@nprofile1q... @nprofile1q... it would dissolve many plastics, but was otherwise a very good and useful solvent (and at least not as harmful as carbon tetrachloride, which had at least been quite rightly banned by the time I was a lad)

@nprofile1q... I did find it somewhat ironic he was called Frank Beard but was often clean shaven or only had a moustache, whilst the other two dudes had long beards (I think only one of them is left alive these days?)

@nprofile1q... @nprofile1q...

he also got badly ill in early 50s to the point he was disabled and bedridden, invented a machine to haul himself in and out of bed using an elaborate system of pulleys and ropes (a forerunner of hoistsused today for such purposes), but it went wrong and he was strangled by the ropes..

It took a good part of both our lifetimes before TEL and CFCs were gone - I still remember 1-1-1 tricholoroethane (albeit one of the lesser ones) being widely used well into the 1990s..

@nprofile1q... to be fair, given the way folk drove in the mid 90s and how lawless the roads were (at least a third of people I knew who were regularly driving didn't even have a full licence, weren't always sober and it wasn't always certain if they were even the legit registered keeper of the car) I can't blame him..

@nprofile1q... that makes absolutely 0 sense.

No European or Asian supplier of car parts does anything like that, and by the time you are looking at a site of that nature you generally know exactly what you need and just want to find the correct one for your vehicle..

@nprofile1q... @nprofile1q... when we put tetra ethyl lead in the petrol worldwide it was a short term efficiency gain and profit generator (as TEL is cheaper than higher octane hydrocarbons), but in doing so we further polluted everywhere where motor vehicles went, poisoned people (especially kids/youths) to the point some committed criminally impulsive behaviour, and the stuff still clagged up engines if there was too much of it (this is mentioned in many of my 20th century books about automotive engineering and I have a fair few)

And yet it was the 21st century before it was gone (and some Global Majority countries only finally banned it from road fuel just a few years ago)

@nprofile1q... as I live near the North Sea, in NL "het strand" is indeed the beach, and in East Anglia there are also lots of places here with "strand" in their name near the coast - so I would agree with the term being better suited for running aground.

"stranden" is also a verb in Dutch (interestingly it can also take on both meanings, to run aground or to end up on a vessel which is drifting or otherwise defective,. and subsequently have to be rescued by other mariners and/or the Coastguard (but in the following news report the sailors definitely ran aground (vastlopen)

>Het schip strandde tijdens afgaand tij in de buurt van restaurant de Westbeer.

https://www.omroepzeeland.nl/nieuws/18269918/schip-loopt-vast-op-westerschelde-bij-terneuzen-spectaculair-om-te-zien

@nprofile1q... I tend to instinctively look on Anglia for local news, at least incidents that would involve the Emergency Services - there even used to be an ITV programme *called* Crimes, Fires and Accidents, which was exactly as described (I think Central first made it, but Meridian and Anglia may have also contributed at various points, they all had shares in one another even before the mergers..

@nprofile1q... also rather curiously Archant / Newsquest have reported the case in the Ipswich star, presumably due to the initial hearing being at Ipswich Magistrates Court (I'm not sure why as Norwich also has magistrates)

https://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/26473437.man-remanded-charged-ipswich-unrest-thetford/

@nprofile1q...

ITV Anglia also covered it...

https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2026-08-18/man-charged-with-misconduct-in-a-public-office-after-anti-migrant-protests

@nprofile1q... wishing you all the best!