Today I learned that the word TARE found on railway wagons and shipping containers comes from an Arabic word  طَرْح  ṭarḥ meaning “deduction” or “that which is removed”. The word refers to the unladen weight of a cargo van, vessel or container, and its use in English dates back to the reign of King Henry VII at the end of the 15th century.

A TARE weight is subtracted from the value recorded on a weighbridge to calculate the actual weight of the cargo for customs or shipping charges.

The photo is of a “Cavell Van” a type of railway parcel van, so named because it was famously used to transport the body of nurse Edith Cavell from Belgium back to Britain in 1919.

https://kesr.org.uk/the-cavell-van/

12 minutes ago, toucana said:

Today I learned that the word TARE found on railway wagons and shipping containers comes from an Arabic word  طَرْح  ṭarḥ meaning “deduction” or “that which is removed”. The word refers to the unladen weight of a cargo van, vessel or container, and its use in English dates back to the reign of King Henry VII at the end of the 15th century.

A TARE weight is subtracted from the value recorded on a weighbridge to calculate the actual weight of the cargo for customs or shipping charges.

You will also find Tare in many places today for instance on modern digitql scales.

When making bread I put the mixing bowl on the scales and press the Tare function to 'zero things before adding the ingredients.

Today I learned that Studiot bakes bread ...

16 hours ago, toucana said:

Today I learned that the word TARE found on railway wagons and shipping containers comes from an Arabic word  طَرْح  ṭarḥ meaning “deduction” or “that which is removed”. The word refers to the unladen weight of a cargo van, vessel or container, and its use in English dates back to the reign of King Henry VII at the end of the 15th century.

A TARE weight is subtracted from the value recorded on a weighbridge to calculate the actual weight of the cargo for customs or shipping charges.

The photo is of a “Cavell Van” a type of railway parcel van, so named because it was famously used to transport the body of nurse Edith Cavell from Belgium back to Britain in 1919.

https://kesr.org.uk/the-cavell-van/

TIL
You carry just 1 dead body, and that's all you get remembered for.

TIL the curious fact that although power function can be formally defined from multiplication, the multiplication cannot be formally defined from addition and thus has to be added to axioms, if needed.

3 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

TIL
You carry just 1 dead body, and that's all you get remembered for.

LOL. If you have a string of several Cavell vans, it's a Cavell-cade.

Cool. It's often hard to define basic concepts without lapsing into tautologies. I've seen this also with definitions of time.

TIL what all these tiny islands are near the Strait of Hormuz.

https://apnews.com/article/iran-war-islands-strait-hormuz-oil-trump-1b3e770e61c6a05d3e078223e15b20b2

I had definitely not heard of Greater and Lesser Tunb.

TIL who Dirty Dick was, and how a pub in London came to bear his name.

Lest anyone think this is an April Fool, here is a brief biography:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Dick

In his late thirties, Bentley became parsimonious and stopped washing and cleaning himself and his shop. He picked up the nickname Dirty Dick, and his shop became known as "the dirty warehouse". Both he and his shop became well known and were lampooned in the press. People visited the outlet to see the squalor and noted that Bentley was very polite and had impeccable manners. Rumours circulated that Bentley had not washed since his fiancée had died on their wedding eve and that he had locked the dining room, complete with the wedding feast, and left it to moulder.

Bentley moved out of his shop in 1804, and the contents were sold off. One enterprising publican purchased some of the contents, including mummified rats and cats, and used them to decorate his pub, which he renamed Dirty Dicks; as at 2025 the pub is still in operation under that name.

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

TIL who Dirty Dick was, and how a pub in London came to bear his name.

Lest anyone think this is an April Fool, here is a brief biography:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Dick

In his late thirties, Bentley became parsimonious and stopped washing and cleaning himself and his shop. He picked up the nickname Dirty Dick, and his shop became known as "the dirty warehouse". Both he and his shop became well known and were lampooned in the press. People visited the outlet to see the squalor and noted that Bentley was very polite and had impeccable manners. Rumours circulated that Bentley had not washed since his fiancée had died on their wedding eve and that he had locked the dining room, complete with the wedding feast, and left it to moulder.

Bentley moved out of his shop in 1804, and the contents were sold off. One enterprising publican purchased some of the contents, including mummified rats and cats, and used them to decorate his pub, which he renamed Dirty Dicks; as at 2025 the pub is still in operation under that name.

Just now, exchemist said:

Yes, in Bishopsgate, next to Liverpool St station. Seems to be thriving if their website is to be believed:

Dirty Dicks

Home - Dirty Dicks

Liverpool St is a bit out of my way as a S Londoner, so I can't tell you what it's like. But apparently a Young's pub, so will have at least some real beer.

Though Young's sadly no longer has their original brewery in Wandsworth. When I was rowing, in my Putney days, the club used to get deliveries from Young's on a horse-drawn brewer's dray. Splendid carthorses: huge creatures, with hairy hooves. The horses used to make all the deliveries within 2 miles of the brewery. A wonderful marketing idea and cost-effective apparently, due to the terrible traffic jams in the area.

Here they are at a pub on the Thames in Richmond where I occasionally go for a session with one of my brothers:

Edited 15 hours ago15 hr by exchemist

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

But apparently a Young's pub, so will have at least some real beer.

Youngs and Fullers were two competing breweries that faced each other across the river Thames.

7 hours ago, studiot said:

Youngs and Fullers were two competing breweries that faced each other across the river Thames.

Not quite. Youngs was on the south (Surrey) bank at Wandsworth and Fullers was (I think still is) on the north (Middlesex) bank at Chiswick, about 3 miles further upstream, just upstream from Chiswick Eyot. And another mile upstream, back on the Surrey bank at Mortlake is Watneys.

In fact, unlike the other two, Young's Ram Brewery was not quite on the waterfront but in the middle of the town, next to the river Wandle. They sold the site for development and I think their beer is now brewed in Bedford.

Just typing this I can again smell the mud at low tide……

2 hours ago, exchemist said:

Not quite. Youngs was on the south (Surrey) bank at Wandsworth and Fullers was (I think still is) on the north (Middlesex) bank at Chiswick, about 3 miles further upstream, just upstream from Chiswick Eyot. And another mile upstream, back on the Surrey bank at Mortlake is Watneys.

In fact, unlike the other two, Young's Ram Brewery was not quite on the waterfront but in the middle of the town, next to the river Wandle. They sold the site for development and I think their beer is now brewed in Bedford.

Just typing this I can again smell the mud at low tide……

Addendum: Seems Watney's Stag Brewery at Mortlake closed in 2015 (I stopped rowing in 2005 or so, so had missed this) and is now a big residential redevelopment project. Fuller's brewery is still going however: you can book a tour of it. They seem to have decided to use it to build up the brand rather than selling out to make money from sale of a prime riverside site.

Watney's was rather viewed with contempt by other brewers after the disaster of Red Barrel and the associated"watneyfication" of their tied pubs in the 1970s (red formica tables, red covered bar stools etc etc.). This marketing drive to get the population to accept pasteurised fizzy beer, which was convenient for the business as it could be kept for a long time without going off, wrecked their brand* and led to the formation of CAMRA, to oppose the imposition of this and similar keg beers by big brewing businesses. Amusingly there is a Young's pub right outside the gates of the Mortlake brewery. The workers from Watney's would all pile in there their after their shift and drink Young's! Watney's reputedly offered huge sums to buy out the pub but Young's always refused. It was a standing joke among those of us who lived in the area.

* Monty Python was partly responsible, due to a famous sketch railing against Watney's Red Barrel being pervasive in Spanish holiday resorts. That sketch holed them below the waterline. Thank God - it was a close run thing at the time. We thought real beer was dying out, rather as real bread has subsequently done in Britain.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by exchemist