The Random thought thread

[old man emu]

That means Adelaide only got back half the number of wheels it lost to Melbourne.

[facthunter]

Where's the Track there? Nev

[pmccarthy]

Watching a show about restoring a horse-drawn coach, I finally found why the yanks call sill panels rockers. On a through-brace coach, they sit on the leather braces and rock to provide suspension. 

[red750]

4 hours ago, facthunter said:

Where's the Track there?

 

Where they held the F1 Grand Prix before it moved to Albert Park.

 

[Marty_d]

They're moving motorbikes from a purpose built racetrack to a street circuit?  Not the safest decision I would have thought.

[old man emu]

When was the last time you had a counter lunch in a pub?

[facthunter]

Terrible by comparison with Phillip Island. esp. with the Visuals. Where's the Counter lunch connection?. It's still pretty popular around here.  Popular place to gather and talk and eat. I can't afford it but Plenty of others can. nev

[onetrack]

It'll be a long time before I rush in and buy a Chinese Taiyota. There will be a time coming soon when all these people who rushed into buying Chinese vehicles will start to realise they were only cheap for a number of reasons - build quality, resale value (very low), and poor parts and service backup.

 

And they'll find the model they bought is now utterly and totally obsolete, because the East Wind brand is now the owner of ten other Chinese car brands, and the management has decided that nine of the brands have to go, because they're unprofitable. So those makes will just disappear overnight, like Holden did.

 

Some car guru wrote a little while back that the Chinese Govt will soon force all the 57 different Heinz brands of Chinese car manufacturers to amalgamate into about 5 brands, because only a couple of the manufacturers are actually profitable.

 

Meantimes, Toyota plug along happily with manufacturing reliable and sought after cars, that have high resale value - and they're still the worlds biggest manufacturer by volume, and have billions in cash in the kitty tin.

 

Edited Thursday at 11:50 AM by onetrack

[Jerry_Atrick]

There was some pressure to have it at Albert Park or lose it to Adelaide, I read. I guess that there were some local objections. 

[red750]

Albert Park would have required modification as longer runoff areas are needed for bikes. There are some corners at AP where there is no room for longer runoffs.

 

Wayne Gardiner had quite a spew about the loss. He said the place had been badly run down since Aust GP Corp took over and the government wouldn't put up cash to restore the place, Asked if he would remove his statue, he said he would "stick it up their arxe".

[onetrack]

On April 20, 1945, during an air battle over Germany, Eduard Schallmoser's Messerschmitt Me.262 collided with an American Martin B-26 Marauder medium bomber.

 

Schallmoser managed to bail out and open his parachute. He landed in the back garden of his parents house, right in front of his amazed mother!

[Jerry_Atrick]

Just because the kids fly the nest (or are independent of mum and dad) doesn't mean you have tome to do what you want. 

 

Got zippo done on the reno..

 

Wanted to go to a specific runner shop about 20 miles away as my feet are wide and only Asics are constantly right for them across a manufacturers' range.. 

 

But no.. despite not bad weather today, things just got in the way, so Amazon it was, unfortunately. 

[facthunter]

10 points LOST, but carry on.  Nev

[willedoo]

On 19/02/2026 at 6:12 PM, old man emu said:

When was the last time you had a counter lunch in a pub?

A couple of months ago. I only ever do it in the context of meeting up with someone for lunch. These days it's the only reason to go to a pub ( 7 years on the wagon now).

[red750]

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's arrest photo was briefly displayed at the Louvre Museum in Paris by activists from the anti-billionaire group Everyone Hates Elon on Sunday, February 22, 2026. 

• The framed photograph, taken by Reuters photographer Phil Noble, shows Mountbatten-Windsor slumped in the back seat of a Range Rover after being released from Norfolk police custody following an 11-hour detention on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
• The image was hung on a wall at the museum alongside the caption “He’s Sweating Now”, a reference to a controversial 2019 interview where Mountbatten-Windsor claimed he couldn’t sweat due to a Falklands War injury, contradicting allegations by Virginia Giuffre. 
• The display lasted only 15 minutes before Louvre staff removed it. 
• The stunt was part of a protest against Mountbatten-Windsor’s alleged links to Jeffrey Epstein, including emails suggesting he shared confidential government information while serving as a British trade envoy.
• The group stated their goal was to show “how the world will remember him” and called for “Justice for all Epstein survivors.”