The Bluestocking, a unique location for daughters and sisters of earth, frost, feathers, fur, scales and spines

[AsWithGlad]

Welcome to The Bluestocking, the best (perhaps only) online women's pub. Nothing in the food or drink can harm you, everything is served by a very enthusiastic crew of gerbils, who enjoy doing this, and any curious menfolk are welcome at the Staunch Ally down the road.

Previous thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/feminism/5568996-the-bluestocking-pub-where-we-continue-to-read-about-gerbils-nobly-and-bravely-working-undercover-in-the-fen?page=1

@EmpressaurusKitty all I can say is Wow! (Although also Eeek! for the platform). Thank you for bringing us along with you!

Thick rubber gloves and rubber soles to your shoes would solve the electric shock problem. If you were so minded, you could also rig something up so it would short circuit and fry itself.

Wonderful!

I got chatting to some people who were going to see a stave church - if I’d read The Bell in the Lake before coming I’d probably have arranged to do that too!

Since the end of August, Bergen Cathedral is closed on Wednesdays. That’s two major cathedrals I can’t get into…

Frustrating!

How far have you got wth the Bell and the Lake? I'm just up to where Astrid goes up to see the sister bells. I'm really gripped.

Your holiday sounds amazing, @EmpressaurusKitty - and I do like your choice of reading material - 84 Charing Cross Road is a favourite of mine.

I’ve finished it & I’m going to get the next one in the trilogy. I’m not saying anything else!

Went on Amazon and bought the appropriate garb in the event of a computer take over

it also occurred to me that a big bucket of water would short them out.

but I suppose if they learnt to grow legs I assume by chatting with 3D printers, we might have a mobility problem.

my laptop might take to chasing me around my house.

Oooooh! I'm way behind!

I’ve spent a lot of time sitting down lately!

Exactly. One machine not connected to the internet. Any internet-connected machine at least a metre away. Literally a physical gap of air - no cables between them of any kind.

Imagine a bookshelf with a computer on it and it is plugged into a power socket on the wall and has no WiFi software, no hardwired cable to the internet. The a gap with nothing in it. No furniture or other machines. Then another bookshelf and any computer on that can be connected to the internet.

The Walrus was saying he sat at an internet computer and someone sat a few feet away from him on the stand alone computer and read from the screen, telling the Walrus what to type.

I worked where we had a stand alone computer, and another stand alone computer a few feet away from that and then the network. Anything had to be copied onto a floppy disc (those were the days), inserted into the middle computer and virus checked and then onto the secure computer.

I am still busy but not frantic any more. I am hoping to sleep longer than four hours for once. I am hopeful that I can draft a chapter and then edit it for Thursday and maybe get back into the swing of things.

I very much want to keep writing. I can’t wait to find out what happens next.

'One of the things I like about the Spitfire is that it was designed in peacetime as for civilian purposes, not for war.'

I'm afraid that somebody has been feeding you porkies. While the Spitfire drew upon some of the auronautical engineering features developed by Supermarine when competing in the Schneider Trophy, the Spitfire was designed and developed exclusively against an Air Ministry specification for a fast fighter and was delivered to the RAF in 1938.

The Spitfire ran into problems when the German Messerschmitts with fuel injection engines could go into a dive and the Merlin engines would cut out if they followed them.

A brilliant woman engineer, Beatrice Shilling, invented the RAE restrictor which enabled the pilots to manoeuvre while a new engine was developed. She travelled to all the RAF bases one at a time to fit it into the planes.

She was also one of only three women to win the Gold medal at Brooklands by racing a motorbike at over 100mph on their track. Apparently she refused to marry her husband until he had also achieved the same honour.

And in the Busby Babes air disaster at Munich she proved that the accident was not due to pilot error, but drag caused by ice and snow on the runway. And she designed a bobsled for the RAF Olympic team.

Totally amazing woman.

Fair point!

The RAE restrictor was really brilliant. It was a farthing with a hole drilled in it which was placed into the fuel line and stopped the fuel pump from flooding the carburettor. It was known as the 'Beatrice orifice'.

Love this place - pop in - who knows where the conversation is but always something of interest- and drift out again feeling happier

84 Charing Cross Lane is fantastic. I read it recently and loved every bit of it.

@EmpressaurusKittyi really want to go to Norway now, my dad has been a couple of times and loves it. I may start saving and make it my 50th birthday present to myself.

You're right, what I said was wrong - the Spitfire was designed as a fighter.

But if you take the floats off a Supermarine S.6B, it shows that Mitchell had already come up some of the key elements of the Spitfire.. well, before it sinks, obvs😃

Infuriating, isn't it? you come up with something that solved a serious problem and contributed to winning the Battle of Britain, and it gets sniggeringly called 'Miss Shilling's Orifice' 🙄
Apparently she was 'a good sport' about it....

Thank you for all the travel reports and the wonderful photos, Kitty.

There is a limit to how many fjords you can admire in one day.
So you've had a fjord fiesta, eh?😁

I'll get my coat... no, on second thoughts I'll get my jimjams [not as fancy as Boily's unfortunately] and go to bed.

G'night all, sleep and dream well

DH and I went to Norway for part of our Scandinavian tour in 2007, though we were only there a few days. We’d gone on the ferry from Harwich to Esbjerg, stayed with friends in Copenhagen for a few days and toured a bit around that island, then hopped over to Sweden and stayed with my nephew and his family, who were living in Stockholm at the time, then driven via Oslo to Stavanger, where we stayed with friends who happened to be working there at the time. We did a lovely cruise up the Lysefjord, and eventually drove up to Bergen, under an amazing number of tunnels, and ended up on another ferry going to Newcastle (I don’t think that one runs any more). We loved Norway.

It’s still raining. The forecast is optimistic though so keeping my fingers crossed.

Orifice FFS.

Back in the 90s, @MyrtleLion, my first real job was for a family-run directory publishing company. The internet was still fairly new & the big hardbacks we produced were still very popular.

All data was entered into a UNIX database on a standalone network which wasn’t connected to the internet, & backed up nightly on small chunky SCSI DAT tapes that the boss took home with her.

That database was terrifying in that it assumed you knew what you were doing. If you told it to wipe everything it wouldn’t say ‘Are you sure?’, it would just say ‘OK’ and do it. 😱

Enjoying the Norwegian views and Viking village from my bed, which is probably the best way in the weather you had yesterday, Kitty

I now know more about WW2 aeroplanes than I ever imagined I would. Isn't it amazing how often a woman comes along and saves the day, but gets none of the credit, except from knowledgeable insiders. Hats off to Beatrice Shilling!

I am starting to look at my laptop with some suspicion........👀

It’s stopped raining 🙏 and over breakfast I chatted with an Australian woman who’s come over here to research her ancestors & meet her Norwegian relations.

Off out to explore soon. I’m leaving the Do Not Clean sign on my door because the room is still festooned with stuff hung up to dry & the contents of my shoulderbag are emptied out on the table. I’ve just been reading with horror about the Air Traffic Control business & I really hope they’ve got it all sorted by Friday.

Norwegian coffee kicks arse.