Latest news with #Humber
Sydney Morning Herald
11 hours ago
- Automotive
- Sydney Morning Herald
Driveway service gets the boot
It's been confirmed, there is no 'filler-cap tsar' (C8), Robyn Hansen of Pennant Hills and Jeff Stanton of Strathfield have both pointed out that the filler-cap is on the opposite side of the car to the exhaust pipe. Jeff thinks this is 'presumably to reduce fire risk'. Now a different tale from the bowser, courtesy of Stephen Hunt of Roseville: 'A story from the old country. The filler cap on the Humber Super Snipe was concealed behind one of the rear reflectors. A gentleman pulled into the filling station and asked for his Humber to be topped up. The garage attendant enquired where the filler-cap was, and was informed 'behind the rear reflector of course'. The attendant pulled off the wrong reflector and proceeded carefully to put four gallons of premium fuel in the boot.' 'To those drama queens discussing the positioning of filler-caps on cars. You do know that the hoses attached to bowsers stretch easily to the opposite side of the car, right?' posits Kerrie Wehbe of Blacktown. You almost had us, John Ure of Mount Hutton: 'Talking of cardigans (C8), many years ago, while a police detective at Newcastle, I was driving home from Sydney one day on the old Pacific Highway and overtook a slow-moving car. As I passed, I glanced across and saw that the driver, an older lady, had her arms through the steering wheel and was knitting! I was horrified. 'Pull over' I yelled. She just smiled and said 'No dear, it's a cardigan'.' 'Before we became a nation of quaffers, in the '60s and '70s, Grange (C8) was about $20 a bottle,' recalls Robert Hosking of Paddington. 'Well, I wasn't going to spend that, even on my date, so it was always that nasty St Henri at $12. Any other time, it was mostly flagon red at $5. Ahhh, sophistication.' 'Nola Tucker's mention of Ben Ean Moselle reminded me that my wines of choice back in the day were Kaiser Stuhl Cold Duck in summer, Blue Nun for romance and a carafe of claret, any claret, to give the impression of worldliness and sophistication.' We thank Michael Fox of Taigum (Qld). 'I noticed a mention today at a local RSL club of a group calling themselves Girls Boardrider Fraternity,' says Helen Howes of Collaroy. 'Why would the girls describe themselves as a brotherhood? Perhaps Girls Boardrider Sorority would be more apt?'
The Age
11 hours ago
- Automotive
- The Age
Driveway service gets the boot
It's been confirmed, there is no 'filler-cap tsar' (C8), Robyn Hansen of Pennant Hills and Jeff Stanton of Strathfield have both pointed out that the filler-cap is on the opposite side of the car to the exhaust pipe. Jeff thinks this is 'presumably to reduce fire risk'. Now a different tale from the bowser, courtesy of Stephen Hunt of Roseville: 'A story from the old country. The filler cap on the Humber Super Snipe was concealed behind one of the rear reflectors. A gentleman pulled into the filling station and asked for his Humber to be topped up. The garage attendant enquired where the filler-cap was, and was informed 'behind the rear reflector of course'. The attendant pulled off the wrong reflector and proceeded carefully to put four gallons of premium fuel in the boot.' 'To those drama queens discussing the positioning of filler-caps on cars. You do know that the hoses attached to bowsers stretch easily to the opposite side of the car, right?' posits Kerrie Wehbe of Blacktown. You almost had us, John Ure of Mount Hutton: 'Talking of cardigans (C8), many years ago, while a police detective at Newcastle, I was driving home from Sydney one day on the old Pacific Highway and overtook a slow-moving car. As I passed, I glanced across and saw that the driver, an older lady, had her arms through the steering wheel and was knitting! I was horrified. 'Pull over' I yelled. She just smiled and said 'No dear, it's a cardigan'.' 'Before we became a nation of quaffers, in the '60s and '70s, Grange (C8) was about $20 a bottle,' recalls Robert Hosking of Paddington. 'Well, I wasn't going to spend that, even on my date, so it was always that nasty St Henri at $12. Any other time, it was mostly flagon red at $5. Ahhh, sophistication.' 'Nola Tucker's mention of Ben Ean Moselle reminded me that my wines of choice back in the day were Kaiser Stuhl Cold Duck in summer, Blue Nun for romance and a carafe of claret, any claret, to give the impression of worldliness and sophistication.' We thank Michael Fox of Taigum (Qld). 'I noticed a mention today at a local RSL club of a group calling themselves Girls Boardrider Fraternity,' says Helen Howes of Collaroy. 'Why would the girls describe themselves as a brotherhood? Perhaps Girls Boardrider Sorority would be more apt?'
Telegraph
3 days ago
- Telegraph
Sailors looking at smartphones blamed for surge in ship collisions
An increase in collisions at sea has been blamed on seafarers spending hours scrolling on their mobile phones and falling asleep when they should be keeping watch. Captain Andrew Moll, Britain's chief inspector of marine accidents, said the increased automation of shipping had rendered watch-keeping mind-numbingly dull and led crews to view the shifts as time for rest and relaxation, rather than a vital element of safety. To make matters worse, a requirement to appoint additional lookouts to aid watch-keepers is often ignored, while some sailors are even deactivating alarms that sound on a regular basis to ensure they are paying attention to computer screens. Work by the Maritime Accident Investigation Branch (Maib), which scrutinises accidents involving British vessels worldwide and all incidents in UK territorial waters, said waning attention spans on the bridge have been linked with numerous recent disasters. Those include the collision between the container ship Solong and oil tanker Stena Immaculate off the mouth of the Humber on March 10. Capt Moll said the Solong, bound for Rotterdam from Grangemouth in Scotland, had been travelling in a straight line on autopilot for around 11 hours in poor visibility when it hit the tanker, killing one seaman and igniting a fire that took two days to extinguish. The Maib's interim report found that neither ship had a dedicated lookout and said further scrutiny will be given to their watch-keeping practices and 'fatigue management'. A collision between the British cargo vessel Scot Carrier and the barge Karin Høj, which killed two in 2024, happened after an officer on the former ship was distracted by the continual use of a tablet computer during his watch after earlier consuming alcohol, the Maib found. Capt Moll said: 'We're seeing more and more cases where a vessel has set off and a watch-keeper has turned up on the bridge, but they are not looking where the ship is going, and as a consequence it runs into something.' He said there was particular concern about the hundreds of coastal vessels plying crowded UK waters with only two watch-keepers on alternate six-hour shifts. Under the Maritime Labour Convention 2006, each can work for 14 hours a day, five days a week. However, the Maib's research indicates that examples of crew falling asleep are just as prevalent on larger vessels with more officers to share watch-keeping duties. Capt Moll said that indicated a problem intrinsic to the changing nature of the role. 'Chronic boredom' He said: 'The job itself is not very exciting. If you went back 20 or 30 years, the watch-keeper had to rush around gathering information, and it was an active, busy thing. 'In the engine room they were looking at gauges and temperatures and on the bridge they were taking navigation fixes and plotting them on charts. 'That's now all being done by machines, which has taken away the engagement. Technically speaking, you're talking about chronic boredom and a job that suffers from qualitative and quantitative underload with the result that it lacks meaning and purpose.' In its annual report on marine safety the Maib said that 'humans do not make good monitors and if under-stimulated they will find other things to occupy themselves'. Capt Moll said that included listening to music, browsing the internet and making video calls. Other seafarers are essentially flipping their day, spending their breaks gaming and leaving them so exhausted that they fall asleep on the job when they return to the bridge. An early warning of the trend came in 2013 with a spectacular collision between the UK bulk carrier Seagate and the Timor Stream, a refrigerated-cargo ship, off the Dominican Republic. Both had been sailing through open water in good visibility yet crashed into each other, with the bow of the Timor Stream ploughing into the engine room and accommodation block of the Seagate, with sleeping crewmen miraculously escaping injury. The report said that neither watch-keeper had realised that the ships were on a collision course until less than a minute before the accident, blaming poor standards 'driven by complacency'. While vessels have multiple systems designed to maintain the attention of watch-keepers, those are often poorly understood or regarded as an irritation and deactivated, Capt Moll said. A Maib report on the collision between the freighter Scot Explorer and gas carrier Happy Falcon in the North Sea in 2023 found that the cargo ship's navigation aids were not being monitored, with its electric chart display system set to silent. Capt Moll said: 'You can have the equivalent of a dead-man's handle which if you don't set it every 15 minutes it will alert the whole ship, but that's being turned off. Navigational and radar alarms that tell you of an impending danger are being turned off or muted. 'So the watch-keepers aren't engaging with the systems and neither are they using the things that should force them to engage with the systems. That is a significant problem.' The ultimate solution, he said, may be to require manufacturers to modify warning systems and alarms so that they can never be disabled.
The Guardian
6 days ago
- The Guardian
Crest of a new wave: Cleethorpes is all set for a seaside revival
Cleethorpes Pier, circled by the local gull squad, looks at its picture-postcard best. Ahead of the lunch crowd making for Papa's Fish & Chips restaurant, I'm taking a seat in the pier's ballroom to hear seaside historian Kathryn Ferry talk about her latest book, Twentieth Century Seaside Architecture. Ordering a pot of tea, I'm taken back to my student days. Back in the late 1990s, the ballroom hosted Pier 39, a sticky-floored nightclub where getting your heels wedged in the planks after too many vodkas was considered par for the course. Following a shift waitressing at a nearby fish restaurant, our girl gang would douse our hair in Charlie Red body spray to mask the fug of haddock before dancing the night away where the Humber estuary meets the North Sea. The pier first opened on August bank holiday 1873 to a flock of locals and day-trippers, many of whom were taking some of the first train and ferry-service packages across the Humber from South Yorkshire and the Midlands. It's not hard to imagine the giddy thrill of glimpsing this elegant pavilion structure for the very first time: it stretched 365 metres into the sea. Ferry cites the pier as one of a trove of local architectural treasures: postwar buildings with funky rooflines, illuminations, shops fronted with Victorian cast-iron verandas … 'enough surviving seaside things', she tells the crowd, 'to ensure Cleethorpes retains its very distinctive feel'. I grew up in Grimsby, just a couple of miles up the road. Cleethorpes had long felt like a sandy wonderland, filled with bright lights and sugar highs. During the pandemic, after 20 years living away, I came back to Cleethorpes from London and I now feel lucky to be raising a family in the sandy footsteps of my childhood. Summer feels magical – we are tourists at home. My nine-year-old and toddler both love splashing about in the free, open-air paddling pool, riding the dinky Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway and cycling along Buck Beck – a long, calming coastal path where ice-cream at the family-run Brew Stop cafe is a rite of passage. In summer, you can rent the owners' little beach hut and watch the world go by from your stripy deckchair. During my university and London years – roughly 2000 to 2020 – the resort's cultural identity began to shift with the closure of iconic venues such as, in 2007, the Winter Gardens. An entertainment venue dating back to the 1930s, its stage was once graced by acts including Elton John, the Clash and Roxy Music, not to mention playing host to the feted 'Bags Ball' weekly dance night. Also closed, after a 23-year run as one of the area's leading theme parks, was Pleasure Island and its beloved Boomerang ride, which ceased functioning in 2016. And some of the area's big-draw events – including the Radio 1 Roadshow, which made its last stop here in 1999 fronted by S Club 7 – were scratched from the listings. In the words of one local: 'It felt like the fun police had come to town.' Now, building on events such as the Summer Steam festival and the Great Grub Fest, there's a definite sense of cultural renaissance brewing. Cleethorpes seafront is in the process of a long-awaited £18.4m regeneration project that will focus on a reimagining of the Pier Gardens and the reintroduction of the old market place. With a potential direct train link from Cleethorpes to London in the offing, the resort is extending its bucket-and-spade appeal to a new generation. On 2 August – with the stage still warm from sets by the Charlatans and Ash as part of DocksFest – Cleethorpes' Meridian showground is set to transform into an open-air celebration of cool and contemporary sounds covering jazz, funk and soul, as the area's newest festival, Everybody Loves the Sunshine, lays down 10 hours of live music for just £10 a ticket. Together with Brighton-based record label Tru Thoughts, the festival is curated by the Culture House, a local charity that has been instrumental in plugging the cultural gap across North East Lincolnshire, an area that can often feel on the fringes of the national arts and culture scene. Beyond the music, nature abounds. At Marine Embankment beach, bird lovers can spy curlews, lapwings and oystercatchers nesting in the saltmarshes (check tide times), while the sandy dunes around the Humber Mouth Yacht Club (about an hour's walk from the Pier) are the perfect spot for big-sky sundowners and picnics. Steel & Soul runs a blissful drop-in morning yoga class on the beach here every other Sunday until the end of September (£10 a class). A must-visit at this end of the town is the Humberston Fitties, an otherworldly village of about 300 beach chalets that sprang up beside the sand dunes after the first world war. Many of these small dwellings, including artist Sarah Palmer's home (£80 a night for a two-night minimum stay, sleeps up to four), are available to rent and make a cosy weekend base. For a stylish home-from-home in the heart of Cleethorpes, check into Cloves B&B (from £95), tucked off the main promenade. Hosts Nick and Maria Ross serve up beautiful home-cooked breakfasts, and if you land on a Friday you can build a picnic hamper from their pop-up larder, which sells freshly baked sourdough and pastries, as well as fruit, veg, cheese, butter and juices, many of which are organic and locally produced. From Saturday to Tuesday, the Edwardian breakfast room then transforms into Cafe Cloves, an intimate dining spot serving a menu of five seasonal dishes. On our last visit, we shared tandoori king prawn skewers with a chopped spinach and red onion salad, cucumber raita and charred lime along with the signature Cloves fishcake – which I could happily eat every day. Another great spot for lunch is Nasturtium, where head chef Jack Phillips riffs on classics such as catch of the day with a smoked butter sauce, Japanese kosho and a tempura enoki (fried floured mushrooms). Phillips also channels his passion for Asian cooking through his popular pop-up food stall Wakame Cleethorpes. Follow up lunch with a mooch down Sea View Street for boutique threads and heavenly plants and flowers, ending with a slice of lemon meringue pie at Marples. As for fish and chips – you're spoilt for choice. An old-fashioned booth at Steel's Cornerhouse Restaurant for haddock, chips and a pot of tea with bread and butter always feels special. Or, if the weather's fine, nothing beats walking along the beach with a Papa's takeaway, eating a tray of chips drenched in vinegar, with the sand between your toes. 'Cleethorpes feels like a sleeper, on the cusp of being awakened,' says Kathryn Ferry. Something tells me this resort is about to have its time in the sun again.
BBC News
7 days ago
- Science
- BBC News
Grimsby girl is welded to a job that's not just for the boys
A girl who has been testing her welding skills says she wants to get more hands-on in a sector which is traditionally 15, was one of 25 girls who took part in the Women in Welding Day event near girls looking to forge careers in the engineering sector used a simulator and welded with chocolate to learn the who is a pupil at Havelock Academy, said she used to wear sunglasses watching her dad fix things in the kitchen. The event was held at Catch, an industrial training provider in Stallingborough."Engineering has always been more male-dominated – like most things on this planet, unfortunately. So now that females are all getting into it, it's more exciting for everyone," said Broddle, head of welding and pipefitting at Catch, said the Humber's offshore windfarms and other energy supply chains all needed skilled workers."The renewables industry is growing fast, and it's vital to this region's future," he said."We're seeing strong demand for welders on offshore wind, hydrogen and other clean energy projects."These are careers with a future – and we want young people from Grimsby and the surrounding villages, especially girls, to see there's a place for them in it."Faith and her fellow Havelock pupils were joined by students from Ron Dearing UTC, Engineering UTC Northern Lincolnshire, Somercotes Academy, Waltham Tollbar Academy, Frederick Gough School and Baysgarth Broddle added: "We've gone from one or two female apprentices to five this year."Once the girls get a go with the torch, they realise they can do it – and do it well." Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here. Download the BBC News app from the App Store for iPhone and iPad or Google Play for Android devices
