warm to the touch as well..
Doesn't sound much fun.
Exactly! If they had told us you COULD lose your legs we may have listened, but by telling us that as soon as your foot touches there track you lose the leg once we found out it was a lie we just didn’t believe it at all
See also: swimming in reservoirs will mean certain death from cold shock, underwater currents, sucked through a tube and churned up in a turbine, entangled in the ever present underwater algae/machinery.
See also: take ecstasy or acid and you will jump off a tall building believing you can fly whilst bleeding from every orifice.
Had great fun playing on the railway as yoofs. Even got nicked for it. Chased on many occasion. What we did in order to not get hit by trains is, when we heard or saw or felt a train coming we simply stepped out of the way. Usually at the last minute playing chicken though...
Does anyone know whether it was an urban myth? But we were always in fear of the 'police train'? A single engine that would sneak around containing Transport Police looking to ruin kids' fun.
No, I speculated that the weather forecast may have been wrong, which it often is. In this case it was spot on. I’ll take that my guess was inaccurate
Can you define "wrong" and "often"?
As per TiRed's post there's a huge amount of work that goes in to verifying a forecast. This combined with competition and collaboration between different Met services which has driven massive improvements in the past few decades, particularly driven by increased availability of high performance computing.
Here's a good article from NOAA (who are roughly equivalent to the Met Office for the US) about forecast accuracy.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52227726907_597c557b11_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52227726907_597c557b11_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://www.flickr.com/gp/85252658@N05/hf0gCk3L5x ]2022-07-20_09-49-10[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/85252658@N05/ ]davetheblade[/url], on Flickr
🤣🤣
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62232654
Yeah, everyone is being a snowflake, including the fire service.....
The stay indoors with sheets over the windows or you’ll surely die wasn’t quite the case though, was it?
Well no but that is because you just invented it.
The advice was be careful outside and try to avoid using certain forms of travel plus advice about how to keep a house cool eg shutting windows/blinds etc.
I remember the police coming to my primary school to show us a video of how you’d lose your legs if you ever walked on a train track
This film ? Shown on Nationwide at tea time.
I think I know which team dave was on. it explains a lot...
We use to play on the train tracks, then one of us got hit by a train. We stopped after that.
There are wildfires pretty much every single summer
Apart from the blitz and the great fire this is the first time 41 homes in London have been burnt to the ground in a single day.
So when (not if) we get longer periods of 40° heat this will become the norm.
Friend is a Paramedic (Hazardous response team) and has to retrieve the bodies after railway accidents.
Time was BR used to have a team that had to remove body parts from the underside of trains that had hit a suicide. Not the most pleasant of jobs.
I've also had the "fun" of a huge delay at Clapham Junction due to a poor soul stepping in front of the Gatwick Express. The station was shut whilst they cleaned the platforms of the remains.
There are wildfires pretty much every single summer
Are you familiar with the concepts of "more", "increasing trend" and "more extensive"?
Yep that worked for me too – and I’m 99.9% certain I didn’t affect anyone else either
I'm often have to remind myself of the Darwinian phrase "survival of the fittest", that if we had all the same traits and thinking there would be an awful less morons like this around as they would have been weeded out by now.
They may bleat that they look out for themselves without others intervention, but its collective responsibility of the rest that actually shields them from harm. As a simple example, you don't run people over in the street because they stepped into the roads without looking because they are staring at their phones.
Perhaps we should be a little more Darwinian and let the more stupid among us go...
How is it hotter in my office today than yesterday - muggier too!!? 🤷♂️🥵
El-bent, definitely +1 for becoming more Darwinian and removing the more stupid.
The stay indoors with sheets over the windows or you’ll surely die wasn’t quite the case though, was it?
I think you should ask yourself why you are distorting what was said just so that you can ridicule it. There might be some knee-jerk response here to reading this stuff, that you should probably start examining; or you might just be winding us up in which case you should also have a word with yourself and ask why you enjoy it and why you think that's a good thing to be doing.
ask why you enjoy it and why you think that’s a good thing to be doing.
The answer to which is pretty obvious....
Apart from the blitz and the great fire this is the first time 41 homes in London have been burnt to the ground in a single day.
So when (not if) we get longer periods of 40° heat this will become the norm.
The problem with logic and facts is that people just ignore them if they don't fit their narrative.....
My primary was by a railway track. We were forever being told if the dangers. Then the police came and told us that we had to stay away as detonators had been found on the track, even showed us pictures so we'd know to stay away. Must have been 100 kids on the tracks at lunchtime, with a half dozen staff trying to herd us off.
Some people here really do take very different things from public health guidance
I believe the IPCC has reported that heatwaves pose the biggest threat to human life of all climate hazards.
The problem with logic and facts is that people just ignore them if they don’t fit their narrative…..
"Maffs and fiziks are just boring tho innit 'cos I'm a geezer and love the heat, you're all pussies" - Dave the not-very-sharp Blade 2022
He's just winding everyone up. Probably sat on his caravan toilet now laughing at you all.
ElShalimo - there's loads more drivel like that from Dave; he knows exactly what he's posting - and why.
It's just a laff, innit.
Provocative and a wind-up merchant.
Provocative and a wind-up merchant.
I knew that but I prefer the Mark Radcliffe misquote "he's an idiot savant, without the savant bit"
🤦♂️
Heat deaths 800. Cold deaths 60 thousand.
I would say cheap heating is more important than trying to control global temp when you are relying on the cooperation of the rest of the world.
I would say cheap heating is more important than trying to control global temp when you are relying on the cooperation of the rest of the world.
They don't have to be mutually exclusive of course, improving the insulation in our homes would help with both.
They don’t have to be mutually exclusive of course, improving the insulation in our homes would help with both.
Yep and it's something the government should have been focusing on all summer with the gas price rises coming in winter !
2 days at record temps saw fire brigades with their busiest days since ww2
The likelihood of these events increasing means we will have to start planning more for them, which adds costs and requires leadership, something the UK is severely lacking
The same models that were throwing 40C 'outlier' events at the start of the month are also showing other outlier events for August -as thecaptain pointed out no probability attached to this and likelihood remains v low, the specific triggers required for it quite rare but global temp rise has made it possible.
https://twitter.com/stives1985/status/1549675634221277185?t=jFkcmUmzg1Oa-GlON1pdqg&s=19
StirlingCrispin : Relive your youthful night terrors:
Yep......still gives me the Heebie jeebies.
My primary was by a railway track. We were forever being told if the dangers. Then the police came and told us that we had to stay away as detonators had been found on the track, even showed us pictures so we’d know to stay away. Must have been 100 kids on the tracks at lunchtime, with a half dozen staff trying to herd us off.
Those detonators were great! We had a box of them. I remember a summer spent placing them on a big stone in the river then throwing bricks at them from atop a bridge. Instant soaking. Plus they had little lead legs so you could attach them to things and pick them off with an air rifle. Ahh childhood...
Regarding those public information films, it’s a shame they’ve gone out of fashion.
I heard that the only way to keep kids, etc off train lines and building sites is to scare them rigid.
We need competitions to reward those who create adverts that are terrifyingly efficacious.
“And this years Silver Shamrock award for daytime horror goes to…”
No, I speculated that the weather forecast may have been wrong, which it often is. In this case it was spot on. I’ll take that my guess was inaccurate
So according to you when a forecast is inaccurate it is "wrong" but when you are inaccurate it doesn't mean that you were wrong at all. How convenient.
The truth is that you were wrong, both with respect to how hot it would get (ie record breaking) and the non-routine disruption that it would cause.
But you don't have the good grace to admit it, or even resort to the tactic that probably most would use - avoid talking about it.
And btw you are also wrong about wildfires - there were apparently two in Croydon yesterday, no one expects wildfires to be a routine part of a hot summer's day in Croydon.
BBC: London Fire Brigade had busiest day since World War Two, says London mayo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62232654
"Yesterday was the busiest day for the fire service in London since the Second World War.
"Normally we get 350 calls a day, on a busy day we can get up to 500 calls. Yesterday the fire service had more than 2,600 calls a day."
seems apt...
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improving the insulation in our homes would help with both.
Yeah but that would involve admitting that the folk who glued themselves to roads were actually right.
Shouldn't that dog be in a caravan?
Yeah but that would involve admitting that the folk who glued themselves to roads were actually right.
Oh yeah they can't be right because they got in the way of cars.
I moved into a recently extended Victorian semi about 6 months ago from a new build flat and due to the extreme difference in temperature (old place stayed at 21 degrees without using the heating, this place certainly does not!) one of my first thoughts was to improve the insulation so had it done a month or so ago. I was pleased with myself for my winter preparations, but even more pertinent now.
Of course I'm fortunate in that I was able to pay for it. Ridiculous that we have things like winter fuel payments but can't sort ourselves out to help with the cause and not just some of the symptoms.
Yeah but that would involve admitting that the folk who glued themselves to roads were actually right.
They are right. Just a bonkers approach to changing people's behaviour.
That's a good point actually... Rather than doing annual winter fuel payments surely it would be cheaper in the long run just to give qualifying people a one off insulation voucher or something at a higher amount obvs. But once it's done that house is then done.
Or possibly alongside a much reduced winter fuel allowance.