AHPP

Discussing drug use with a mate: "You'd be fcking unbearable on cocaine, Alex. You already gan on like a cnt without it."

Sugar. Vast amounts of sugar. Lager is basically an energy drink.

Right or wrong to do it in the first place, you're making a lovely job of that reduction.

Big signs showing what's on, where and when. No fcking app or QR code to scan for interactive virtual bollocks. Food and drink reasonably priced. The low brow cycnicism of being pumped £14 for a burger as a captive market honestly stops people coming. Extremely high quality talks/demonstrations/workshops. No generalist sales rep reading from a brochure. No fat office wallah wasting your life with a powerpoint that might have conned a wildlife trust but doesn't actually say anything. Proper experts, talking details. Vet and discriminate. Extremely high quality only. Good classroom environment. Maybe a gazebo with a side open so people can be under shelter, looking out to an outside demo but able to check a board or paperwork in the dry as it goes along. One mic for teacher and one floating round the crowd for questions. Podcast it? I'm particularly interested in arb rigging so, for that, a selection of trees including spready-crowned hardwoods. Trees getting cut and roped. The ability to get close to see well and have a go.

I rack them up and Mick knocks them down!

Didn’t you have an arb ops manager thing lined up?

Gays, blacks, gay blacks, black gays etc.

He's probably still trying to programme the fanuc robots from a sky remote or something.

A mate worked at a university. They cleared out the (pleasingly analogue) physics department. I had a van. His house is still rammed with robotic arms and oscilloscopes.

Where's silky been? I've been waiting for big news for about a decade now.

I've invented something better. Coming soon (about 2040).

How light can you go before it’s a pain? And how easy to pull slack?

Have you used either of the ISC ones?

I need to learn some kind of meat preservation. Salami most appealing. Need some fat for that. No wild pigs around here.

Never got on with jerky. Meaty cardboard. Big on lamb though. I love fatty stuff.

OK.

Nice. Did you get the boar yourself?

kram sweetie. I'm very much in favour of self-starting, self learning and self-assurance but perhaps ask yourself why everyone else ignores you and why I'm now considering joining them. The swinging thing, yes, I know what you meant. I can see how your mind's working and I was telling you about something a bit further down that particular path. But by all means ignore me and find out about it yourself.

Fuxk me. Alex has posted about something other than rigging. No he hasn’t.

Aye. Good day. Laid Northumbrian style. i.e. Didn’t waste any of the bloke’s stakes and binders. Would have done a cow style had anyone said the field was for cows but whatever. Snapped a pleach I really needed to not but made a reasonable fix. Got all my brash back in and a bit of some other bloke’s. Came second in class. Decent craic. People helpful. Pleasant spot. Good weather. Nice little late lunch at the prizegiving.

Big J has remarked on birch quality in the UK compared to Scandinavia (but he would wouldn’t he).

That's a good goal but there's a mistake you can make, trying to be too clever. I made it, trying to be too clever. Mistake is this: You tension the rigging rope and hold it fairly firmly, thinking you're preventing the spike of the intial loading by pulling it on yourself. If the hinge holds, you've made a massive lever that will put a massive load on the rope. And the shorter the rope (like if you're crotch rigging) the less rope there is to absorb that lever power in rope stretch. You can create monstrous forces in that little triangle. If the hinge breaks, the butt will try to hit you. So sometimes it's better to let it move and catch it later. And a related, general point since it's in the picture. Decisions to butt, belly, tip or inbetween tie should be made very consciously.

Interesting stuff, cant quite visulise it but I like having the tops swinging into tension rather than dropping straight down. It's the peak force thing someone (probably Joe) was talking about a few pages ago. Simplified, you get the weight of the piece and multiply it by 1 for a perfectly static crane pick and 11 for a worst case scenario, dead stop negative rig with a drop. So a 50kg piece plucked beatifully from a high point (50x1=50) might be a lower peak force than a 10kg piece that drops and jolts (10x8=80). Quiet, peaceful, gentle rigging good. Droppy, smashy rigging bad.

I’ve had a beer and am now too full of love (and hedgelaying enthusiasm) to argue. Namaste, brother Mick.

Observed at Knitsley today. Cutting at Thropton tomorrow. Undecided on style. I think it’s sort of a leg two of today, mostly same people etc. Seemed to be either South of England, Midland or Lancs/Westmorland today.